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Show That picture filled me with pride. I never could understand why Mother was even prouder that her father had filled a gap in the University of Minnesota historical collection. They needed a complete file of the Minneapolis Tidende (Times), pioneer Norwegian newspaper. The only one they could locate had been preserved by grandfather in his attic from its very first issue printed, I believe, before the Civil War. Every morning I had the duty of trotting three blocks downtown to get the day's Tidende. As soon as I delivered the paper into grandfather's hands, but not before, he would draw out a worn old leather purse with a drawstring and extract a penn^y for me. Then I'd hurry back downtown to spend my wages at a little candy store. That was before inflation had defaulted the power of the penny. I'd buy a little chocolate pipe, or two long tubes of licorice, or a gaily wrapped cylinder of waxy chewing gum, or a tiny frying pan with an "egg" of yellow-eyed candy in it. Grandfather was a devout Democrat. A family story was that he'd used political persuasion on me before we went to Europe. He'd induced me to lisp "I'm grandpa's little Democrat." My sister El Vera, four years older, jeered that I made it sound like "Grampth lil Damcat." But she was so loyal to Father and his hero Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt that I suspected her of twisting my baby talk all out of shape. So you can see what the political situation was in the Culmsee home. It hadn't changed four years later when Mother and I returned to Norfolk after visiting grandfather. On that visit grandfather had persuaded me to reavow my faith in the Democrats. All I had to do was announce to Father that I was a Democrat. Father exploded. How could I feel that way? He recited a few of the mighty deeds of Teddy: a little hero beating a huge bully out West; as Colonel Roosevelt leading his Roughriders through shot and shell up San Juan Hill in Cuba; brave honest police commissioner in New York City stopping a crime wave; builder of a splendid U.S. Navy from almost nothing, etc., etc. He bought me a handsome book |