thoughts about why I feel happy and sort of found myself !

well, today I really feel so happy, why ? well, I believe I have found my true friends among overalls fans, Laury, Maya, Susan etc. apparently mostly farm girls and artists!, why, perhaps I’m not an ordinary man, but I happens to like down to earth simple life, to garden, make food, cakes etc. and do shopping in thrift stores finding cool and comfortable clothes, read: well worn, yeah, almost worn out clothes, especially overalls! I have not met many men with same interests ? well, perhaps I should not worry about that ! but I also like music and art in general, especially opera and all this have very little to do with science and academia and I am professor in documentation studies and just submitted a scientific article on document theory, how does all this fit together ???, well, if you earn money as professor and have time and possibilities to enjoy thrifting, food, garden, coffee etc. it makes sense, at least for me, so I am so happy to have found myself by getting connected to all the other overalls fans united in making November 20th to an international Overalls day! “national day” for the “overalls nation” ; well, in order to say that not everything is perfect, I am wondering how we honor all the guys who wear overalls every day without thinking of it as something special ! or is that at all a problem?, probably not, it is just me who is rabbling now! so I will stick to the good feelings and enjoy good life as much as possible. The photo is taken in July 2007 in front of our Danish farmhouse with my wonderful wife and our oldest son and a nephew and his friend.

revisiting who am I,really? what about an overall ethnicity ? apropos July 4th

Well, today people in U.S.A. celebrate the independence day and this takes me back to the whole start of this blog 2 years ago, when I wrote about an “overall ethnicity” and I am wondering if that is what unites me with people like Susan, Maya, Tigon, Laury, etc. etc. no matter where you are in the world making us one overalls nation, not in an exclusive sense, but just a nation of free choice of people wanting to wear something which makes you happy and easy going and more and more beautiful as your overalls are worn, good life in a simple way, and the photo is from my Silver wedding in 2005 in SF, really a nice place for overalls people, so today I am happy and thankful today for having a US with so many nice and creative overalls people and I want to congratulate you all.

you create many of your roots as you travel through life world wide

Again, I won’t say that my ancestors do not mean anything for me, of course they do. I must admit my genetic heritage and no less all the stories being told in my family. Still, I believe it is possible to root yourself to a large extent by making you at home in different places around the world. You do that by getting some job and make you more or less indispensable in a place you like! It may sound a bit too smart, but the main point here is that you do not in advance refrain yourself from making a new place to your new “home”. Well, if you go to a place and say: “wow, here is it wonderful to be, this is my home!” most people will appreciate that and you may be able to get friends for life, even if you move to another place. Today, with Internet, email and blogs, it makes it even easier to keep the contact with people and really live as a world citizen with fellows around the world. I may have a local community after all, but it is distributed or decentralized in many places on the earth.

more thoughts on who am I, roots etc. from Snowland

I continue on this issue on who am I and roots and that kind of stuff. It is strange that when I was a teenager and young man, I was dedicated to study my ancestors, to dig in the local history and to be involved in local community work etc. and as I am growing older year after year, I become less and less interested in local issues and studying the family tree etc. When I was sitting in the Archive as teenager, most people were old retired ones, claiming that family history was becoming more and more important for them. For me it is completely opposite. At the same time, I am interested in finding my “real” roots, if I have some! Sometimes I wonder if there are other people who also feel as world citizens, being at home in several places around the world, not being related to only one place ? It could be fun if some other people would contribute to this discussion.

who am I,really? what about an overall ethnicity/identity ? bibs as folk costume ?!

Well, I am born in a city in Denmark, born out of a family with peasants and merchants, grew up as teenager on a sheep farm, learned to drive a tractor and became an historian and teacher on a Library School. After some years I and my family moved to a small island with a very strong feeling of being something special and having their own folk costumes. But I was not born there, so I could not really feel that identity. When we moved up to Norway after some years we experience May 17th. when people are wearing their folk costumes and again I dont really belong to that category either. Neither to the indigenous people up here, also having their own folk costumes. But then 6 years ago, I went to California and finally found my folk costume, the bibs ! bib overalls!! I really feel that I am myself when I am wearing my bibs. I have bibs for different occassions, for christmas, for classes on University, for working in the garden etc.
I know that there are other people having it in the same way as I do, so why not making a bib festival?, or a special BIB day ?? , oh no, every day is a bib day !!