NOVEMBER 10, 2023
“BJÖRN” – ANOKA / MINNEAPOLIS / ANOKA, MN – JULY 13, 1967
The day was overcast, warm and humid—and boring. I got my glove and a tennis ball and went out on the driveway to practice fielding long grounders by throwing the ball off the back wall of the open garage. The time was still early afternoon when Jenny and Mother, the long handles of her pocket-book looped over her arm, exited the house. They were off to somewhere.
“Come on, Eric. We’re leaving now to see the dog,” Mother said. “I want you to come with us.”
“Ah! Do I have to go?”
“It’ll do you good.” I hated when Mother used a plea instead of an argument, but I never liked her arguments either.
“I don’t wanna stupid dog. It’s Jenny’s idea.”
“It’s going to be the family’s dog,” said Mother, trying her best to deflect my need to bully Jenny.
“No it isn’t,” I said, throwing the ball extra hard. “Dad doesn’t want a dog and you know it.”
“Eric!” Mother said sharply.
“What?” I said, snapping up the grounder and holding it in my glove.
“Come with us,” she said, gentleness returning to her voice, “and on our way back we can stop and get some baseball cards.”
“Our way back?” I said, throwing the ball again. “That’ll take too long.”
“Okay. On our way there. Please?” There was the plea again but in the form of an attractive offer, so I accepted.
I told Jenny to get out of the front seat and squeeze into the back of the light green, two-door ’54 Buick Super—Mother’s hand-me-down-car from Dad.
* * *
As we made our way south on the West River Road along the Mississippi toward Minneapolis, the sun came out, boosting the temperature into the torrid zone. With the windows rolled down all the way, I didn’t mind. Whenever I looked up from my baseball cards, I saw the back of Mother’s scarf flapping in a futile attempt to untie itself. I noticed that somewhere along the way, she’d put on her old sunglasses—the only pair I ever remember her wearing. They were holding steady in the breeze. My two new packs of baseball cards had yielded three all-stars, and I was still admiring them when we pulled up alongside the curb at our destination in a part of Minneapolis I’d never seen before.
Mother and Jenny alighted from the car. I glanced briefly at the house—a brick-faced, two-story bungalow—but stayed put with my cards. Halfway up to the house, Mother turned and called my name. Was it a plea or an order? I wasn’t sure. In either case, without the driving breeze, the car was getting hot, so with a sigh, I climbed out of the Super and walked toward Mother and Jenny, who waited for me before proceeding to the front door.
Mother rang the doorbell. A dog barked and scurried to the screen door, as the young man in jeans and a T-shirt hurried to catch up.
“Hi . . . Mrs. Nilsson?” the man said, as the dog barked again, then panted.
“Yes . . .” answered Mother.
“Hold on! Let me get his leash on, and we’ll step out.” The dog barked at us, but I detected what I thought was a smile in his long lip line. The man attached a leash to the dog’s collar and stepped outside with the big collie. It wagged its tail so vigorously, its whole rear end moved back and forth. With both hands, the man held the leash taut. “Calm down, boy! Calm down!” he said.
But the dog was hell-bent on meeting us. He flattened his ears back as he pushed his long snout into Jenny, nearly knocking her off the steps. She jumped down to the sidewalk, as did I, and Mother followed.
“Sorry,” the man said. “Björn loves people and he gets a little carried away sometimes.”
“Björn?” said Mother. “You call him Björn?”
“Yeah, Björn.”
“My husband will love that name,” said Mother, with both hands clutching her pocket book. “He’s Swedish.”
“So am I, “ said the man, still holding the leash tight. “By the way, my name is Dave. Dave Berg.”
“Nice to meet you, Dave—and Björn. And this is Eric and Jenny,” said Mother, gesturing toward us.
“Hi!” The man smiled at us. He seemed like a nice guy, and once he was able to manage the leash with one hand, I could tell that the man was close to his dog. He kept patting gently the animal’s rich, white and sable coat then running his hand tenderly over the top of the dog’s handsome head. By the time I had recovered from the dog’s enthusiastic greeting, I noticed how much this beautiful animal resembled the illustration of “Lad” on the cover of Terhune’s The Heart of a Dog.
“Does he understand English?” Jenny asked.
The man laughed. “He barks in English,” he said, kneeling down beside the dog, “but he doesn’t always understand it—do ya fella?” He gave the dog a hug, a strong pat on the side and stood back up.
Taken aback initially by the dog’s powerful greeting, Jenny shed her reservations and stepped forward gingerly to pet him. Panting hard in the heat, he looked up at her and again, I could swear he was smiling. I’d never seen a dog smile, but this dog was definitely smiling—smiling at us. Jenny smiled back at the dog.
“I think he likes us,” said Jenny.
“I think he does too,” said the man.
“Can we take him home with us today, Mommy?” Jenny asked.
Laughing softly, Mother said, “We can’t today, honey. Daddy will have to build a kennel and a house for him, but then we can take him home.” Looking at Dave she said, “He certainly is a beautiful animal. And Eric . . . “ She turned to me. “What do you think? Isn’t Björn a magnificent dog?”
I was impressed. The word “regal” was probably not yet in my every-day vocabulary, but that is how Björn looked as he stood elegantly on his nicely shaped paws; his slender head held high, ever-smiling, and with brown, almond-shaped, intelligent eyes; the tops of his triangular ears evenly folded over; his luxuriant coat shining in the sunlight; his well-proportioned, bushy tail, finally at rest, curved gracefully downward, then up at the tip; his full, white mane catching a light stir in the air.
“So, Eric, what do you think?” Mother asked again.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, but felt a little ashamed that I had made fun of Jenny’s letter.
* * *
With supper already on the table, Mother, my sisters and I sat down while Dad put a record on the hi-fi. He waited for Rubinstein to start up, then adjusted the volume down to allow for conversation. In his usual way, Dad turned the knob slowly, as if calibrating some measurement to the slightest fraction.
“Ray[1], we met a beautiful collie today,” said Mother, as Dad took his seat.
“Oh?” Dad said, with an inflection that gave the unsettling impression that he had forgotten Jenny’s letter and his qualified approval.
“Daddy, he’s big,” Jenny said, “but he’s the most beautiful dog in the whole wild world!”
“I think you mean in the wide world,” said Dad with a flat voice.
“In any world!” said Jenny. “His name is Björn.”
Dad immediately put down the serving dish that had just been handed him and looked straight at Mother. “His name is Björn?” Suddenly Dad was interested.
“Yes. I thought you’d approve!” Mother smiled confidently.
“Björn.” Dad repeated the name. “What a fine name.” He hesitated for a moment and asked, “Are there two dots over the ‘o’ or is there a line through it?”
“Well,” Mother said, allowing a hint of sarcasm. “We didn’t exactly see it in writing . . . Why? What’s the correct way?
“Let me come at it a little differently. Is Björn’s owner Swedish or Norwegian?”
“Oh, he’s definitely Swedish. He said so.”
“Good! That means the o has two dots over it, which is the correct way.”
“So you approve?” Mother finally got to the point that had us kids wondering.
“Please, pretty please, Daddy, say yes!”
Nodding and looking at Jenny, Dad said, “With the name Björn, yes, Björn, I will approve.”
I wondered what Dad would think of the name when he heard Björn’s bark.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] The reader might wonder why Dad, a pure Swede, was given a French name. When he was born—May 1922, just three and a half years after the end of WW I, in which his dad had fought in France—it was common among American parents (including Swedish-Americans) to give French names to baby boys. Dad’s middle name was the eminently Swedish, “Lennart.”
