Autobiography

an autobiography of ereling stephen nordmo (1972-2006) "but i have trusted in your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. i will sing to the lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me. " psalm 13:5-6 in the middle of the afternoon on january 11, 1972, mr. rowland nordmo took his wife, joyce, to bess kaiser hospital in portland, oregon for the birth of their fourth child. then, finally, at 6:56 p.m., their third boy was born. at birth he weighed eight pounds and one ounce. he was named ereling stephen nordmo after his uncle, rowland's brother, who was born in china and also died in china while still quite young. by the time ereling went home to be greeted by two older brothers and one older sister, he was down three ounces and weighed only seven pounds and fourteen ounces. when ereling was five weeks old, he weighed eight pounds and fourteen and a half ounces, and he was twenty-three inches long, while at birth he had only been twenty inches long. in the next eleven weeks, he gained more weight, and he grew a little too, for he weighed twelve pounds and thirteen and one-half ounces, almost four pounds gained in less than three months, and he measured twenty-five and one-half inches, just a little over two feet long. when ereling was one week old, he slept completely through the night, which was very good especially considering the fact that ereling hated to take naps. when he was quite a bit older, his mother once spent a good one-half to a full hour trying to get him to take a nap. at five weeks old, ereling gave his very first smile. yet it was not until he was two and one-half months old that he actually laughed, which was around the same time that he was discovering his hands. ereling's first tooth finally came out when he was five months old, and then, by the time he was seven and one-half months old, he already had seven teeth out. by the time he was six months old, he could roll over by himself; but he did not roll over again for some time. ereling was thirteen months old, just a little over one year old, when he took his first few steps, more than that he actually walked for a little ways. the first word that ereling said was,. "da-da", or so his dad claims. (no one else heard ereling say that.) another one of his early words was, "bye-bye". on his first birthday, ereling was sick and could not eat any of his birthday cake or ice cream, but he still enjoyed himself tremendously. one day when ereling was three years old, he ran outside with a bottle of pop grasped in his hands. ereling tripped on one of the steps and fell down, and the bottle broke and cut open of his fingers. crying loudly, ereling was rushed to the emergency room in the hospital. there the doctors cleaned out the wound and gave him one stitch. on

the way home, ereling received an ice cream cone. tinker toys and lincoln logs were some of the favorite toys that ereling had. he especially enjoyed building buildings with lincoln logs, and often he would spend long amounts of time with them. summer of 1985 just before the 1984-1985 school year ended, it was decided that ereling and karsten would go by airplane from the portland airport to another airport where they had to wait around for three hours for their next flight. their destination was dallas, tx. there, their aunt cathy brewer, their grandmother naomi owen, and three of their cousins picked them up. to all of this, ereling and karsten had to miss field day and a few other school days, but to them it was well worth it. then they went to six flags over texas, an amusement park where they stayed for the rest of the day. when it was dark they left and went to their aunt cathy's house. they spent the remaining part of the night there. the next morning, their aunt took ereling, karsten, and their grandmother to a small town a little ways from where their grandpa, roy lee owen, lived. from that town ereling's grandpa drove all of them back to his house which was in between gould and eldorado, oklahoma. with their grandmother, karsten and ereling hoed cotton for other people. they all got paid mininum wage. they also hoed roy lee's cotton field. roy lee raised many acres of cotton, quite a bit of wheat, some maize, and even a little bit of feeder. after they had used the combine on the wheat, it started to rain, and the wheat got wet. unfortunately they had to let it sit outside on a tarp which ereling's uncle ira, a truck driver, left at his grandparent's house. while the wheat was sitting outside, the raccoons around the creek started to notice it, and every night they came and ate of it. after the wheat had all dried out and they fixed up the truck so there were not any holes in it, they took the wheat to the grain elevator. about the next week or two, they spent taking the bottom plate off of the combine. they did that so that they could cut the feeder with it and it would just be cut and fall right out. but the combine got jammed. so they spent awhile putting the plate back on. about this time, the tractor got a flat tire, so they had to take the tube out and find where it was leaking. to do this they filled dirt with air, submerged it in a puddle. they then had to put it back on. one day when roy lee was out in the field, he saw a panther which karsten earlier in the day had called a "large bobcat". roy lee had hired someone to do the feeder, but when he told them there was a panther in the feeder, he never showed up. a little after that ereling and karsten went home by airplane.

ereling's grandpa during the second summer ereling spent with his grandparents in oklahoma, he learned many good characteristics from both of them. they were both unselfish, hard workers, and loved the lord very much. often ereling's grandpa would get up early in the morning, fix his own breakfast or even go without breakfast, and then go out to work in either the cotton or wheat fields. many times he ended up working such long hours that he would not have lunch until one or two o'clock. normally, ereling, karsten, and their grandmother would wait for him, but sometimes they would not, although one of them would usually take him some cold water and sandwich or something of that sort. if he did have lunch at the house, afterward he would rest an hour or so before he went back out. as often it was, before he went back out, anywhere from ninety-five to one hundred degrees hot, he would take a gallon jug full of ice water with him. and then he would go back out to work, sometimes until seven o'clock. besides all that, when the weeds got bad in his cotton fields, he would go out with ereling, karsten, and their grandmother and help hoe the cotton field. he also had to take care of, feed, and water a herd of cows which belonged to his daughter and son-in-law. but even with all of the hard work he had to do and when he was extremely tired, he always found time to take ereling and karsten hunting, and to do many other things with them. once he put aside some work that needed to be done to take them fishing at a small creek many miles from the house. and then another time he took them to an old junk yard and let them rummage around for a while. but he would not let them stay too long because he was afraid there were too many rattlesnakes around at the junk yard. also, he taught ereling and karsten how to do many things which they had never done before. he started teaching ereling to drive and karsten too; before karsten arrived for the that visit, he had received his permit so he was able to drive quite a bit more. still ereling's grandpa did let ereling drive around the field and house. if there was something that needed to be fixed, he did not rush around ahead and do it by himself. normally he would get either ereling or karsten or both and let them watch how it was done. this took him much longer when he showed ereling and karsten how to do it; he had to go much slower than normal. when he used the blow torch, he showed ereling how to use it. he also started teaching ereling how to weld. in all, ereling and karsten's grandpa was a very hard working man who loved the lord and others too. norske and other dogs a long time before ereling was born, maybe ten or so years, his dad had been in the service and adopted the nickname of norske. he was

given this name because his dad, ereling's grandfather, had been full norwegian, and so obviously, rowland was fifty percent norwegian. after he had left the service and gone to college rowland married joyce. he told joyce he either wanted a dog named norske, or that he was going to name one of their children norske. she, as would most people in this situation would have, chose to have a dog named norske. so they got a dog and named it that. many years after the dog named norske died, rowland obtained another dog. this one was a siberian husky, and he decided to name it norske also. by this time joyce had already had four kids. they were, in order of their age from oldest to youngest, as follows: sonya, erick, karsten, and ereling. of all the kids, rowland, and joyce, norske seemed to take to erick the most, and erick, of course, liked norske the most, and they would spend much time together playing and, although joyce did not like it, rough housing. because of the rough housing, it was soon that norske would occasionally bite some of the people in the family while they were playing with it. already norske had bitten two or three who had reached through the gate and tried to pet norske while they were walking by; this was just because he was a very good watch dog. most of all, norske was protective of erick and might often growl if erick was playing rough with some of his friends. in his room, which was in the garage, erick had set up something to use as a boxing bog. one day ereling was in erick's room getting ready to hit the bag. just as he was raising his arm to hit it, norske jumped. norske bit ereling just around one or two inches to the side of his right eye. ereling gave a very loud yell and went inside where his mother bandaged him, called the hospital, and then rushed him to the hospital where he was immediately taken into the waiting room. in just a few minutes, he was taken in, put on a table, a cloth was put on him, and he received five stiches. the next day ereling went back to school as usual. norske was watched for ten days but nothing was wrong with him. sometime after all that, rowland was taking the dog for a walk when it bit him through his thumbnail. after that norske was taken to the pound. when ereling had part of a paper route there were quite a few dogs on it, both large and small. one time when he was walking across a law to put a paper on a porch, a small dog came chasing after him and bit him in the leg. ereling ran about one-half of a block before he noticed it was not chasing him. ereling's family had some real good friends who lived in salem, which was about the total of sixty miles from where they lived in clackamas. one time when the nordmo family was down there visiting all their friends, sonya, ereling's older sister, went down to a park which was just down the hill from where their friend's house was. with sonya went her two friends, heather and melissa garinger. while they were down at the park, they found two fairly young puppies

which someone probably had not wanted and just dropped off. both of the puppies were white with black spots nearly all over them. so it was decided just between the three of them that sonya would get the one to take back to clackamas with her and the other girls could have the last puppy to keep with them in salem for their family. so when the nordmo family went back to their house from salem, there came with them sonya's new little puppy which she had gotten for free. for quite awhile, sonya thought and thought about what to name it. she finally decided with a little bit of help to name it tovia, a norwegian name. for quite a while, tovia grew just like any other normal puppy would have. but it was not very long at all until the family finally decided that tovia was grown up and that she was not going to get any larger than she already was. for quite awhile, most people who saw tovia, even after she was fully grown, thought she was still a puppy and that surely she was not full grown. but it seemed tovia really enjoyed the size that she was and was glad she was not any bigger. for it was just about the right size to go under sticks and all of that sort of stuff. because of this she could chase rabbits and even sometimes birds, both of which tovia was doing just as much as she could. on many different occasions, one would find a young or half grown rabbit, sometimes an adult rabbit, a squirrel, or a chipmunk, and even but very rarely a bird, both large and small, in the garage, on the back or front porch, on the walkway, or really just about everywhere. sometimes there would be just a little bit of fur or feathers scattered around in a little area. nobody ever actually saw tovia catch and kill a rabbit, bird, squirrel, or chipmunk, but evidence of it was just anywhere and everywhere you looked. later karsten, the middle boy, would get as a christmas present a very energetic one hundred percent australian shepherd puppy. karsten, after a few days of thinking, decided to name it aussie. aussie was quite a pain to tovia, constantly bugging her and biting and slobbering all over her, following her around just about anywhere she went, eating her food, drinking her water, and doing just about everything possible, it looked like, to teaser her. but tovia put up with all of it, almost. salvation testimony ereling was brought up and raised in a christian home and family by his parents. he went to a church, with the rest of his family and many of his friends, that was called lynwood friends church, a quaker (or friends) church that was just four or five blocks from their home, maybe just a few blocks or less. he started out going to a school at a christian kindergarten near easthill. after he was finished with kindergarten, he went to the first grade at damascus christian school in damascus near where ereling would move in three more years. while ereling was still a fairly young kid, maybe four or five years of age, he accepted jesus christ as his own personal saviour, something he had heard about often in his sunday school. he had been in his parent's bedroom sitting on his dad's lap listening while his dad read to him from a christian science paper, something that was

just for kindergarten or so age kids. ereling's dad then asked him if he wanted to ask jesus to come into his own heart as his lord. so that night ereling became a christian and part of the family of god, something which he had heard about. as with many kids who became christians while they were still kind of at a fairly young age, ereling memorized many verses, many times just for a prize, because other kids did, or even because his parents made him. for awhile, ereling thought about the words in the verses while he was memorizing them, but after a little while, again, as often kids will do, ereling just started memorizing the words in the verses, not even paying attention at all to the meaning of the verse. while ereling was in third grade at damascus, his grandpa on his dad's side, rev. j.m. nordmo, who ereling liked both as a friend and as a grandpa and loved him very, very much, had a bad stroke and had to go to the hospital. it was not too very long after that when his grandpa died while still in the hospital. once, while ereling had been at the hospital in his grandpa's room, his grandpa had tried to say something. finally it was understood that he was requesting that someone there read to him from the bible and in the book of psalms. later on ereling looked back on that incident, and then he really realized what the word of god had really then meant to his grandpa even at that moment when he was on his deathbed. he also saw what they should have, but at that time did not, mean to him. even after ereling's grandpa passed away, ereling often looked back on him, his relationship with god, his obedience to god, and his friendliness plus many more of his spiritual qualities and got a spiritual uplift. a verse that really meant a lot to ereling was jeremiah 33:3, "call upon me and i will answer thee and shew thee great and mighty things thou knowest not."