September Newsletter 2010

EDVARD GRIEG NOTES
SONS OF NORWAY LODGE NO. 6-074
www.edvardgrieglodge.com

Meeting Place:
Lutheran Church in the Foothills
1700 Foothill Blvd.
La Cañada, California

Ord Fra Presidenten

Kjære Venner.

We are progressing into a new exiting phase of our Lodge, namely the move to Lutheran Church in the Foothills, La Canada, starting with our next Cultural Evening, Saturday, September 25. (See page 2 for the address and directions for the church.) The Board plans many new and interesting evenings to promote our Norwegian heritage for the next year. Please try to attend activities as much as you are able. Takk.

By the time you receive this newsletter we will already have completed our move and await your attendance on Sept 25th. Our guest presenters have already been introduced to you in the last newsletter, the Bosworths from Norseman Lodge #91, Thousand Oaks, who will present a great program for you about SN Cultural Skills program. This is no boring presentation, my friends, as they are bringing samples of their projects and the award medals they have achieved…..which we can do as well.

I bring to your attention our October 30 Cultural night which is our annual big fund raiser Silent Auction. Planning ahead, please dig out your extra items that you love but


As our primary fund raiser at this time, we appreciate your donations, and bringing friends and family who might like to bid on some really fine items.

About your donations: please bring clean, clear, appropriate items…i.e. those which you would like to buy, rather than some old decrepit items we might find in attics or garages…Ha.  They need not to be Norwegian or Scandinavian origin. Proceeds from our fund raisers go to 1) half camper- ships to Camp Norge for our youth, 2) annual donations to the Norwegian Seaman’s Church, Camp Norge and Edvard Grieg’s Endowment at Glendale Community College. and 3) our treasury for lodge expenses.
Har det bra. And tusen takk.
Jo Ness

PS  Please note that the date for the October Cultural Night is the 5th Saturday, October 30, instead of our usual 4th Saturday. As we move into our new “digs” we must honor previous arrangements that the church has made. This is one of them. We are so easy adapting to change, ikke sant? (don’t you think?)

Gratulerer Med Dagen

SEPTEMBER
2  Mary Berglund
10 Frances Quick
12 Vidar Bech
13 Janet Couch
16 Anne Laity
23 John Fleischer



God Bedring Get Well Soon


DeNora Clinton
Bill Davis
Vernie Fletcher
Edna Franett
Astrid Omdal
Jean Parks
Virginia Paulson
Herb Wirtz


LODGE ACTIVITIES
POTLUCK AND CULTURAL EVENING
Saturday, September 25, Social hour – 5:30 p.m. Dinner – 6:30 p.m.  at Lutheran Church in the Foothills.  The presentation will be on the Cultural Skills Program by members of Norseman Lodge #91 in Thousand Oaks.

BOARD MEETING
Tuesday, October 5 at 7:15 p.m. at Lutheran Church in the Foothills.    Refreshments will be provided by Pat Savoie and Yvonne Claypool.

POTLUCK  AND SILENT AUCTION
Saturday, October 30 at Lutheran Church in the Foothills.  Social hour – 5:30 pm, dinner – 6:30 p.m.    Bring a favorite family recipe – or one that you have been wanting to try.  The Silent Auction could be a good time to check closets and cupboards for items you no longer want.

BOARD MEETING
Tuesday, November 2 at 7:15 p.m. at Lutheran Church in the Foothills.

LEFSE PARTY
November 6 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Lutheran Church in the Foothills.
We will be making lefse for the Julebord and for sale. Our lefse party is a family affair, everyone can help and learn all the steps to its making.

No Cultural Night in November because of Thanksgiving.

BOARD MEETING
Tuesday, December 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the home of Jo Ness, 2619 Fairway Ave., Montrose.
818-249-8102.
The membership is invited to enjoy a mini Jul celebration.  Jo has special Jul decorations, food, including a traditional tree. Lots of goodies, candles and good time…after the meeting stuff.

JULEBORD
Saturday, December 11, 6:30 p.m. at Lutheran
Church in the Foothills.


Lutheran Church in the Foothills is at 1700 Foothill Blvd. La Canada. The church is on the south side of Foothill Boulevard, just northeast of the junction of the CA-2 and the I-210 Freeways. Look for the Tower of Redemption Statue, also known as the "Touchdown Statue," which rises over the landscape. Parking is available next to church

From the freeways:
CA-2 NB: Foothill Blvd. offramp. Turn east (R) on Foothill.  About 2 blocks, on your right.
I-210 WB: Angeles Crest Hwy exit. Turn south (L). Turn NW (R) on Foothill. About 1 mile.
I-210 EB: Ocean View exit. Turn north (L). Turn east (R) on Foothill.  About 0.7 miles.


A Wonderful Surprise

As you all know, I am very active in a Hawaiian dance group. At our last 2010 show (of at least 15 this year at various convalescent facilities, private parties, and other venues), I had a fun surprise.

We were invited to Simi Valley to perform for a club meeting. Guess what? As our leader, Cheryl, came in a lady said “Do you happen to know Jo Ness? Cheryl’s answer was “Yes, she is dancing with us today!” The lady was Dorothy Green of Norseman Lodge #91, Thousand Oaks. She is Past President and every other officer in her lodge and many other offices in our SofN community.

During our audience participation segment she got up because I grabbed her hand and said “come along”.  What a hit it was for this group of over 100 ladies who meet regularly to forward their community services. We had a ball with them. Jo


Help Wanted!!
We need help on our phone committee. Three of our loyal committee members are “graduating” from this volunteer job after many faithful years. Nearly every month the ladies phone to their assigned list regarding upcoming lodge activities. It is our way of connecting personally with each lodge member throughout the year. Here is a chance to serve the lodge in an easy way….If you are interested, please contact Committee Chair Yvonne Claypool at (213-748-5612) or Jo Ness at (818) 249-8102. No test, no application, no questionnaire, and no demonstration of dialing ability required. Ha. Just interest in our lodge communication with lodge friends. Mange Takk.


On Sunday afternoon, September 12, the Solheim Retirement Home in Eagle Rock honored many of its supporters at the annual recognition dinner.

Among those receiving awards were Sons of Norway members Chester and Carol Weiche, Carl Voien and John Danielson, Jr.  Chester was especially recognized for his endowment which was used for remodeling of the Chapel.

It was an enjoyable event with games, musical entertainment, a program and awards, and of course, the delicious catered dinner.


Norwegian journalist quits during live radio broadcast.
A Norwegian radio journalist quit on the air today after complaining about her job and saying she would not read the day’s news because “nothing important has happened” anyway. Pia Beathe Pedersen accused her employers at the regional radio station of public broadcaster NRK of putting too much pressure on the staff.

She said in the live broadcast that she was “quitting and walking away” because she “wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe”.

She ended her nearly two-minute announcement by saying there would not be any news on Saturday.

The reporter had worked at NRK for 18 months. NRK spokesman Oeyvind Werner Oefsti said her actions were a surprise.   



Norway News 9/11/2010

MARITIME AGREEMENT
Russia and Norway signed an agreement Wednesday on their maritime border in the energy- rich Barents Sea, ending a dispute that has dragged on for decades.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said after the signing that the deal would strengthen stability in the region and enhance economic cooperation between the two neighbors.

Interest in the Arctic region has intensified amid evidence that global warming is shrinking the sea ice, opening up new shipping lanes and opportunities to explore rich oil and gas deposits.

Russia claims a large part of the Arctic seabed as its own.  The United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway have also been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to contain as much as a quarter of the Earth's undiscovered oil and gas.    Los Angeles Times 9/16/2010 electricity and in the measurement of radio waves,


IT ALL BEGAN IN CANTON, SOUTH DAKOTA
Their grandparents, both on their father’s and mother’s side, had emigrated from Norway and settled in the Upper Midwest during the 1860s and‘70s.  In the closing years of the nineteenth century, the two families, one from Minnesota and the other from Wisconsin, would move further West to make their home in Canton, South Dakota. Those two families lived on the same street in that small town, and their sons were born in 1901, within two months of one another.  At the time the town’s population numbered only a few thousand, and in fact is about the same size today. While most of the residents traced their family roots to countries in northern Europe, Norwegians constituted the largest national group. In fact, the first person to establish a homestead in the town, in 1862, was a Norwegian immigrant by the name of James Wahl.  And it was he who was reputed to have given the town its name, based on a common belief of the time that the town was located exactly opposite Canton, China, on the other side of the earth.

However, this story is not about a small town set down on the farmland prairies in the southeastern corner of South Dakota.  Rather it is about two boys of Norwegian ancestry whose interest in science began in their early years and carried them on to international acclaim.  Born in Canton, six weeks apart in 1901, they grew up in homes across the street from each other.  They attended local schools, and were members of the same Boy Scout troop. Together they persuaded a family friend, a student in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to teach them about electricity. Before long they had established a telegraph line linking their two homes. They later became interested in radio, and after one of them moved away during their high school years, they continued in touch with their own amateur radio network, later known as “ham radio.”

Upon graduation from high school and now living in separate states, one would go on to St. Olaf College, only to transfer after one year to the University of South Dakota, while the other enrolled at the University of Minnesota. They would be reunited again, when both received their Master’s Degrees from the University of Minnesota in 1923. From there, for one after a year at the University of Chicago it was on to Yale for a Ph.D. in Physics.  For the other, a year of teaching at Princeton was followed by enrollment in the doctoral program at the Johns Hopkins University, from which he received his doctoral degree, also in Physics. Even as graduate students their pioneering work in photo-

respectively, was beginning to attract attention in the scientific world.

Thus it is not surprising that these two boyhood friends of Norwegian ancestry, both from Canton, South Dakota, would go on to international acclaim in science.  At the age of twenty-nine, Earnest O. Lawrence was named a full professor at the University of California where he embarked on a career in nuclear physics, being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his role in the development of the cyclotron.  Incidentally, by his own admission what led Lawrence to the development of the cyclotron was a research report written by a Norwegian engineer, Rolf Widerboe by name.  Merle Tuve also received numerous awards from scientific organizations and foreign governments, particularly for his research on the use of radio waves for measurements in the upper atmosphere and on shock waves in measuring the earth’s interior.

Lawrence’s professional career was spent entirely at the University of California and in extensive involvement with its several laboratories and nuclear research. Tuve, upon receiving his Ph.D., took a position as a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, becoming Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism two decades later and then serving an additional twenty years at Carnegie until his retirement in 1966. During the early 1940s he took a leave of absence to direct research related to the U.S. war effort at John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory under the aegis of the National Defense Research Committee.

Both Ernest Lawrence and Merle Tuve made major contributions to the victories over Germany and Japan during World War II.  Lawrence was a leading figure in the development of the atomic bomb, which was dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  And following the war he was an advocate for the development of even more powerful weapons, including the hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb. When it came to the use of atomic weapons, however, Merle Tuve took a different position.  Although he was well aware of the potential of atomic fission prior to World War II, and served briefly on a government committee to determine the efficacy of creating atomic bombs, he preferred to participate in the war effort in the development of more conventional weapons.  His experimentation with radio waves was a major factor in the development of radar and of the proximity fuse and its application in anti-aircraft defense.

More than any other single factor, the proximity fuse was responsible for the destruction of the rockets and “buzz bombs” deployed during the Battle of Britain and later, for anti-missile defense against nuclear warheads.

While relationships between these two boyhood friends remained civil if not close throughout their lives, their views on ethical or political issues, as they related to weaponry and war were different.  Ernest Lawrence died in 1958 at the age of fifty-seven years; Merle Tuve passed away nearly twenty-five years later, in 1982.

Richard C. Gilman
Pasadena, California

Dr. Gilman may be reached at rcgilman@earthlink.net



English in Borderland Schools
Ten Norwegian and ten Russian teachers from towns in the Norwegian-Russian border area will get higher education in English. The teachers come from the Norwegian municipality of Sør-Varanger and the town of Zapolyarny on the Kola Peninsula. The project is called “English in Borderland Schools” and is co-financed by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat.

Bodø University College and the Pedagogical University in Murmansk are responsible for the teaching, Bodø University College’s web site reads.

The twenty participants are going to meet four times a year, two times in Kirkenes and two times in Zapolyarny. Their Norwegian and Russian pupils from 5th  and 6th  grades will also meet each other as part of the project.

The aim of the project is that teachers of English on both sides of the border shall learn from each other’s experience and practices in teaching. Norway News 9/14/2010

Edvard Grieg Lodge #6-074
Board of Officers 2010-2011
President Jo Ness JNess2619@gmail.com
Vice President    Vacant
Counselor Dorothy Bakken   
Secretary Mim Johnson   
Asst. Secretary    Elaine Lundby   
Membership Secretary Anne Marie Nassif annenassif@att.net
Treasurer Margaret Shuler alsvid1@hotmail.com
Historian Pat Savoie patriciasavoie@sbcglobal.net
Youth Director Judith Gabriel Vinje Jgabriel.vinje@gmail.com

Insurance Representative Dennis Burreson  800-448-2499

EDVARD GRIEG LODGE WEB SITE www.edvardgrieglodge.com Dan Christensen, webmaster

6TH DISTRICT WEB SITE www.sofn6.com CAMP NORGE
www.campnorge.com

KALENDAREN

Saturday, September 25
Potluck and Cultural Evening
Tuesday, October 5
Board Meeting
Saturday, October 30
Potluck and Cultural Evening
Tuesday, November 2
Board Meeting
Saturday, November 6
Lefse Party