{"id":65,"date":"2013-10-18T16:36:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T16:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/?page_id=65"},"modified":"2025-03-04T20:50:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T19:50:42","slug":"chapter-17-my-fourth-life-begins","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/?page_id=65","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 21 (Part 1) \u2013 Travels with John in the summer of ’71"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stockholm Royal Op\u00eara across “Str\u00f6mmen” seen from Norrbro.<\/p><\/div>\n

That very same summer of 1971 we visited Sweden and John got to know some of my country, my family and quite a few of my friends.<\/p>\n

It started out by my driving my little secondhand Renault 4L alone through Belgium and Germany. I made a break in K\u00f6ln (Cologne), and the next day i drove on to Wilhelmshaven where my old buddy from Lund, Albrecht Eiselt and wife Angela, were waiting for me with their children.<\/p>\n

I knew Angela too, slightly, from the stop on the bus tour around Europe in 1966. Tthey were both waiting for me when our bus stopped in K\u00f6ln, coming from Paris. Now, after two days with Albrecht and Angela, I went on to L\u00fcbeck and Travem\u00fcnde, where I took the ferry to Trelleborg.<\/p>\n

Back to traveling northwards in Sweden with John. First of all we made a very memorable stop in Lund with Gun and Per, and John got to know my sister and her family — and of course also a bit of Sk\u00e5ne, the southernmost province in Sweden where I grew up. Brother-in-law Per is an excellent guide of his beautiful Sk\u00e5ne. John loved it, and so did I.<\/p>\n

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Torup slott (castle), M\u00e5ns and Sara, 9 and 7, in the foreground<\/p><\/div>\n

We made a tour of the southwest, stopping at Torup slott (ch\u00e2teau)<\/em> dating from the 16th century. It is located in what is call Bokskogen<\/em> (the beech forest) and I remember well how, during the war, we would ride our bikes to Bokskogen<\/em>, along with a hoard of other Sunday bikers. During the war we did not have a car because of the gasoline rationing. Mother sold her car when we would have needed an aggregate for burning coal to make producer gas. If, however, you needed a car for professional use, you got a license to run your car with gasoline. But for us it was bicycles.<\/p>\n

ngg_shortcode_0_placeholderAfter a few wonderful days in Lund and environs, we waved goodbye to my family and traveled in my little Renault 4L to Mother’s country house in southern Sm\u00e5land, given to her by my grandparents. It is situated in a gorgeous region of Sm\u00e5land with vast forests and lakes.<\/p>\n

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Lake Mien seen from the road close to Mother’s house — our wonderful clean water swimming lake.<\/p><\/div>\n

We went swimming with Arne in the beautiful lake Mien where the water is so clean you can drink it.<\/p>\n

Arne was the main cook that evening, and he had prepared his favorite dish which was sweetbreads (kalvbr\u00e4ss<\/em>), always called ris de veau<\/em> by us. Mother had prepared a Swedish specialty, freshly dug up potatoes, boiled with lots of dill and usually eaten with butter. Those potatoes are a delicacy all by themselves.<\/p>\n

The very best way of eating Swedish new potatoes though is with sour cream, chives and salted herring — just salted, no sugar like in matje herring, which is something totally different. The herring has been salted in barrels for several days. However, this old-fashioned delicacy is getting ever more rare in Sweden. In Norway and Iceland I do believe you can still get it. The herring is put in salt in the barrels out at sea. You usually have to desalt it in water for a few hours before eating it.<\/p>\n

ngg_shortcode_1_placeholderBut this wasn’t salt herring, it was about ris de veau.<\/em> Arne, who is quite a gourmet cook and liked to try new things, had also made a sauce hollandaise <\/em>with great success and there was also broccoli.<\/p>\n

We sat down to eat this delicious meal. But John was a bit flustered at this first meeting with my parents, so he happened to put the sauce hollandaise<\/em> on the ris de veau<\/em>. Arne noticed it immediately and told him in a school teacher’s tone of voice “The sauce hollandaise<\/em> is for the broccoli.” John, also a true gourmet, will never forget this and his embarrassment and it has become a never-dying joke between us. Since then we have had many wonderful meals with Arne in Paris, in restaurants and at our home. Arne and John got along wonderfully well.<\/p>\n

Our odyssey went on to Stockholm this first time, since I have friends there. We were staying with Britt and Ingvar in T\u00e4by — just one time out of several times we have been staying at their beautiful house. We have even spent two Christmases with them. Wonderfully generous friends.<\/p>\n

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“Str\u00f6mmen” is the narrowest part of Lake M\u00e4laren. Riksdagshuset (the Parliament) in the background; the Opera on the right.<\/p><\/div>\n

However, Stockholm is by no means to be missed. It is a wonderfully beautiful city, that sits on several islands on Lake M\u00e4laren. That is, mainly the Old Town and quite a few other islands, but of course the larger parts of the city are on the mainland north and south of the lake. (More about Stockholm in Chapter 24 (Part 2)<\/a> \u2013<\/strong>\u2013 Stockholm and some history<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

In the photo here is Str\u00f6mbron, one of the two bridges that connect the island of the Old Town with the mainland in the north, Norrmalm.<\/p>\n

We walked and walked and walked through the streets of this wonderful Swedish capital. And of course we traveled by metro, and by bus out on Djurg\u00e5rden. Today, in 2021, there is even a streetcar that goes out on the island of Djurg\u00e5rden.<\/p>\n

We loved Gamla stan<\/em> (the Old Town), among other beautiful sites in Stockholm, and we had the most expensive dry martinis ever at the Grand Hotel on Blasieholmskajen. Quite ridiculous. What silly tourists we were. And yet Stockholm was my home for four years around 1960.<\/p>\n

Stockholm may well be the most beautiful city in the world with its many islands on Lake M\u00e4laren — water water everywhere — and its many beautiful old buildings, but what it lacks is the charm of the Paris caf\u00e9s or the unpretentious but pleasant little bars of New York City.<\/p>\n

We had dinner at Operak\u00e4llaren<\/em>, which was a near disaster. It is supposed to be one of Stockholm’s best three restaurants (certainly the most expensive), but they FORGOT our order for some kind of grouse (sn\u00f6ripa<\/em>) Of course it got straightened out, but it took time, and we got very tired of waiting. It was actually a silly thing to go to this top restaurant, but in those days there were not that many small and good restaurants in Stockholm as there are today.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we loved Stockholm and we took oodles of pictures, Skansen, Millesg\u00e5rden, on Liding\u00f6, the unbelievably gorgeous outdoor museum arranged around the sculptor Carl Milles’ work place. And I think we went tto a museum or two. I seem to remember the Historic Museum on Narvav\u00e4gen, which somehow I had never been to, even though I had a stepfather like Arne. What amazing energy John and I had in our youth.<\/p>\n

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However, a big city can not possibly be compared to a small village alongside a little river in the deep pine forests of Bergslagen<\/em> — “the law of the mountains”, and this was once a rich mining area — one of the most gorgeous regions in Sweden. In my little Renault 4L, we drove from Stockholm to a little village in Bergslagen<\/em> where I had friends, a lovely little nook of the world that we have returned to many unforgettable times.<\/p>\n

The little village I know the best in this area is L\u00f6a, and it\u2019s a dream. Ever since the 60s I always had friends in this little nook of the world, very much an artists’ colony for people from all over the country and even from the other side of the Atlantic. So this was our first visit together with friends in L\u00f6a and many many things have changed since then. But L\u00f6a still remains the home for bohemians and artists.<\/p>\n

One time in L\u00f6a, in 1971 maybe, we were planning to go or a dip in a secluded place where you were usually all alone. However, this time two people whom we didn\u2019t know were already there. The man turned out to be a very well-known actor and  TV personality who was skinny-dipping in the creek with his wife. He hastened to put on his swim trunks. We now got to know them and it turned out that his wife was a very good artist -painter and of course we we were invited to their house after this little incident. We really liked the wife’s paintings very much. They were somewhat reminiscent of the French fauvistes<\/em> \u2013 Derain maybe more than anyone else.<\/p>\n

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Coffee time in Lennart’s (seen from back) and Maria’s front-yard. Childhood friend Gerd, husband G\u00f6ran in boater; sister Eva, Siv.<\/p><\/div>\n

This first time in L\u00f6a for John, my old friend Ragnhild who was then still married to Lennart had incredibly delicious, homemade gravad lax (marinated salmon, as it translates, not quite correctly). Wonderful friends from Dalarna<\/em>, two artists, Gerd and G\u00f6ran. Gerd, one of my childhood friends that I admired the most, came down from just a few kilometers north of L\u00f6a, and they had brought the most exquisite Swedish new potatoes, homegrown of course, and dug up the same morning. We had a fabulously delicious Swedish meal and it was such a wonderful surprise that Gerd and G\u00f6ran were joining us.<\/p>\n

Well, goodbye to Sweden for this time and to particularly beautiful little town of L\u00f6a, a paradise on earth, with friends who are always ready to receive us. We would be back.<\/p>\n

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L\u00f6a — view from Nina’s and Lars’ honeymoon house.<\/p><\/div>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

A colleague of John’s from Coll\u00e8ge de France<\/em>, Christian, had invited us and several other people from le Coll\u00e8ge<\/em> to the summer house he rented every month of August in Anth\u00e9or on la C\u00f4te d’Azur<\/em> (the Riviera for the non-French). Anth\u00e9or is situated between Cannes and Saint-Rapha\u00ebl, but it is, or al least was in those days, far less expensive than the jet-set places, like Saint-Tropez or Cannes. This is actually the chic part of ‘la C\u00f4te’<\/em>, but Anth\u00e9or was not on the list of luxury places. It has grown enormously though since we were there in 1971.<\/p>\n

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Countryside in Auvergne, le Centre, the extinct volcano, Puy de D\u00f4me in the background<\/p><\/div>\n

On our way down to la C\u00f4te, <\/em>we of course drove around to a good number of see-worthy places. Trust John for sightseeing \u2013 he has it all worked out, and he knows where the most spectacular places are. From Clermond-Ferrand in le Centre<\/em> we drove through the d\u00e9partement Puy de D\u00f4me<\/em>, with its famous extinct volcano that gave its name to the department.<\/p>\n

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Notre Dame d’Orcival, in Auvergne, a gorgeous Romanesque church<\/p><\/div>\n

We drove through Auvergne, a gorgeous countryside with the most beautiful Romanesque churches, possibly in all of Europe — and Orcival probably at the top. Making statements like that is, needless to say, very risky and right away It brings to my mind the Cathedral in my beloved university town, Lund, which is a masterpiece of Romanesque art. I may also be biased if I put Lund Cathedral at the very top.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_2_placeholder\n

We got to the medieval town of Sarlat in Dordogne, well worth seeing. Nearby is Les Eyzies, where the remains of Cro-Magnon man were found. Just outside Les Eyzies is the Grotte de Font-de-Gaume<\/em>, with the best-known prehistoric cave paintings that you can still see today. Those cave paintings are amazingly beautiful works of art, but it was far too dark inside to take pictures. No flash allowed of course.<\/p>\n

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The enchanting medieval town of Sarlat, Dordogne (South-west)<\/p><\/div>\n

The most famous caves for prehistoric painting, les Grottes de Lascaux<\/em> are closed for tourists and what you can see today are replicas at a different site 200 meters away from the original site, but incredibly well made. The hordes of tourists who flocked to Lascaux damaged the paintings through their breathing, and the caves had to be closed.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

We drove along les Gorges du Tarn <\/em>where, unforgettably, Siv got ‘moist palms’ because we were driving on narrow roads at the very edge of steep cliffs.<\/p>\n

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Sarlat — a ‘spectacle’ is being prepared in the street<\/p><\/div>\n

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We have been to other canyons in France since then and I do believe I am now over the kind of angoisse<\/em> I felt at the time. We were driving my little Renault 4L of course and I didn’t quite know at the time what an excellent driver John is.<\/p>\n

We went through so many places that I had or had not seen before that it’s impossible to include them all here. We went through N\u00eemes with its arena (les ar\u00e8nes de N\u00eemes<\/em>), which I knew well and where I had even seen a corrida. What a horror!<\/p>\n

That was not my fault. I was teaching French in a Swedish summer school in Montpellier in 1960, and the corrida was on the program. It was a fiesta in the entire town though, and quite memorable, even though I shuddered at the cruelty of the ‘spectacle’<\/em><\/p>\n

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Le ch\u00e2teau de Monfort and La Dordogne, the river itself — in what is the greenest region in France<\/p><\/div>\n

John and I also went through Marseille and admired  le vieux port<\/em>, which I at least had never seen before. We then went on to Cassis, right close by to the east of Marseille for a wonderful dinner in one of the few charming fishing villages that were left on la C\u00f4te. <\/em><\/p>\n

Someone had recommend Cassis to us, and we have been back a couple of times after that, first with John’s parents and then with my sister Gun. Cassis was at the time an adorable little town with a beautiful harbor, still unspoiled by tourism. Gun did research work on malignant melanoma one semester in Marseille and we toured the coastal part of Provence together that Easter in 1981. I remember which year because I still had a leg in a cast after a ski accident in Alpe-d’Huez.<\/p>\n

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The bay at Anth\u00e9or with le Cap Roux in the haze in the background.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Anth\u00e9or, there were, besides Christian himself who had lent John and me his own bedroom, the oh-so-funny practical-joke couple Stratis, the Greek, and his wife Lucille; Marie-Gen, who worked with the bubble chamber group at the Coll\u00e8ge de France,<\/em> (Oh days long gone by) and who a couple of years later on married Pierre, an excellent physicist who is still at Coll\u00e8ge de France, or probably retired now. They now have grown-up children, and may even be grandparents. We see them on and off whenever there is a big event at the Centre de Calcul<\/em> here in Lyon, such as John’s retirement party.<\/p>\n

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From left to right Siv, Lucille (hidden behind Siv) Claire-Jeanne, Marie-Gen, Christian (hidden), Stratis in my hat and Hans, a German friend.<\/p><\/div>\n

And there was Claire-Jeanne, the very good arty photographer who somewhat condescendingly referred to the kind of photos John and I take as postcard pictures. There was another bachelor too, a German named Hans, whom I never got to know too well. He was a friend of Christian’s, presumably a physicist.<\/p>\n

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John and Siv on their way back to the house from lunch at the restaurant or a cool drink under the plane-trees.<\/p><\/div>\n

Funny Stratis amused himself in the strangest ways. Once by throwing my black hat into the sea, never to be retrieved of course. Hilarious. Hmm. Another time he and Lucille poured water over me and I think also John as we were sitting below their bedroom window.<\/p>\n

We took turns cooking, but more often than not we ate at a restaurant down the road, or actually up on a cliff, with a  gorgeous view over the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

Les Flots bleus<\/em> was the name of this hotel-restaurant, which became our standard eating place. It had a view over the beach and bay of Antheor, with the Mediterranean in the background.<\/p>\n

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Siv is getting a tiny bit of a tan. Wonderful breaking waves.<\/p><\/div>\n

We ate lots of seafood of course and omelette norv\u00e9gienne<\/em> was our favorite desert. It’s hot outside and still cold ice-cream inside. Meringue like on the outside and flamb\u00e9.<\/p>\n

John and I made a trip tp Cannes one day, mostly to do something a bit different. I had passed through it once on my way somewhere, probably when I spent a pretty boring summer in Saint-Rapha\u00ebl, but Cannes is worth seeing.<\/p>\n

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Siv at a caf\u00e9 overlooking the luxurious Cannes harbor<\/p><\/div>\n

The luxury is really too much though, too overwhelming, and I definitely prefer Nice which has a ‘real<\/em> town’ behind the fa\u00e7ades with la Promenade des Anglais<\/em>, the exotic-looking palm trees, the blue Mediterranean and white yachts. Nice is a town where real people live, and where it’s pleasant to walk around in the shade among the old houses on a hot day, in little streets far away from the flashy waterfront.<\/p>\n

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All things come to an end and after the the summer vacation was over, I had to return to my teaching job in Westchester. John was spending another year at the Coll\u00e8ge de France.<\/p>\n

The year we spent on different continents we wrote frequent letters. The funny thing was that we were reading the same books, partly, and discussing Le Mythe de Sisyphe <\/em>and other books by Albert Camus, the most pessimistuic author I can imagine, unless it would be Jean-Paul Sartre. Camus’ more commonly read L’Etranger<\/em> is far more depressing than maybe most people realize. “Le h\u00e9ros absurde fait face \u00e0 l’absurdit\u00e9 de la vie.”<\/em>2<\/a><\/sup>
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In “Le Mythe de Sisyphe”<\/em> Camus is introducing the expression ‘”faire le saut”<\/em>. I have forgotten what exactly he means by that, but I remember being thrilled by it at the time I was reading the book. What it means to me today is making the leap from  superstition, the domination of a clique of witchdoctors in whatever religion you refer to, from the land of the unseeing masses to a state of mind where you accept the absence of a mythical being to lean on. I do believe that this is also what Camus had in mind when he formed the expression “faire le saut<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

Your blinders are gone and there is nobody to go to for judgement or for advice, for comfort or for forgiveness. People will certainly react very differently if they come to this stark conclusion, but I find it a relief to know that there is no punishing or rewarding God, no salvation, no judgement. I alone am responsible for what I do and I alone can make something liveable out of my life.<\/p>\n

The famous first sentence of “L’Etranger”<\/em> sets the tone for the rest of the book. Meursault, the Stranger, says<\/p>\n

\u201cAujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-\u00eatre hier, je ne sais pas<\/em>.” 3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Just before he’s going to be executed (for having killed an Arab on the beach, without having the slightest idea why he did it – the sun was in his eyes, was all he could say), the chaplain has been seeing him and told him that he would pray for him: <\/em><\/em>Meursault, the anti-hero, became furious and insulted the chaplain.<\/p>\n

 “Comme si cette grande col\u00e8re m\u2019avait purg\u00e9 du mal, vid\u00e9 d\u2019espoir, devant cette nuit charg\u00e9e de signes et d\u2019\u00e9toiles, je m\u2019ouvrais pour la premi\u00e8re fois \u00e0 la tendre indiff\u00e9rence du monde.”<\/em><\/em>4<\/a><\/sup>
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I even read the book with an advanced French class at Mamaroneck High School in Westchester, New York, simply because they were so very eager to read it. I remember particularly discussing with the students the meaning of the last words on the very last page:<\/p>\n

“\u2009Pour que tout soit consomm\u00e9, pour que je me sente moins seul, il me restait \u00e0 souhaiter qu\u2019il y ait beaucoup de spectateurs le jour de mon ex\u00e9cution et qu\u2019ils m\u2019accueillent avec des cris de haine.<\/em>“5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Though we never came to any conclusion, my students had many interesting interpretations.<\/p>\n

With another class that same year we read La Symphonie Pastorale<\/em> by Andr\u00e9 Gide. Also a sad book, but far less so. After finishing the book where le pasteur<\/em> takes Gertrude, the young blind girl, to a concert in Neuch\u00e2tel to hear La Symphonie Pastorale,<\/em> she manages to ‘see’ colors by comparing them to the various instruments. When thinking of the immense pleasure Gertrude takes in this concert, I realized that possibly most of my students had never heard this symphony, and so I wanted to have them listen to it in class. I found somewhat to my surprise that I did not have the record. So what do I do? I called up John in Paris and said ‘Listen, I want to play La Symphonie Pastorale<\/em> to my students. We’ve just finished reading the book in class. Can you recommend a good recording?’ John said without a moment’s hesitation: Fritz Reiner.and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Fritz Reiner was already dead by then, but his music most certainly was not.<\/p>\n

I set aside a class for the symphony and the students loved it. Most of them did indeed not know it, and it was enormously appreciated.<\/p>\n

I have never stopped being amused, and impressed, by the way John answered without a second’s hesitation. Fritz Reiner’s recording is the one we still have today, only on a CD of course. Also I actually prefer Fritz Reiner’s interpretations of Beethoven’s symphonies in general.<\/p>\n

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John at 1111 Bryn Mawr with lovable Lucia on his chest.<\/p><\/div>\n

John came over for Christmas and besides going to the Metropolitan Opera to see the only opera I had managed to get tickets for, “Samson and Delilah” (or Samson et Dalila<\/em> as my program says) by Saint-Sa\u00ebns,<\/p>\n

After a few days we took another flight, to Florida this time, to spend Christmas with my future parents-in-law. We were exprected to arrive in Orlando a couple of days before Christmas.<\/p>\n

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John at the lakefront at 1111 Bryn Mawr<\/p><\/div>\n

I was very anxious to make a favorable impression, so I went to George Jensen in the City to buy a gorgeous platter in brushed stainless steel with a tray of teak inside to cut a roast on. I sent it ahead by mail for some reason (it was heavy, for one thing) and when we arrived they had already opened it and they were delighted. It was meant as a Christmas present, but it didn\u2019t say so,<\/p>\n

I met John’s entire family, except for a couple of aunts in Ohio, whom I got to know later. His sister was down from North Carolina with her first baby child, a daughter called Neall, who was less than a year old.<\/p>\n

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Grandma and Siv in 1973 after John and I had just got married.<\/p><\/div>\n

Grandma O’Neall may well have been my favorite. An adorable old lady who did not make a fuss about our not being married and still sharing a bedroom. The funny thing was that John’s mother went to all kids of pains to keep her from realizing the truth, but to no avail. Grandma knew that we were sharing the master bedroom, and she didn’t make a waves about it. We saw her many more times when she still lived alone in her house, also in Orlando, and later when she was in a hospital in Jacksonville where her son-in-law, Uncle Larry, a cardiologist, was her doctor.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

For my Christmas present John gave me the entire recording of \u2018Der Rosenkavalier\u2019 by Richard Strauss. The entire synopsis was of course included. One Sunday, alone in my apartment in New Rochelle, I spent all day on the floor in my living room listening to the opera and reading the text by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. I found his German quite difficult to read though, and when I mentioned that years later to my very good Austrian\/Parisian friend J\u00fcrgen, a former colleague from l\u2019Ecole Centrale de Paris,<\/em> he said that didn\u2019t surprise him. Von Hofmannsthal writes a very special kind of Austrian German, probably with a lot of dialect. Fortunately the text was also in English, but I was stubborn and wanted to read it in German.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

A few months later I flew over to Paris one Easter vacation by a charter flight, which I would live to regret. (When I went to London to get my flight back, in John’s company \u2013 the true gentleman \u2013 I found that the charter company no longer existed and I had to buy a regular ticket for the flight back home.)<\/p>\n

That was most likely the time I really got to know Roberto. I remember vividly having lunch at a little restaurant across from Coll\u00e8ge de France<\/em> in rue des Ecoles, “Chez La Brune”<\/em> they called it, and the people from the Coll\u00e8ge<\/em> used to eat there quite regularly. (“On se verra chez la Brune \u00e0 midi<\/em>.”) And that’s where Roberto really got into the picture. I was asking myself who this short, dark and quite handsome young man was who spoke with such an atrocious Spanish accent that I thought I would never learn to understand him. But things do change. As soon as we got back to Paris (I am getting ahead of my story here), Roberto became a member of the family with our dog, Puppy, and our adorable M\u00e9lisande. I soon forgot that there had ever been a time when I found Roberto difficult to understand.<\/p>\n

Continued: Chapter  21 (Part 2) — Bergslagen and L\u00f6a 13 years later<\/a><\/strong><\/h6>\n
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  1. By 1955, the carbon dioxide, heat, humidity, and other contaminants produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings and introduced lichen<\/a> on the walls. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 to preserve the art. (Wikipedia<\/a>) ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The absurd hero faces the absurdity of life. ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. “Today Mother died. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.” ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. “As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; in that night alive with signs and stars, for the first time I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.\u200e” ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  5. “For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with howls of execration.”  \u2013 Translations by Esther Lombardi<\/a> ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    That very same summer of 1971 we visited Sweden and John got to know some of my country, my family and quite a few of my friends. It started out by my driving my little secondhand Renault 4L alone through … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":27,"menu_order":21,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-65","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32659,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65\/revisions\/32659"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}