I remember it vividly. I’m eight years old, fresh off a PanAm flight from New York City (my first airplane ride that I can remember), stepping into a world where the snow looks like crushed diamonds and the fjords look like they were freshly painted and hanging in a Thomas Kinkade gallery.
My dad had recently been assigned as the Aide to the USAF General in charge at the NATO Headquarters at Kolsas Mountain. He was a young captain with my mom, and my brother and me.
Oslo, Norway, in the early ‘60s, was my giant, icy playground. I was the wide-eyed American kid whose family settled in an otherwise completely Norwegian neighborhood. I taught the boys on the street baseball and American football, and they taught me soccer and skiing in the nearby hills.
At night, thirsting for anything American, I’d sit in my pajamas in front of our family shortwave radio, listening to the Beach Boys and the Beatles on the BBC. I listened to American sports on the Armed Forces Radio Network. I’d stay up all night, much to my Mom’s chagrin, listening to the New York Yankees and Green Bay Packers — not surprisingly, my favorite teams 60 years later.
But days were all Norway.
Mornings started with the smell of fresh boller (those sweet cardamom buns) from the corner baker, whose name I still remember, “Odd Stalem.” Brusque old dude. My mom sent us up the hill every day for fresh bread. In the winter, my brother and I would grab onto the bumpers of cars and ride them up the snow-packed streets. In the summer, we busted out the bikes.
On school mornings, I’d bundle up in my jeans, sweater, wool socks, and a ski cap, throw on some cross-country skis, and schuss through knee-deep snow to the American Embassy school not far away.
The teachers there actually expected me to learn Norwegian. By age nine, I could say “Jeg er en amerikansk gutt som savner peanut butter” with perfect pronunciation.
Winters were pure magic. We’d ski right down the slopes behind our condo in Bjerke, some training ski jumps immediately nearby. The polar night turned everything into a fairy tale —streetlights glowing orange against the blue-black sky, the air so cold it made your eyelashes freeze together. Once, skiing in Beito over a family Christmas vacation, my nostrils froze together coming down a run. I didn’t care!
But then came the summers! The sun refused to go to bed, and we’d play outside until midnight, eating wild strawberries the size of your thumb. We’d play baseball with the neighborhood boys until late in the evening. They called it “Buzzball.” I didn’t correct them.
I learned that Norwegians put brown cheese (brunost) on everything and that “takk” opens more doors than “please.” I watched the King ride by in his carriage during Constitution Day parades, all flags and bunting and marching bands. My mom dressed my brother and me up in matching blue suits with Norwegian flag ties.
On weekends, we’d take the ferry across the Oslofjord to islands and camp. We roasted pølser over driftwood fires, and the seagulls screamed overhead like they owned the place. And they did.
Being an American kid in Oslo back then was like living in two worlds simultaneously. I had baseball cards in my pocket and Viking legends in my head. I spoke English at home and Norwegian at school and with my friends.
I thought a lot about the US. I missed my grandparents in North Carolina and Saturday morning cartoons back home (in fact, we only had one TV station that broadcast three hours a day, and it was in Norwegian), but I gained a whole country that taught me natural beauty, resilience, wonder, and how to appreciate a really good waffle or a sausage.
Those three years in Norway didn’t just shape me — they colored my soul with northern lights, bright green hills, and majestic fjord blue. And I miss them now that my parents have passed.
To this day, when I smell cardamom or hear someone say “Hei hei,” I’m instantly nine years old again, sliding down a snowy hill in Oslo with the wind in my face and the whole world feeling like the biggest adventure ever.
Skål to the best childhood a kid could ever have.
