Being an account of the life of Morten

Then, in 1972, we moved to Åmli in the county of Aust-Agder, a bit farther south and lived there for about one and a half years. It was a time of hot summers and nice, snowy winters...

Whenever we could, we travelled the 1.600 kms (1,000 miles) to Bardu, way up in Troms county, to see my mother's parents. Our stays there are among the best memories of my childhood... The pic below must be from a visit about 1973, my mother, Margrethe, is holding me and her father, Hilmar, is sitting in the background.

Then we left Åmli and moved on to Grimstad, a little bit south of Åmli. We lived there until spring 1975, moved back to Vestfold county and after a brief spell of living with my father's mother, Astrid, we moved into a house outside nearby Holmestrand. And on December 6th, 1975, my sister Ragnhild was born. And a decade of sibling rivalry was about to begin... :)

In late 1976, our parents split up and me and Ragnhild were cared for by our mother. About newyear 1977, the three of us moved to Kirkenes in Finnmark county - the extreme northwest of Norway - on the, at that time, the Soviet border. In autumn 1977, I started my first year at school there. My memories of Kirkenes is that it was the place I liked the most during my childhood years. Very cold winters and pleasant summers...lots of lovely and vast nature all around...and the thrill of fishing in the river on the border, seeing the Russian watchtowers on the far bank where the guards probably were training their sights on us all the while...

In the summer of 1978, we moved in for a brief spell in my mother's childhood home, Helland, in Troms county. Her parents were both dead by then, and we didn't stay there for more than a few months. After a brief interlude in Hellesylt on the western coast of southern Norway, we moved to Oslo in early 1979. We settled, with some help from my father, in a flat in the suburb Romsås. All apartment blocks in grey concrete, Romsås was not exactly the prettiest place on earth, but there were deep woods nearby for kids to play in. While living there, I joined the boyscouts...which was rather fun. never got further than being a wolf cub, though...

Romsås was not a good place for a single mother on welfare with two kids to live, and almost all the time there, at least one of us was ill with some bug or virus of some kind. So, in early 1981, we moved to Norheimsund on the west coast (Hordaland county), lived there until 1983, moved to nearby Øystese and lived there for a year. By then, my mother had met Ulf, and the three of us moved to Grimstad in the summer of 1984, almost on the day 11 years after we'd moved there the first time. My mother married Ulf, and together they built a house in Grimstad. In 1986-89, I went to the Møglestu high school in nearby Lillesand, and when finished there, I left the nest and set out to make a life on my own... You might wonder why there's no pics from all these years between 1979 and 1989, but I thought I'd spare you the sight of me - I was a real nerd during those years, which the below pic from early 1989, should show you...

2. THE STUDYING YEARS (1989-1995)

You could safely say that I went through a transformation...or rather a metamorphosis at Nesna. During the 6 years I spent there, studying to become a teacher, I got a lot more in touch with myself and had loads and loads of fun. At times when I look back at those years, they look like 6 years of partying with the odd exam thrown in...

My studies of Dramatics, Music, Computer and Information Science, English and the various other subjects embedded in the teacher studies soon came in second to various other interests, like student politics, arranging concerts and other similar events, and of course partying - had lots of weird theme parties with friends, some of them doesn't exactly bring the word 'sanity' to mind.... :)

But those glory years drew to a close all too quickly...money don't last forever, and loans have a tendency of growing when not tended to, so in the end, I had to bite the dust, pack my guitar and leave for what I'd dreaded for 6 long years: the Army... The pic below is of my friend Odd Walter, but illustrates my leaving Nesna quite nicely.

3. THE ARMY (1995-1996)

In Norway, military service is mandatory for all men over 18. Usually, most will join the military when they're about 19-20 years old, but in my case, I got it postponed until I'd finished my studies, so I was 25 when I got there in the end. In July 1995, I went to a recruit camp a bit north of Oslo and was enlisted in a squad of administrative assistants - which usually means that I'd be driving a desk for an officer when I left the recruit camp. The three months I spent there were dry, hot, dusty and all hard work. But for some reason, even if the officers were obnoxious and I was the oldest of the recruits, I still liked it in some perverse way. I got whipped into rock physical shape for the first time ever, and my squad got very tightly knit - we all felt a purpose and a certain pride of being good at what we did. Boy, was that to change...

In October, it was time to be transfered to ordinary service and put the education from recruit camp into action. Was I ever wrong to think that... I applied for a vacant position in the Electronic Warfare company in Troms - a branch of the army that's so secret no one knew what they were doing, least of all the ones in the company... I never got the position I was supposed to have, but through hard work, I got my corporal stripes after all in the end. But the company was very disorganized - and physical training never played the part it had done in recruit camp, so my shape deteriorated quite quickly with the plentyful food we got served... :) Anyway, in late June 96, my service came to a close, and I left the army, looking forward to start my working career.

MAKING MY OWN LUCK (1996-NOW)

In August 1996, I moved to Givær, which is still my present whereabouts, to start working as a teacher. The first year, I taught Maths, Social Sciences, Biology, Religion and PhysEd, and thought I did pretty well. The next year, with me left as the only full-time teacher and new reforms to be enforced, I felt pretty much left on my own, and the job became quite hard work...I stopped teaching Religion and Social Sciences but got Norwegian and Maths in the trade - a rotten deal... No wonder I at times looked like in the first pic below... :)

But it wasn't all hard work and bad days. Together with friends Odd Walter and Arnt Rune (at times), I started doing small concerts on pubs and clubs as a nice diversion from the daily strife. Summer 97, the three of us embarked on a tour you can read about somewhere else on my pages under the name 'Tactless' (below).

The last year at Givær was been a bit easier, I got more into the groove of things, but I felt it was time to move on to somewhere else to get on with my life. Givær is just a little too small for a person like me to stay for very long. And I could feel myself growing a little strange on that rock - my job was getting a bit to me, and maybe I was becoming too much of a teacher (below), so some new air to breath would do nicely.

And now, I've moved. At July 24th 1999, my new life started. I've settled in Foldereid in the county of Nord-Trøndelag, about 375 miles south of Givær. I've got a BIG house (the brown one in the middle of the pic below), neighbours(!), and am going to work at the local school. And now - after five years as a teacher, I feel I'm getting some sort of idea of how to do the job right. Not bad... :)

And that's as far as my story goes. With time, this page will grow longer, but for now, this is it... :)