When you live in the peninsula of Nesodden Norway, you learn at an early stage in your life the importance of being on time. All the different means of transportation are connected, so if you are travelling it is essential to catch the first ride that is if you want to make anything on time from there on. To get into the city of Oslo, you have the two choices of either to go there by ferry or you can go by car. The car scenario is a ride that will take approximately 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic, but with the gas prices in Norway being as unfriendly as the blistering winters in the cold North, and the fact that you must pay toll on the road to get into central Oslo, this option gets pricy after a while. Most people take the convenient ferry ride that only takes twenty minutes and drops you off in the middle of the city. The ferry goes every hour throughout the day with more departures during the morning and afternoon rush hours, and it is the most convenient option to get to and from the capital. The peninsula of Nesodden, or “Odden” as the locals refers it to, is about 24 square miles, just about a square mile larger in area than Manhattan, but of course this is the only similarity. There are approximately fifteen thousand Nesoddinger, or Nesodden inhabitants on the “island”, the Nesoddinger also refers the peninsula as “Øya” or “The Island”, even if it is a peninsula. It just feels like an island to the Nesoddinger, as the isolation from the city is eminent, even if the big city is just a 20-minute ride away. In the time before the great migration in the early sixties, where young families moved out to the island, it was mostly farmers living there, plus the affluent families that came out from Oslo in the summer to stay away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. The ferry system has been in place for decades, and the inconvenience of having to take a ferry to get to the city, or convenience of keeping people from the city away from Nesodden, has always being a major part of life in Nesodden. The Northern tip of the island faces the city, and this is where the ferry leaves on the hour every hour. There is a bus system in place that is coordinated so that it takes the travelers from the different stops and drops them off at the ferry port minutes before departure. The bus of curse waits and picks up the folks coming from the city to take them home to their houses and townhouses that are scattered throughout the land. If you want to go to the city and miss a bus, you are not going for another hour, so being punctual becomes a part of life. I have never really had a problem being on time going to Oslo, it is coming back that eventually almost killed me, but going to Oslo, or being on time for the bus was never an issue. If you didn’t work in downtown Oslo, where you could walk to your place of work, you would also have to either take a tram or the subway when you arrived in Oslo, so it was essential catch the bus from your bus stop. My family is obsessed with being on time, or as a matter of fact obsessed with being a few minutes early, so being on time-or early-, was never a problem, I was always the first at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to arrive. The ferry was never a problem, as being early at the bus stop ensured that I always have caught the bus that of course corresponded with the ferry. I never had to run to the bus, I walked with a purpose, but never ran. My friend Roger on the other hand ran to the bus all the time. I can only assume that being on time was not a family obsession of the Hansen family, because my stocky friend was almost always running to the bus. Sometimes he caught it, sometimes he did not, but he always ran. If he missed the bus, he would resort to hitchhiking and sometimes catch a car, and then run-again- from the car parking lot to the ferry to make work on time. But not always, Roger ran, and Roger missed the bus as often as he caught the bus, and only occasionally caught a car that made him on time for the ferry. Roger was as reliable a friend as you could possibly have, but in coming to work on time was not his reliability lied.
I never ran to the bus but running to the ferry returning home became more of an issue as I got older. Every Nesodding knows the ferry times of departure, maybe with the exception of the rush hour, but every person that travels frequently to and from Nesodden knows, or anyone that travelled in the pre-2000’s as the times now of course have been modified and changed, but in the eighties the ferry leaved at 35 minutes past the hour, every hour, from 6:35am to 12:35am during the week, and the same during the week end with exception on Friday and Saturdays, where they added a Nattbåt or Night boat at 1:35am for the late partiers that was in Oslo and needed to come back. Later there has of course been added more departure times, but back in my days, the last ferry, the “Nattbåt” left at 1:35am. For me and my buddies our early twenties out partying looking for adventure during the afternoon and night, this was not a night boat, it was more of a too early boat, as the clubs closed at 2:00am, and the time was not as easy to keep track of as during the week when we were going to and coming from work to get home. In the weekends, we pushed our limits, both on the party scene and on making the boat. If I never ran to the ferry, or to bus to catch the ferry, during the week, I always ran to the ferry during the week ends. I am not sure if the ferry company still are practicing it, but back in the eighties the conductor rang a bell a minute before departure, to warn potential late comers, and not only people from non-obsession with being on time families like my already mentioned friend, but also young people from being on time obsessed families like myself. In the weekends in the eighties, we always heard the bell before we arrived at the ferry, and we were always running when we heard the bell. The ferry leaves from the piers right down from the huge ugly very recognizable City Hall. The building has two towers and can be seen from most places in downtown Oslo, and by being a big building divides the pier area from the main avenues of Stortingsgata and Karl Johan’s gate, where most of the bars and clubs are located, and therefore also the divider between where we were located and the pier. When you were in your twenties, in the eighties, living in Nesodden, all you wanted to, was to move to the city so you dint have to deal with the hassle of having to go back at a set time. We didn’t want to leave the clubs at 1:25-30 at night when it was so much fun and the parties were always going on. There weren’t many options, except for in the summer, when if you didn’t make the ferry, you could stay out later and wait for the first morning boat, but this was usually not an option in the colder months, which of course are basically almost all the months in Norway. The options were few; leave the party and get to the boat – or night boat- on time, get an invitation to an after party in Oslo, or hook up with a girl that you could spend the night with. These were the only three options, and with two of the options favoring the obvious third, the effort towards the end of the night was mostly focused on finding an after party or hooking up with a girl, and not necessarily in that order. But you were under a time crunch, the club closed at 2:00am, but the Nesoddinger was under a time constraint. The invitation or yes, had to happen by 1:25, or at least by 1L30 if there was any chance of making the boat and if not, having to spend the night in a phone booth, or at the very pricey night café’. I downtown Oslo, I the eighties, in clubs between the hours of 1:00am to 1:30am, a trained observer could easily spot a “Nesodding”. If he wasn’t relaxed, with a girl on his arm, he was a little flustered, stressing, frantically flirting- or speed flirting and quickly checking his watch and scout the prospects for a one-night stand or a late after the party-party where he could crash a couch for the night. The decision as usually made late, usually around 1:25, where the risk was getting too great, and the prospect of a lonely night in a cold city just overweighed the slim chance of a more amorous adventure. I only missed the ferry twice. Many a time my friends and I made a group decision to hang out and for the chance of crashing a late party in town, the decision as easier when in a group of course. If you hooked up with a girl, the group was of course immediately abandoned, and they were left in a heartbeat. I stayed behind many times, for both reasons, and ran as many times as possible, but only two times I missed the ferry. On the night of the national Independence Day my friend Tomas and I spend the night on the bench on the pier. In our newly purchased 17 May suits We slept like puppies on the wooden bench when the morning rush travelers walked by us the next morning and slowly, sore from the hard bench made our way to the fist ride back to the Island. The second time I missed the ferry, was not in May like the time with Thomas, but in February, and I was alone.
We were at Riderhallen, the Club and disco at Storgata, and it was getting late. There was not to be any after party, and my friends and I had been having so much fun, hooking up with anyone was out of the question. It was 1:25 before I realized that I had forgotten that I was actually at Ridderhallen, and that was at least 10 minutes from the ferry, if I ran like an Olympic sprinter that is. I grabbed my half-length coat and throw it over my Italian wool sweater before taking the steps up in strides and running past the hot dog stand and straight left up the street. It was freezing outside, and I could only think of the ferry that I had to catch, a ferry that was at least ten minutes of sprinting away, and a ferry I had to make if I didn’t want to spend the day outside in the freezing night. I ran like never ever had ran before, and I quickly a crossed Stortorget in Olympic strides. I turned in to Karl Johan’s Gate, and almost crashed into a couple of drunk guys in front of The Scotsman but being drunk and flexible my 6’4 frame in a flopping overcoat avoided the crash in a miracle move similar to a matador avoiding the sharp horns of an angry bull. I stretched my long legs straight up the famous avenue and must have looked like an eight hundred runner with a gold medal on his mind, because I was running the most difficult middle distance now. I almost slide and tap dance on one foot on some of the ice that had built up around the area of the Northern side of the parliament and turn left in front of the two Lions that are lying in front of the entrance. My mind is focused on the run of my life, but for some reason I ask myself why there is a lion in the crest of Norway, but I stop the thought and focus on getting down the next street. It’s straight running now, and I am over halfway there. All I have to do is sprint down the Rosenkranz gate, turn over the City Hall plaza and get on the pier so the conductor can see me and wait for my arrival. I run in the middle of the street, too many people outside Stravinsky club down on the right. The club has a younger crowd than where we usually go, maybe only a couple of years or so younger, but nevertheless, it is not a place we frequent. I have taken y keys and my wallet in my hands as I don’t want to lose them in my quest for glory, and I notice that the people outside Stravinsky look my way. I think I recognize one in the girls in the wind as being someone from Nesodden, and think that she must have gotten lucky, or at least have been invited to an after party. Easier being a girl, I think, but don’t look back to conform my thought. I am pretty drunk, and my stamina in long distance running is not eminent. The smoking that I have a habit of doing when I am drinking doesn’t help either, or I am out of breath. I hear the bell. “It can’t be, already” I think, and feel like giving up. Maybe I can go back to Stravinsky and see if there is hope, I say to myself, but my legs are not turning around. I have one minute, and I am not about to finish this in any other ay than in style. I feel that I have mire energy, almost someone gave me a shot of adrenalin, it must have been the bell, and I am sprinting like a Carl Lewis going for the 200-meter gold, because it is long strides in tempo that have never used before by me. The increase in tempo is pulling blood from my drunken brain, and I can feel that I am about to have given everything I have had and more so. I turn around the corner of Radhusplassen and can see the boat. It is either “Tyrihans”, or” Princessen”, and it is there in front me. I run, I run with wallet and keys cramped in my cold fingers and I see the finish line I form of an old ferry that will carry me and other drunken bodies back home to safety. The prospect of spending five hours in a cold dark city alone, drunk, and alone carries me the next few yards and I enter the pier. I see the ferry, the rope connecting it to the pier is loose, and the ferry is backing slowly away from me. I have entered the pier in an angle from the left, and the ferry is on the right side, but a bit farther back than I had anticipated. I am a little drunk; I can feel that the combination of a last shot of Jägermeister and the exhaustion of running the race of life is kicking in as I enter the pier. I see the ferry slowly backing up and even in my drunken stage, I can see that the conductor that is handling the rope is looking at me, but to my astonishment, he is ignoring me. He’s looking straight at me, as I ran and slow down, but as I disappointed see that he is not about to go back in and get another passenger, I lose my concentration. I don’t stop running, but I relax, and I slide. I have entered the pier in an angle, and I find myself on the right side of the pier, and slide on one foot. It is a metal bar along the side of the pier, and I slide dead into it and feel my left leg up in the air to try to stay somewhat balanced, but the right sliding foot hits the bar and I feel both legs come up in the air and my entire body, legs up, go straight into the fjord. Oslo in February at 1:25am (or 1:25am plus 5 seconds) is dark and cold. As I slide into the air, feet up, crumbling back, my body is thrown around as in slow motion. It is all happening in slow-motion, and I can see nothing but the lights of the stars above me, and the clear lighted golden hands on the City Hall tower clock. It is happening all too fast, but I can only wait for the splash of my body that is about to hit the water below, but what I can remember from the fall was that the lock showed 1:25am. I had made it in time but had missed the finish line. I Missed it literally I am thinking, smiling as I am flying into air into a freezing cold arctic fjord, and I am thinking that nothing can be good about my prospects for the night. I expected a big splash, but it isn’t the splash I remember from entering the water. My back hits a sheet of ice that crushes under my weight, and I remember first that my back almost broke in two from the fall. Then I slide down into water that is even colder than could possibly have imagined. The fact that it was so cold must have saved me, because without the ice, I wouldn’t have survived. It is so cold, and I feel my temperature disappear. My coat is dragging me down, but for some reason I don’t let go of my wallet. I hold on to a sheet of ice and make my way to the pier that has tractor or bus tires hanging down on the side to protect from the ferries that are constantly arriving and departing throughout the day. I get rid of my coat that is dragging me down, and scream for help, but no one can hear me. I must be a lone runner tonight I tell myself, maybe the others go a head start on me, because ran faster than anyone tonight, that I know. The fact that the water is so cold that it has formed sheets of ice on top of it saves my life, because without the ice I wouldn’t have been able to make it anywhere. I hold on and kick as I am making it to a tire that is hanging over me. I am weak but make it to the side and rush on to the sheet that that suddenly is my friend and savior. I make a push and kick with my feet and manage to grab the tire with one hand. I pull myself up and make a move with my legs that probably I learned in the park ground fifteen years or so earlier, because I hold on, grab the inside of the tire with a leg, and pull myself up. I put my right arm in through the rope that is holding the large tire and place my one foot in the inside wall and hang on. But that’s it because I can’t move. I have no energy left to move as much as an inch. The long night of drinking, the long run and the shock of the arctic water has drained me of ay energy that I had in my body and hanging there with one arm through the rope and one leg inside the tire, I scream for help, thinking that maybe this was my last run to the ferry, but no one is thee. Everything and nothing seem to make any sense and it is getting darker. Then I see a bright light that is pulling me towards it, but it also disappears, and I pass out.
“How are you feeling big guy?” The voice is coming from my side, and I slowly open my eyes. I glance up and look into the smiling face of a very beautiful young woman, dressed in white. It’s a bright light behind her, and she looks like the Virgin Mary, just dressed in white. I notice a western Norwegian accent, maybe Førde or Balestrand where my sister Kersti spent a year in boarding school, and I just look up at her. I have no idea where I am and my look of bewilderment must amuse her, because her white face with the shiny blue eyes just smiles down at me. I’m hot, sweating and I am itching all over by body. Why the hell am I itching, and why can’t I move my arms? I am on my back; head on a big pillow and my arms are neatly positioned straight down on the side of my body. Something is pressuring my body down on to the bed, and I am very uncomfortable. I move my head to the side and glance at the room behind her where I see a clothesline with my pair of pants, my shirt, wool weather, socks, and underwear hang up to dry. I see several hundred kroner bills neatly hanging next to the clothes, something that for some reason amuses me. I laugh out loud, which instantly makes me cough, and I spit up some mucus that I don’t know what to do with and swallow a couple of times with difficulty.
“How are you feeling? “She asks me again, still smiling and I look back at her.
“I’m so hot, what is this? And where am I?”
You weren’t so hot when they brought you in here last night James, is it? Do you remember anything?”
“I was running, and I saw a light”
“You probably don’t remember, but when they brought you in here last night at around three in the morning, you were almost dead. “Really?”
“A man, probably a guarding angel or something, we didn’t get his name, fished you out of the icy water down at the pier last night and he called the ambulance to come and help. “
“I remember hanging on to the tire that’s it” I say, a little embarrassed, and still not able to move. I lift my head and look down and see that there is a pile of wool blankets covering my body, and realize this why can’t move anything
“What happened”? And why do I have these towels on me”
“Well, the emergency men didn’t get the man’s name, but apparently, he had seen you tumble into the water down off the pier and he went over to see what had happened to you. He apparently had found –luckily found I might add-a boathook hanging on a stand on the pier. He thought you had drowned but noticed you in the dark hanging off one of the tires. He had tried to talk to you, but you were gone. He had told the crew that he had managed to pull you halfway up before pulling you up, and you were barely breathing. There was a telephone booth there, so he immediately called the ambulance. When you arrived here, you were almost dead. “
I look up at her again, and she moves some of the blankets to the side and indicates that she needs to take my temperature gain. She lifts me over on to my side, bangs the thermometer in her hand a couple of times and without notice, stick it up my rectum.
“When you arrived here last night, you were at a temperature of 32 degrees Celsius, and you were barely alive. We had to get your temperature up quickly, hence the blankets”
I lay there on my side and reflects o what she is saying. Shit, I am lucky.
” Sure, they didn’t get the guy’s name?”
“Not sure, but the ambulance crew had more work to do, and didn’t tell me. Well, looks like we have managed to get your temperature back to normal. What were you doing swimming in between the ice sheets the middle of the night anyhow? Are you a member of the Polar Bear club? I shouldn’t joke at this, but you I can’t tell you how lucky you are. I guess it wasn’t your turn, because you were not far away from leaving this place, if you know what I mean” I smile and like her sense of humor.
“I was trying to catch the ferry” I say, sheepishly and embarrassed.
“Well, If I were you, take it as sign that you need to be a little more careful from now on. It would be a shame if you had left us last night.
“Thank you “is all can say in response to her.
“Anyone I can call to come and pick you up?”
“Well, my neighbor and friend Trond would probably come down and get me. I have his number in my wallet” I look over and notice the 100 kroner bills again and can’t do anything but smile. The wallet is hanging in between the shirt and the socks, and she looks through it and pulls out the piece of paper with the barely noticeable number on it. She walks out, apparently to make the call and I get a chance to gather my thoughts. Shit, I must have been extremely lucky that the dude pulled me out of there. I was gone with no point of return and if it wasn’t for him, I would not have survived.
I had run the race of my life, and almost hit the ultimate finish line. I had been running faster than ever, I won without winning. If I had made it across the finish line, I would have lost, and by losing the race, I had won the ultimate price. The light had been there for me to cross, pulling me towards it, but it wasn’t my turn, the light had disappeared, and I didn’t cross the finish line, there must be other races for me to run and other prices for me to win, even if I had received a price as a gift from an unknown man. I have other races to run but can never win a better price than I had just won, the price in form of life
