Part 2
Marriage. I had marriage on my mind every time I visited my Beloved at the old funeral home.
“Why did you want to get married Tim?” the reader may ask.
“Because,” I reply, “I wanted to find the other half of the puzzle that is me.”
“Oh fiddlesticks,” the reader may perhaps snort in derision. “Now you are getting all Hallmark on us!”
But I must insist that I was born with an intense longing to attach myself to someone else. A human barnacle: that’s me.
I wanted to bond with my parents. Tried hard at it. But my dad was too prickly. And my mom was too chilly. I tried bonding, teaming up with, my siblings. But my sisters were girls. And as a small boy I knew intuitively that you can’t do very much with girls. They are too independent, like cats. I might have bonded well with my older brother Billy if I had been willing to go hunting with him. Or work on his jalopy in the garage with him. But I have never liked either blood or grease on my hands.
I thought for a while that I could team up with my best friend Wayne Matsuura. He lived across the street from me, and from fourth grade through high school our lives were pretty closely meshed.
“What do you want to do today?” I would ask him.
If it were summer, invariably he would say “Let’s go fishing.”
“Wow!” I’d reply. “That’s what I was thinking about too!”
Boys who fish together should grow up to be men who fish together. Lifelong boon companions. But something happened to Wayne after high school. He discovered girls. And he dropped me like a hot briquette.
So I was still searching for someone. Someone in the shape I needed. Then I met Tim Holst at the Ringling Clown college. He baptized me into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I followed him around like a puppy. Wherever he went I wanted to go as well. We both were first-of-May’s in The Greatest Show On Earth.
One day Holst took me aside for a serious talk.
“ Tork” he said “you gotta stop following me around so much. You should be getting ready to serve a mission.”
“I don’t wanna go on a mission” I told him. “I’m having too much fun doing this.” I swept my arms around to indicate the tiger cages, concession stands, elephant tubs, and all the other wondrous paraphernalia of the big top.
But eventually I did go on an LDS mission. To Thailand. When I was being mustered out, my mission president, Harvey Brown. sat me down to say “Elder Torkildson, your mission is not over when you are released. You are still called to go out and find a wife to marry in the temple.”
This was news to me. I thought i would simply go back to the circus and be a single solitary clown the rest of my life. But President Brown’s words acted like a profound catalyst on me.
A wife. A spouse. Yes. that is what I had been needing for all these lonely years – a help meet. It became clear. Marriage. Children. Harmony. Love. Completion.
So when I got to Williston I met my beloved and followed her up to the old funeral home in Tioga. It was because I knew that I needed her to become what I was meant to be.
“Hogwash!” the cynical reader exclaimed. “You have just been brainwashed by an authority/ father figure. It was actually hormones that were guiding your steps”
“ Phooey! I am made for love and companionship. Sex is secondary.”
(What a great way to start talking about the feelings of ‘I gotta get married’! Every young woman who goes to Ricks college – BYU-I was called that 50 years ago when I attended – or BYU in Provo has one major and several minors. The major is “marry an RM” the minor is either Elementary Ed or Early Childhood Education.
When I became of age to think about going to college I had no desire what ever to do so. I wanted to stay on the farm and raise cattle and ride horse and play with the kitties all day. My mom had one ambition for every child in her brood. They had to go to Ricks college for at least one year. For many of us she had an idea of what she wanted us to study and possibly get a bachelor’s degree in. I had no idea what I wanted to do at that place.
“Amy, I have the paperwork ready to send in and apply for your admission to Ricks,” Mom said one day in my senior year of high school. “You will want to be thinking about what you will study.”
I looked at the floor and then out the window. I went out to the barn and sat with the kitties. When I came in after chores she asked if i had any ideas. I replied that I had none.
Mom said, “I want you to become a teacher like your aunts and your grandmother” I said, “I’ll do Special Ed before I’ll do Elementary Ed!” She said, “Fine, you can do Special Ed.” I had not even spoken to anyone who was handicapped before let alone have a relationship with someone with disabilities to even have a clue what I was getting myself into.
Mom’s drive was so strong in her because of her own sadness. She is the oldest in her family of 6 siblings. She was born in 1934. In the middle of the depression. Her dad was a farmer on a homestead farm. Times were tough. By the time of her graduation there wasn’t money for higher education. Mom wanted to be a history teacher. She loved the stories about all the English kings and queens. She was a good story teller herself. So was her dad. Her younger brother Alan went to the Army and got an education through them. He was very smart. By the time he was done he had learned over 40 languages and became an interpreter for the government. I learned about very smart people. They have a need to be creative and busy away from other people. He was musical too, like my mom and the rest of them. I knew one thing. I was not like him.
Mom was smart though. She had learned typewriting skills in high school and got a job typing for an office of land surveyors. It was a traveling office and there was a team of girls typing for them. One memorable trip to Watford City Mom met a fellow. He was sweet on her and then went in the Army. He wrote to her a while and then stopped. It turned out that he was killed in the Korean war. She always remembered that sacrifice. One trip back home to White Earth she happened be out dancing with one of the Anderson brothers – there were 5 – he was home on leave. His younger brother – also home on leave – came along after the dance to ride home. The radio was playing and a dancing tune came on so they stopped the car along the dirt road and Mom and the younger brother got out to dance. The rest is history as they say. Mom and Dad were married a few months later. November 1952.
Mom’s younger sisters were able to each go to college. By the time they were old enough for schooling Grandpa had prospered well on the farm. The war made a difference in the price of grain and livestock so they were able to get the girls started. What that did for my mom was increase her desire to have all of us kids get the most education possible. We all had music lessons. We all went to the International Music Camp in Bottineau starting in 8th grade through high school. We all had dance or ballet lessons for three years anyway. And we all went to Ricks, except Berny -- he went to BYU only. Mom about had a conniption about it! But it was his choice and by the time it was his turn he was independent enough to do his own application with no input from Mom. Berny had been driving tractor and working on farms since he was 9 years old. I wish i was exaggerating but I’m not. Since the time he could choose his toys he chose trucks. 18 wheelers like his daddy drove. He chose tractors that could hitch things to the back and really move the dirt. When he was 4 he planted a patch of wheat in the back yard and it sprouted. He felt like the Little Red Hen when he said “Who will help me make my wheat into flour?” He became my brother who was prosperous.
Mom had put her skills to good use. She taught us every day. Each one was important. But then we were Norwegian blood too. That carries with it certain inhibitions that you don’t think about. You just do what needs to be done and go on with life. You don’t spend time being too happy or too sad or grieve about anything. You just do your stuff and keep going. The game shows were always a fake to me. People would be so jumped-up-and-down excited. I don’t recall doing that. Ever. Except when i got the job at Sun Valley, Idaho. The most I ever remember was being told that I should say “thank you” to somebody if they said something nice. I remember that in recitals for music and dance competitions that we got to hear applause but that was different. Feelings inside of me had been turned off for lots of things. It has been a great work to turn them on.
When I went to Ricks college Mom told me what I was supposed to be doing every day. I had learned to keep a journal and I was good at a schedule in high school. The important thing that happened to me was that I began to feel the influence of the Spirit. I attended my meetings and was active in church and that had a more profound effect on me than I could have imagined. I wanted to get married. And that was all I wanted. I studied my class work and passed my exams. I worked hard and graduated. Went to BYU for more of the same. I went to Tioga to teach school and met Tim there. I was pretty sure that I wanted to get married but had no clue what it would be like except I wanted to be loved.)
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