Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.04.2019, Side 9

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Lögberg-Heimskringla • 1. apríl 2019 • 9
Bloodflowers. I bumped into
Dr. Frank Scribner just after
the book came out. He’d read
it. He said he’d really enjoyed
the stories but he said there is
a mistake in one of them. “In
that story that is based on your
father having pneumonia, you
say the doctor bought him
pills in a plastic vial. There
were no plastic vials. I would
have brought those pills in a
cardboard box or a wooden
cylinder.” For him, my not
getting that right undermined
the authority of the narrator.
You also have to care about
the people you write about. If
you don’t care about the people
you are going to write about,
you aren’t going to be able to
get anyone else to care. That
goes for your heroes and your
villains.
When I lived in a small city
in southern Missouri, there
was a tiny shopping mall on
the edge of town. On Saturday
evenings the mall stayed open
and many of the hillbillies
from the hollers came in to
shop. The area was very poor
and there wasn’t much money
for treats. Two regulars were
elderly sisters. They wore
fluffy flowered dresses that I
would expect to see at a high
school prom. They always
ordered a coffee and Danish
each. The elder sister carefully
counted out change from
a black pocket purse. The
younger sister had ill-fitting
false teeth and, before she ate
her Danish, she put her teeth
on the table, unwound the end
of her pastry, dunked it into her
coffee, and happily proceeded
to gum it. These sisters were a
writer’s treasure.
When I was growing up
in Gimli, the most important
day of the year wasn’t
Christmas or Easter. It was
Íslendingadagurinn. The
ceremonies and the speeches,
the poetry, the dedications to
Iceland and Canada – these
were not about the distant
past. My great-grandmother,
Friðrika Gottskálksdóttir,
was alive until I was fifteen.
She came with her parents in
1876. These are the people
whose stories were told and
retold. The long weekend was
filled with storytelling. One
of the strongest images of my
childhood was of the dead of
1875 being laid out on the roofs
of the houses while underneath
were the ill and the dying. Of
100 people, 34 died. The other
was the story of how my father
got his name. He was named
after two of his uncles, Alfred
and Herbert, who drowned
along with three other young
people when their sailboat was
caught in a Lake Winnipeg
storm. One of the brothers was
found tied to the mast. Alfred
Herbert Valgardson. I never
heard him called that. It was
always Dempsey, the guy who
would rather fight than eat.
It’s been a long journey
since I came to Arborg to sell
Bloodflowers. My latest book is
In Valhalla’s Shadows. I wrote
it, just as I wrote The Girl With
The Botticelli Face, because
of a personal shock. It is being
promoted by the publisher
as a gothic murder mystery.
I guess it is, but I hope it is
much more than that. As usual
with my writing, it deals with a
number of social issues. When
I lived in Missouri, my next-
door neighbour and landlord
was a highway patrolman.
We became friends and he
used to take me patrolling
with him. I got to have coffee
with other patrolmen and go
to parties with them. I heard
their stories. I learned to use
a pistol on their range. It was
a great privilege. And when I
came back to Canada and an
officer with PTSD committed
suicide, I knew I had to write
something.
In May, I will be eighty
years old. It seems impossible
but when I check my birth
certificate it says I was born in
1939. Recently, The Icelandic
Connection asked me to fill
out a one of those forms, you
know, what makes you happy,
who do you admire, etc. At the
end, it asked, “What do you
live by?” My response was,
“Make use of the abilities God
has given you.” And when I
think that, I think about all
the people in the Icelandic
community who have
done that: Nelson Gerrard,
Elva Simundsson, Katrina
Anderson; all the people who
have written songs and played
alone and in groups, conducted
choirs like Rosalind; my friend
Dennis Olson jumps to mind,
and Johnny and His Musical
Mates, and my friend Mattie
Gislason, Solli Sigurdson, and
Glen Sigurdson, and Einar
Vigfusson with his carving;
and the people who wrote
bóndi on their immigration
forms although no one had
farmed in Iceland since Viking
times, and had to learn to clear
land, break it, plant it, harvest
it, and whose triumphant
success is in Nelson’s records
of crops on Hecla Island and
now Fridfinnsons’ vast acres
of crops we never imagined as
possible when I was young.
“Make use of the abilities
God has given you.” And the
image that comes to mind is
David Gislason singing on
the ten-part series by Egill
Helgason and David Arnason
reading at the A-Spire Theatre,
and Lorna Tergesen, who
has done the impossible in
creating a bookstore in a small
Manitoba town and made a
place for all those writers both
here in Ameríka and in Iceland.
No man in an island. And in the
Icelandic Canadian community
he doesn’t need to be. Bless
you, all of you, those I’ve
mentioned and all those I’ve
not had room to include.
This is the text of W.D.
(Bill) Valgardson’s address
at the Þorrablót sponsored
by the Esjan Chapter of the
Icelandic National League
of North America, which was
held at the Royal Canadian
Legion in Arborg, Manitoba,
on Saturday, March 16, 2019.
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“You also have to care about the people you
write about. If you don’t care about the people
you are going to write about, you aren’t going
to be able to get anyone else to care. That
goes for your heroes and your villains.”
“