Paul Reffstrup Oral History, 2005

Machine-assisted transcript. Speaker turns were reviewed conservatively; please verify against the recording before quotation or publication.

[00:00:00] Elizabeth Uhlig:

This is an oral history with Paul Reffstrup. Today is February 9, 2005, and we're at his home in Eugene. My name is Elizabeth Uhlig. Paul, could you tell us where you were born?

[00:00:17] Paul Reffstrup:

I was born in Nikolayev, which is in the Ukraine. My dad was working for a Danish construction firm, and therefore we were there. My dad was there for two years, then he went back and married my wife, and I mean my mother, and they came back and they lived there another five years. And both my sister and I, we were born in the Ukraine, in Nikolayev.

[00:00:52] Elizabeth Uhlig:

When was that?

[00:00:54] Paul Reffstrup:

I was born July 27, 1915.

[00:01:04] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How long did your family stay in Russia?

[00:01:08] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, we fled out of there in 1917 because of the Bolshevik Revolution. And my dad had often told me about that trip. My sister was two and a half, and I was one and a half, and we would get on a train, and he had a compass with him, and he would look at the compass and he said, nah, this is too far in this direction, so they would get up at a hut station and get a different train going in a different direction until they finally got, they had to go all the way from Nikolayev, which is on the Black Sea coast, and we had to go back to Denmark. The shortcut would have been to Poland and Germany, but in 1917, you could not go that route because of World War I. So we had to travel all the way up to Russia, to Finland and Sweden, and back that way to Denmark. And it was wintertime, and it was cold, and it must have been a very, very difficult trip for my parents. I don't recall it.

[00:02:40] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Do you know how long it took them?

[00:02:42] Paul Reffstrup:

No, I have no idea.

[00:02:47] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Where did you live in Russia, where did you live in Denmark?

[00:02:54] Paul Reffstrup:

My earliest connection, I mean recollection, was in a town called Nubor, which would translate in English to Newcastle, and there my dad was still working his construction work, and it's on the middle island. And by the way, that became my home island, and it's the same island on which Hans Christian Andersen was born. What's the name of the island? The island is Fun, F-Y-N, Fun. In those days, it was an island. Today, it's connected with bridges to the other islands. I don't know if it is still an island, but you can drive today all across Denmark, which you could not in those days. And that was my earliest recollection, and then we moved, we lived several places there, and I actually spent almost all my time in Denmark on that island.

[00:04:21] Elizabeth Uhlig:

What kind of work did your father do? What kind of construction work?

[00:04:24] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, it would be harbors and bridges in that corner.

[00:04:33] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Did you have other brothers and sisters?

[00:04:35] Paul Reffstrup:

I had one sister and two brothers. My sister was older than I and the two brothers younger, and I only had one brother remaining, the other two I had.

[00:04:55] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Where did you go to school?

[00:04:58] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, I went to two one-room schoolhouses, of course, and there was something different. We went to school every other day, and from six to ten, you went to school Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. From ten to fourteen, you went to school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So that was the type of school I went to. We had one schoolteacher, and there would be only one class, I mean one room, and it was, of course, strictly different than you see now, but I can remember one schoolteacher I had, particularly when he was teaching geography, and I was, that was from six to ten, and he said, today we are going to teach geography, and so he would go to the blackboard and draw a square, and he said, this is the schoolroom, and then he would proceed to show where the door was, and the part bell is still, the heat of the room. He would show all the windows, and if there was flowers in the windows, he would draw them in. He would draw everybody's desk, and he would draw his own desk, and he would write the names on them. So now you were in the picture, and you could say, right there is Paul, and right there is Greta, and right there is Anna, and so on, and this would go on, so that would be lesson one. Lesson two, he would include the entire building. The rest of it was his house, his domicile. Only one room was the school, and then he would include the outdoors, the playground, with all its apparatus that we played on, and clear out to the street, and then the next lesson, now he would begin to include the street and the candy store next door, which every school has, and the little bridge across the creek, and the tree that were right there, and then the road that goes out to everybody's house, eventually, and their names, and for geography, that was a great thing, and then you could see that the school room got smaller and smaller, and the rest of the stuff showed up on the picture the following day, and so on, and when he finally got the whole thing in, then he would say, now you have the town where you live, and you know exactly where you are right there, and then he would pull down the map and say this dot is our little town right there, and then he would go on from there, he would pull down the map of the island, then he would pull a map down of the entire Denmark, and then Europe, and develop that way, and this is how I learned geography, and that's well over 80 years ago, and I still remember it clearly.

[00:09:20] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Do you think that had something to do with your interest in traveling then?

[00:09:25] Paul Reffstrup:

I couldn't say that, but the fact that my family, my father traveled to Russia and worked all over, and those things might have been part of it, I don't know, but I have traveled myself a great deal. In 1936, I just said I'm going on a trip to Paris on my bicycle from Denmark, and I get on my bicycle and I go to Paris. My sister was in Paris at the time, and so I went down to visit her, and it was a most interesting trip, and I remember many details from that today, and that 68 years ago or something, and I remember it clearly.

[00:10:26] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How long did it take you to get from Denmark then to Paris on your bicycle?

[00:10:30] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, the trip lasted seven weeks, and it cost almost nothing, and of course Hitler was in Germany at that time. In fact, I took a picture in Berlin. I took a picture of Hitler, and I watched everything as it developed. I was in Berlin at the Olympic Games in Berlin. I watched that, and I was interested in bicycle racing myself at that time, so when I was in France, I saw the world's biggest bicycle race, the Tour de France. I saw them coming in one day, and so that was a big event, and this is all unplanned, and when I got to Paris, I got there the day before Bastille's celebration started, which is the 14th of July, I believe. And so I was there, and that was a four-day celebration, you know, with dance in the streets and airplanes overriding and parades and the whole thing for four days. It was a great celebration, and I did not speak German or French, so it was very interesting, but I still came away with some valuable information, and then on the way back, I hit the Olympic Games, which I also had not planned on.

[00:12:20] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Where did you stay?

[00:12:22] Paul Reffstrup:

At the youth hostels, and Germany had 2,200 of them at that time. They were very well developed, and they were in everywhere. They were in old castles. You would go over winding bridge and go into an old castle, and there would all be those granite on the outside, and you could see the whole thing. And then you'd go inside, and there would be linoleum on the floor and hot, cold running water in the bathroom and the whole thing. It was just great. And I have been, what it was like, I think 900 guests in one of those overnight in those days, and eight or nine different nationalities, and there were most young people on bicycles and walking or whatever.

[00:13:31] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Did you go alone on this?

[00:13:33] Paul Reffstrup:

I don't.

[00:13:34] Elizabeth Uhlig:

You went alone?

[00:13:34] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes, yes, yes. And you went just where you wanted to go, or did you have a plan? I had no plan. I went down to see my sister and then took a slightly different route home. And coming back, I went specifically, I went to the Turengen, which is more mountainous, and I went that way, and then I got to Leipzig. And I remember coming to Ute Hostels, they were run by an old couple, and they had maybe 40 beds or something, but they had on the door a sign, and it said, Willsto undiese Haus herrein dan Mustein gus Heil Hitler sign, meaning if you wish to enter this house, your greeting must be Heil Hitler, and that's what they had on the door. And I talked to the people, and they had never seen Hitler, but they had a son in the army, and they were very proud of that at that time, and they were very proud, and they would go in the army, but they could not join the army outright. They had to go in and work two years in what they called our bysthenists, which is work service. In other words, there were two years we picked and shoveled before they got guns. That's the way the army was, and they were very proud of being in Hitler's army, a lot of them. And when you come to a little town, and they would be a parade, they were usually always a parade, so it was led by soldiers with the full outfit, you know, very glamorous. And then as they come down, then clear down, you know, everybody in town, all the kids, followed, and they put on whatever they could to look a little bit like a soldier and watch little kids. So that's the way it was in those days.

[00:16:11] Elizabeth Uhlig:

So did you have to salute them?

[00:16:14] Paul Reffstrup:

No, you don't have to. They just had the signs. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no. You didn't have to.

[00:16:22] Elizabeth Uhlig:

So where did you see Hitler in Berlin?

[00:16:26] Paul Reffstrup:

In Berlin. I saw him on the street coming from one stadium to another. He kept him standing up in his car, and he was going from one place, and he was on his way out to where they were doing the rowing or something. And the first came the motor, the police, the SAS, and I forgot what they're called. And they came ahead with big signs. They said, Rick Houghton, Rick Houghton. Keep to the right, keep to the right. And so I said, what goes on here? And so the answer was, there are a few outcomes. There are a few outcomes. So here he came, yeah. And I took a picture right there.

[00:17:19] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Do you still have that picture?

[00:17:21] Paul Reffstrup:

No, I lost that because, I mean, this was in 1936. When you went to the Olympics,

[00:17:29] Elizabeth Uhlig:

did you have to get tickets, or was that difficult?

[00:17:32] Paul Reffstrup:

Oh, no, that was not difficult. I only went to the bicycle event on the bicycle track, so I didn't actually go in the real stadium. When Americans think of, when I think of the 1936 Olympics, we think of Jesse Owens. Yes. Yeah, was that in the news then? It was in the news very much. And the German papers said, you know, because he was not the only colored guy that won. And they have puns like anybody else. And so the newspaper said, it sure looks black for America. Now, that was their pun. Yeah. So I remember reading that. And then when you saw, you said you also saw the Tour de France. Yes.

[00:18:35] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And you just stand on the side of the road and watch them go by?

[00:18:40] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes, watch them come in at one ending point, one day, on their second day. So it's still very much like we see on TV today. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But then there was another event that I kind of liked. And that was when I was going home, leaving Paris. Then I went the different route. I came in by the Moshel River. As far as I know, kind of from the north, I came into Paris. And then I went out towards the east to leave France. And Strasbourg, I think, was the name of it. I can't, I'm not sure. And there was 450 kilometers, which is three times 90 miles. And so I had, I could do it in three days. And I did it in three days. But on my second day, I could see that I would be out of money. Oh, money. I had some francs, not many. And then I had tourist markets. Yeah, the German markets, yeah. No, tourist markets. Tourists. Tourists.

[00:20:19] Elizabeth Uhlig:

So that was a special, what do you call it?

[00:20:26] Paul Reffstrup:

We have an English word. The traveler's checks? Yeah, traveler's checks. You could call them that. And we could buy them for Germany. And that was tourist markets. And they were approximately half the price of the current beluda value. So we would buy that when we go to places like this. And so I would take the, I couldn't cash them in France. And so I would be very close for money on this day here. So I'm on the second day, I'm in the town of Nancy. And I have 10 francs. Well, 10 francs is what it costs to sleep one night. Or to eat for one day, basically. And so I went to the police and saw I went in the police station, granite stones and stuff. And it's about six o'clock at night. And so I come in there and so I got to talking to a guy. And I got a guy that talked a little German. And, oh, because they're not willing to talk German. But I didn't speak very much German either, you know. So I talked a little German with him and I understood. And then he says, where's your bicycle? It's outside. Well, take it in so they won't steal it. So I got my bicycle in the hall where they were sitting. And there was long vans and about 12 shined arms sitting there waiting to go on watch or whatever. So this fellow, he says, let me see your papers. And then I would go talk to the chief after I explained to him. I had what my problem was that I would be out of money tomorrow. Either I sleep tonight or eat tomorrow. But I can't do both now. I'm on my way to Germany. And he took my paper, went into the chief, and he says, and then he came back out and he says, follow me. And so he gets on his bike and I get on my bike. But before that, while he was in there, I was talking, if you call it that. But these 12 policemen was reading the papers and explaining to me what it said. Because I couldn't read French. And it was the day that King Edward VIII abdicated the throne of England because he was going to marry Mrs. Emerson Semmel. I can't remember any. Yeah, but that was the day. And so I remember that. And that was the very day. And so we laughed over that. Anyway, he came out and he said, follow me. So I followed him to some kind of a prop house, you know. And right there, the first thing the guy in the cage said, give me your value. That's my money, my watch, and my fountain pen. Now, a fountain pen, see, in those days you didn't have ballpoint pen. Fountain pen. You know what a fountain pen is? And you had to load the ink and all that. And they were expensive. So that was considered valuable. Okay. And then I got a shower. And then they gave me a cart upstairs to sleep on. And he said, now roll up your pants and use them for pillows so they don't steal them while you're sleeping. And then next morning, they gave me a bowl of soup and half a loaf of bread for breakfast and sent me on my way, you know, for nothing. And I always believe that, for sure, that if you look people in the eye and tell them who you are and what you want, they will help you, no matter where you are. And that's really been my code of life. Paul, why don't you talk a little bit about living in Denmark in the late 30s?

[00:25:55] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Did you know that there was going to be a war?

[00:25:59] Paul Reffstrup:

No, I did not. But we just talked about my trip to Paris. And I had to do that and get back to Denmark to a certain time in 1936 because I was then, I had to serve my military obligation and I was assigned for the Navy. So I had to...

[00:26:31] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How long was that obligation for?

[00:26:35] Paul Reffstrup:

I don't know. I don't think I knew at the time either. But it turned out to be only seven months. But I was in and I was stationed at an airport, the Navy airport in Copenhagen after I was in boot camp, which was on an old schooner. The old schooner was tied up in Copenhagen right next to the Little Mermaid. And it probably laid there tied up for a hundred years. I don't know. But it was an old sailor. I don't know what kind of ship it was because I don't specialize in that. And so I think we were on there six or eight weeks on this ship and had to learn to live as sailors. And that meant that we slept in hammocks. We took them down in the morning. We put them up at night and went up and then slept in them. And we jumped when the Boston blew the whistle and all of that. And we knew all of that. And so we got off the ship from time to time to march, or get exercise I think. And then I got assigned to an airport which was out on the peninsula right outside Copenhagen. And of course the Navy's planes were all pontoon planes. They could land on water. And what they did mostly there, oh yeah, my job was guns. And I would take the guns out of the aircraft and clean them and put them back again. That was my job. And I worked with two officers. And so the three of us had a little shop. And there we worked. And I spent seven months there. And it was not a bad thing. Only, you know, you didn't get paid. They withheld 50% of your pay. And after seven months, the 50% that they withheld came to about, I think, was $11 and something. So, you know, it was just enough money to buy stamps. And that was all you could buy with it. There were no pay. And of course we didn't have any expenses either, you know, when we were out there. So we were stationed out there. And we had to stand watch at night. And this is in peacetime. Because 36 is still peacetime. And then we had the gun. But the gun couldn't shoot because they had a wooden plug in the end. So the whole thing was just routine. For no reason at all. And so I was here seven months. And when I got through with that, that was in Copenhagen. Which was away from home. Because I lived on Phoenix. And so by the time I was through with the military, I got a civilian job and a machine job. So I worked for about a year around different places in Copenhagen. And then I decided, it's a long story, but then I decided to go to sea. And I just simply went up to the, I don't know what you call this, ship's office. I don't know what you call it. I don't know what the name of it. And signed up for a ship. And yeah, they had one because I was machinist. And I had studied marine engineering. And so I got a job on a new ship that was going to leave. And we left on June 18, 1938 on a brand new ship. And we left for the states. And the ship was empty. Now, I don't know if you know anything about ships. But an empty ship is a bad thing on the ocean. You know, it sits up high and it jumps all over. Oh, yeah. And I, of course, was seasick coming over. But we came to the United States. And it took 18 days to cross the ocean, which it should not have taken. But they went very careful and very slow because everything was new and so on. I can't remember what town we landed at, but of course on the East Coast, one of the big towns, maybe Baltimore, I'm not sure. And here I noticed, the first thing I noticed was the footwear of the dock work, how substantial it was. It was new to me because it was much more substantial than back in Denmark there were wooden shoes and one thing or another, you know. But there, it was all solid shoes and steel toes and the whole thing. Oh, it was so... That was the first thing I noticed, really. Well, we were out there, and I was in the engine room, and one of the junior engineers, and of course I didn't have much responsibility and much knowledge of the whole thing. But then we went, we went south, we went to Houston, not Houston, but to Texas City. We had loaded some stuff from up there in New England, but I can't remember what. I mean, it was not my business to know, and I didn't know. And so, this is in 1938, and so we went to Texas City and we loaded scrap iron in Texas City, and we're heading for Japan with the scrap iron. Okay, so we go to Japan and we unload the scrap iron in Yokohama, because that was a big deal for us to go there. And by, on our way across that first trip, we crossed the ways of our sister ship. The name of my ship was North West, Nor-West, which means Northwest. And we crossed another ship which was North, just Norton. And we knew it two days ahead of time, and when it happened, there was a lot of whistling, and you know, they'd get as close as they could, and you could see people over there without taking any chances. You could still see people. Most of us knew people on the other ship, and it was a great event. Almost, you know, you feel halfway home almost, and so it was an event that you don't forget. Well, we got to Japan, and we unload the scrap iron, and then we start loading stuff, and then we went to Filipino Island, and then we went from Filipino Island to, I can't remember all the places we went, really, on that first trip. But then we went on to India, and we stopped at a place called Gore, which is Portuguese India on the east side of the Indian Peninsula, and it's still there today, as far as I know. And there we loaded sand. Black sand was going to be used for DuPont in Delaware for paint manufacturing, I believe. And then we went from there to Bombay, and we were also in Karachi, but I can't remember exactly where, but one of the places we got 300 monkeys aboard in cages. And they were live monkeys, and somebody got the job of feeding them going back to the United States. They were the kind of monkeys that used for laboratory. And then we went to the Suez Canal in the Red Sea, and we made a stop there in Port Sudan, yeah, Port Sudan and Port Sade, which is actually Africa. And then we went out through the Red Sea and onto the Atlantic and back to the United States. And that trip, we were back to the United States by Christmas. So that means that on my first trip, I went around the world in six months, and that was a great, great thing. Never forget it. And when we came to New York, and they were unloading the monkeys, I think, and they dropped the cage, and about 30 monkeys got out and ran all over their warehouse. And that brought attention to the newspapers, and you should have seen the amount of people coming down to see this Danish ship with the monkeys aboard. Well, I can't remember exactly where we went from there, but that was it. Anyway, I sailed for eight years, and that took in the entire World War II. Not on that ship, I mean, because later on I got in the hospital, and we must have gone back to the Far East again. And then I got in the hospital in Yokohama with a big boil on my leg. And so I'm there, and if I could read you in this other story, you know, about that, there was a Captain Royer, who was a captain on the MS Tasmania Danish ship, and he wrote a story, I have it right here, it's in Danish, but it's about the Danish sailors during the war, what they did and where they got shut down and how many was lost and how many ships were lost and all the details. He wrote a book about that, and I received a book like that when I was in Denmark in 2000, and I got the book, somebody came in the book.

[00:40:11] Elizabeth Uhlig:

So during World War II then, did you continue?

[00:40:16] Paul Reffstrup:

I sailed the entire World War II. But I mean, where did you go? I mean, could you, with the war going on,

[00:40:22] Elizabeth Uhlig:

could you, where did you?

[00:40:24] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, we made one trip to Greenland, on different ships, you know, and then I worked a lot on the East Coast, on salaries. For three and a half years, I worked on salaries, yeah. And because there was a group of five submarines called the, called the, yeah, I can't come up with that. Five-stop Marine Group would have this special name and they came over to the United States and they were just laying off the coast and shooting down freight.

[00:41:19] Elizabeth Uhlig:

This was German submarines?

[00:41:21] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes, yes. And they could see everybody, and the Navy, our Navy would not admit it. That they were there. But we sailed it. And we could see, we could see from one, see, right off the United States, the East Coast, is what you call the Atlantic Shelf. And it's not very deep. Oh, it's 50 or 80 feet deep, you know, out for maybe eight miles. And that's not deep. And we could see sailing from New York going south, we could look from one mast to the next. They would go back this way and see a mast and see another one down there. And that's how close that they were sitting, that the Germans had sunk. And I later worked for Mary Chapman in Scotland, New York, on a salvage boat, and I worked for them for three and a half years, right there on the East Coast. Well, one trip was to Greenland and back, and then we worked on the East Coast and then the Gulf Commission.

[00:42:43] Elizabeth Uhlig:

So when the war broke out, you couldn't go back to Denmark?

[00:42:46] Paul Reffstrup:

That's right. In fact, I was an enemy airman. America considered you an enemy airman. Yeah. But then I found my old ship, and Hope Kim, Washington, Aberdeen. And I was up there visiting the boys about that time, and I met Irene up there. Irene is your wife? Yeah, was my wife, and she was from Aberdeen, or Hope Kim. And so the men, the crew, were in jail. The ship were tied up, the crew and the officers were left to maintain the ship.

[00:43:54] Elizabeth Uhlig:

This was your Danish ship?

[00:43:56] Paul Reffstrup:

Yeah. And well, I visited. And then, so when I met Irene, I said, well, I'll just go down and get a job down here, which was illegal, but I didn't. And still not much problem, because I don't stir up trouble, but I avoid trouble. And so I went down to Coma and got a job, and I worked there for about three months. It was on the ship again? In the machine shop. On the machine shop? Yeah, because I'm a machine. And here, I get a letter from the immigration, and it said that you, now, what did they say? Anyway, you had to leave in lieu of deportation. Well, by that time, the ship getting ready, the ship was, the United States had taken over the ship, and it was getting ready to man the ship and send it out. And so I went with that.

[00:45:26] Elizabeth Uhlig:

This was the one in Aberdeen?

[00:45:28] Paul Reffstrup:

Yeah, my old ship. Now, it gets a new name, and I get on the ship again, the same ship. And so we made one trip to Chile for a load of nitrate. And so we had taken that back to the east coast, the load of nitrate. Now, that's not located. You know, that's the... No, no, no. Yeah, nitrate. And so we took that over to the east coast. And then the ship goes in dry dock and gets prepared for war. That means that they had concrete all around the bridge and all over, you know, covered with concrete and mounted cannons for and back and all of that stuff. And it's going to go to, it's going to go to up north in Russia. You know, at that time Russia is all... And I forgot what it's called now. You go up north of Norway up there, and that was nothing better than that. We lost more ships up there because they get up there in the cold water and the submarines were there waiting for them and the airplanes were there from Germany and shooting at them. And there was one cotton wire, 24, and they lost 13 ships. And you know, they lose every man too because once you get in the cold water, you're done. Well anyway, I didn't go. Didn't happen. And so I didn't go. And then I go down and I get, I went down to the standard oil office. I heard that they, that was the place to do it.

[00:48:07] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Where was that?

[00:48:08] Paul Reffstrup:

New York. Oh, in New York? Yeah. So I went down to them. And they say, okay, because you're up there. And so they put me and a friend of mine, who was a radio operator, be sitting up in the hotel for two weeks waiting for ships, you know. That's good duty. But anyway, we're there and, and then we, I get a, I get a tanker. He don't know where he went. I don't remember. But he got through it too. He didn't get killed. But he later starts, lived in New York. He's dead now. But I sailed five trips from New England, probably New Jersey, Seoul, Carolina, Columbia, and then back to Aruba, and then back to the United States. And I think I sailed five trips. Then we went to Dry Dock on Staten Island. And I said, that's it. I'm not going. So I got off the ship, and that next trip, it was something. It was a torpedo right in the, in the engine room on my watch. I got a report, you know. They just lost two guys, but I would have been one of them. Yeah. And so, you see, you go to Carolina, and you load up crude oil. And Aruba was standard oil. They had a big refinery there. So you go there, and you unload the crude oil, and get the finished product, and then cook that back to United States. So we made five trips. And after that is when I got on the salvage boat. Oh, okay. So I was there. I spent a lot of time on these.

[00:50:33] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Where were you when the war ended then, in 1945?

[00:50:38] Paul Reffstrup:

I was in the Pacific. Oh. I was in the Pacific when I made several trips with troop transports at that time. Mostly out of San Francisco. And we were hauling troops home. Was this before then, or after you were on the wet East Coast? That was after. That was the last part of my sailing. The last part then you were? Yeah.

[00:51:08] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And then from the Pacific?

[00:51:09] Paul Reffstrup:

Yeah. And of course they wouldn't let us off the ships until the war was over. And so I sailed. I can't remember the date, but it was in 1945. 46 is when we came here, so that was it. So when did you meet your wife again,

[00:51:38] Elizabeth Uhlig:

and when did you get married?

[00:51:40] Paul Reffstrup:

We were married. Oh, you were already married. Yeah, we got married just before I went to Greenland. And she came to New York. And then on that ship, you see, it was the greatest marriage of time. Because we were on the salvage boat after we came back from Greenland. Of course, Greenland was no joke. We were there for three months, and nobody knew where we were and if we were lost or what happened. For about a month, nobody knew where we were. Well, we got back. See, we got attacked by the submarine going up there. We saved 41 guys out of the water one morning after an attack. And well, when we got back, the ship, we were through with that job. So now we were sent south to do some different salvage work. And it was a small boat. It was an old fishing boat. But the idea was this, that being a small boat and having two crews, we had a ship's crew and a salvage crew aboard. And so we were about 80 people aboard. A little bit above them, 180 feet long, that's not a very big boat. Because normally the freighters I've been on have been 540 feet or so, you know. That's the normal length of the freighter that I've been on. Now, of course, they're much bigger. But that was in those days. And the idea was this, that we went down, oh yeah, there were four or five wives that was following the boat. And when we got orders to go to Fort Pierce, Florida, so from New York. And that takes about a week, I guess, on a boat like that. And so we're on the way down and by the time we get there, their wives are already there and they're set up housekeeping their wings. And then we meet them and see where we live and all of that. And then we go out on the job. Now, we go out for two weeks, usually. And then we come in for supplies. We go out and work on the wreck. It's out there where you can't see it. It's way out of sight where the ship's laying. And we go out there and work on the wreck, whatever we have to do. Most of the time we have to take certain things off the ship and then roll the rest of it up so it's not a danger to traffic. That was our job. And we do that and then we come back in. So actually, we came in every two weeks. And so it's the greatest thing when you just got married. Have a new honeymoon every two weeks and the best way to get integrated. Maybe you should step back.

[00:55:43] Elizabeth Uhlig:

You said you were a machinist?

[00:55:45] Paul Reffstrup:

Oh, yes. And you did an apprenticeship in Denmark

[00:55:49] Elizabeth Uhlig:

and you got a journeyman?

[00:55:51] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes.

[00:55:52] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Could you explain what that was all about?

[00:55:54] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes. Like I said before, I went to one-room schoolhouse and that's out in the country. And we lived in a village. I have no idea how to describe a village. You know, maybe there's 500 people. I don't know. It's a small village. At that time it had a railroad station. You know, a train comes once or twice a day, you know. But I worked in a saw mill. They had a saw mill there. And so one day my dad says,

[00:56:35] Elizabeth Uhlig:

what did they do today?

[00:56:37] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, today I helped them saw logs, not logs, but railroad ties. You know, they were sawing railroad ties that day. And so, but whenever anything went wrong there, I would go and be right where the steam engine was because the whole mill was driven by our local steam engine. We didn't have electric motors for everything. We had belts coming all around, you know, from one drive, all from the steam engine that would run from the surplus of the mill. And that's how it was done. But anyway, I was working there. And so I said to my dad, working here, I could either be a carpenter or a cabinet maker because we made chairs upstairs, you know, a lot of chair factories upstairs. And so he said, anything you would rather be than that? And I said, oh yes, I would rather be a machinist. And now you've got to remember, we're living out in the country, eight miles from Oonsa. Oonsa is the town where Hans Christian Andersen was. And that's a town the size of Eugene, you know, with 100,000 people. And so as soon as I said that, he said, all right. And then tomorrow, the next day we got ready, and we went into town and secured an apprenticeship for me at a large factory. And there, being an apprentice there meant that you have to sign up. And you just don't come and go to work and quit the next day and not that kind of thing. You sign up. And you had a three-month trial period. They could file you and you could quit. Other than that, there would be a large penalty involved if you broke the contract.

[00:59:09] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How old were you at this point?

[00:59:10] Paul Reffstrup:

Fourteen. Fourteen. Yeah. And I got into this. You got way up there with a crane, you know, 15-ton electric crane, and the big machinery that they were building, all electric. And yeah. So I was an apprentice there for five years. The company's name was Thomas B. Trier. And Thomas B. Trier himself had worked for Edison in this country. And so he brought electricity back to Denmark, and he started his own factory. And I was there in the period when his factory had existed for 40 years. So it was a big factory then with about 40, I mean, with about 1,500 people at the time I worked there.

[01:00:12] Elizabeth Uhlig:

You said there was TRI?

[01:00:15] Paul Reffstrup:

T-H-R-I-G-E. Oh, okay. Yeah. And it was a good place to be apprentice if you wanted to learn an idea that I wanted to learn. Now...

[01:00:35] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Paul, do you want to talk a little bit about being a journeyman?

[01:00:38] Paul Reffstrup:

You were showing me here your certificate of apprenticeship. Yes. And... Now, first of all, I don't think it's widely known what journeyman means. It meant that when an apprentice was true with his apprenticeship, then he was ready to journey.

[01:01:05] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And that apprenticeship then was for five years?

[01:01:08] Paul Reffstrup:

Five years, most of the cases. Some were under different circumstances. Their apprenticeship would be four years. It all depends. But the idea was this, that you were able then to go from place to place and actually journey from town to town to all of you and learn things. And the saying was this, that when you were true with your apprenticeship, you're now ready to learn. And that was the saying. But my apprenticeship is issued in four languages, with a large sheet in Danish and then three smaller pages in German, English, and French. So I could present my papers wherever I went in Europe and get a job. And that was the... However, those times had passed before my time. Primarily because the uneasiness in the Balkan Islands, I mean Balkan Peninsula, it was very uneasy times then. And so I did not take advantage of this. And you got your papers in in 1935. That's correct, yes.

[01:02:48] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And you were trained specifically as a machinist?

[01:02:52] Paul Reffstrup:

Machinist. And then we studied at night in the wintertime. We went to school. So besides working 48 hours in the shop, we then went to school besides that. And I particularly went to study marine engineering. And so I was able to sail as an engineer. And later on when I came to this country, I could take the position as a marine engineer. And your journeymen, your papers here were accepted in the United States also? Yeah, only I never had to show them because my work proved itself.

[01:03:52] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And when did you come to Eugene?

[01:03:56] Paul Reffstrup:

Because you were... We came to Eugene or rather to Springfield in 1946. And that was the point when the government would let the sailors off the ships. Prior to that, they would not let us off because they needed us as sailors. And therefore, we could not get off the ship.

[01:04:28] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Were you still a Danish citizenship?

[01:04:31] Paul Reffstrup:

I was still a Danish... I got my American citizenship papers in 1950. Why did you decide then to come to Springfield? I think it was... There were several things. I sailed with a chief engineer who had installed a turban in the mill in Springfield. And he gave me a letter of recommendation to the owner of that mill. And I think that was one of the reasons. It's hard to remember all the details. And then my wife had relatives here too. And so one thing or another... And we actually heard that the conditions right here in Eugene and Springfield was fantastic. And for example, the electric weights were the lowest in the country at that time. And there were many good things. And today, I agree. Having looked at the rest of the world, I would say even the climate favors Oregon.

[01:05:58] Elizabeth Uhlig:

So did you work in the lumber yards as a machinist?

[01:06:03] Paul Reffstrup:

No. The fact showed that... I mean, the fact was that when I came and I was going to meet the guy, I never did meet him. He was away in Texas. So I never did meet the guy that the letter was addressed to. So I just went to a machine shop and got a job. And it went from there from one job to another until I, at one time, had my own job for 12 years. But it proved that I was not a businessman. I'm a craftsman, and that I'll stick by, but I'm certainly not a businessman. So therefore, I would maintain working for somebody else, pursuing my craft.

[01:06:58] Elizabeth Uhlig:

So what kinds of things did you make in the machine shop?

[01:07:05] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, when I first came, this was strictly a wood industry when I first came. And what we did was saw machinery. Saw-milled machinery, usually big things. And so we would do whatever came in, but I mean, I was familiar with big work, little work. I handled it all. And it was just... I don't know if you know exactly what machine work is. Well, a little. My father was a tool and die maker. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, I have done that, but I never did work tool and die in Eugene. But I worked saw-milled machinery, a lot of it. I've had a... I've done a lot of different things, I would say. I haven't had any limits on it. When I had my own shop, we made many different things. We made... One of my big customers was a putty manufacturer for plywood. And so for them, I built mixers for the putty, which is a big machine, and a difficult machine because of the abrasiveness and corrosiveness of the material. And then we made applicators so that they could apply that putty to the plywood. And that was a whole different industry that we had to run. That was one of the big ones. I've also done water purification for a big company in Corvallis. I forgot their name. But those were sent all over the world. I built water purification for them. But my shop was just a small one. At the most, I've had five people working for me.

[01:09:27] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Were you involved with the Eugene Vocational School?

[01:09:30] Paul Reffstrup:

I taught there. I taught there night school for a while. And...

[01:09:38] Elizabeth Uhlig:

When was that?

[01:09:40] Paul Reffstrup:

I can't remember the exact year, but it was while we were still at Monroe Street. When the shop was at Monroe. And there, I taught machine shop. And the basic thing to teach people at that thing... And I say the basic thing. And that's when I start to teach them the basics. Because you can teach advanced things, but from my understanding, they're not very helpful if you don't know the basics. And so I taught basics as much as I could. And I kept doing that later on when I became advisor to the apprentice counselor at the Lane Community College later on, which I did several years. That was a volunteer position later on.

[01:10:50] Elizabeth Uhlig:

That would have been in the 1960s or 70s?

[01:10:54] Paul Reffstrup:

It was after the college was in operation. Yeah. And when... I can't remember the years. But I did that for about eight years. But I was kind of hanging back where most of it was pushing forward to computer-operated machinery. And while I both don't know it and also didn't recommend it because I'm sticking to the basics until you know the basics, then I said, then learn your computer. And so I was sort of known as Wexmanstone.

[01:11:42] Elizabeth Uhlig:

When you say the basics, what do you mean?

[01:11:46] Paul Reffstrup:

I mean, grind the tool, grind the drill, do beginning of things. Don't get everything ready. Don't get a machine that's all set up and then run it, do it. That's what I mean, basic or layout. So, you know, when you started in the 1930s through the 80s or 90s,

[01:12:20] Elizabeth Uhlig:

what are some of the other changes?

[01:12:22] Paul Reffstrup:

I mean, the computers coming in at the end,

[01:12:27] Elizabeth Uhlig:

did you see a lot of changes in your work?

[01:12:29] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, yes. The changes, the biggest changes I see was the coveroid steel or cutters because at first we did not have that. I cannot explain what they are, but they are extremely hard things. And if you can grind and shape that to cut, then you can cut faster and cleaner than you could cut with carbide. It's called carbide steel, you know. And that, I'm no expert on it, but I knew that I used it and that was definitely an advantage from when I started. We did not have it.

[01:13:37] Elizabeth Uhlig:

When did you retire?

[01:13:40] Paul Reffstrup:

Again, that's a difficult answer because I actually worked for this party company and it was well past my time to retire, so I don't remember how old I was, probably 67 or about that, but I retired gradually. I just turned the leader position over to another person, a younger person, and then I remember that the last six months I worked, I just worked four hours a day, four days a week, and just, you know, gradually turned quick because there were other people, it was slow business time, and I said this is the time for me to just ease back, ease out. I met you at Rosie the Riveter's luncheon meeting. Yes, yes. And here I have a picture of one of your friends who, and maybe you could talk a bit about this picture. We have a picture here. She's standing with two other women and a man, maybe he's an instructor, and they're standing in front of an airplane. And her, yes. And the location is 18 and Chambers, and you can't see the hangers here, but they're no doubt there. And at that time there was an airport, and it was called Civil Air Force something, I think. Airpark or something? Yeah, I don't know exactly. And I remember when it was, and I saw the planes because I saw the place 51 years ago. And so, and there she volunteered, but this picture is older than that. It is probably, it's from the 40s, and...

[01:16:09] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And her name was?

[01:16:11] Paul Reffstrup:

Rosie Mark. And, and she, she volunteered and became Rosie, one of the, what later called Rosie the Riveter, to work in defense work. And her particular job was to splice airplane cables. So, then she, after she learned it out here at 18 and Chambers, she went to work in Idaho in an airport. And I don't remember the name of that, but it was a military establishment, and they would do the airplanes and do the things, work there. So, do you think she learned how to splice the cables at the Eugene Vocational Center? Oh, yes. Out here, no, it was not called Vocational Center. It was Eugene Aviation something at that time, at that place was called. But, she, and, and so I, now here's the thing. I am a member of American Merchant Marine veterans, and she goes with me to our luncheon, which is once a month. And now, she belongs to the Rosie the Riveter, among other things. And so, I go with her to Rosie the Riveter for lunch. And we feel that it is, it's the thing to do for our age group to stick together and do things. And also, to tell the young people what went on, because we do remember back there, 50, 60 years.

[01:18:21] Elizabeth Uhlig:

With your Merchant Marine Veterans Association?

[01:18:26] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, it's not that. It's the American Merchant Marine Veterans.

[01:18:32] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And have you gone back to Denmark then for some celebrations?

[01:18:36] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes. I also belong to them. And their word for that same thing is called Christseidor. That's Danish for merchant marine veterans. That means that we sailed in the war. Yes, and I'm back there, I'm going back there in May, where we're going to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the German defeat. And we were really beat down by the Germans in World War II. And now we're going back and celebrate there.

[01:19:21] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Did you go back there before, for the 50th?

[01:19:25] Paul Reffstrup:

I was back there for the 50th, and we were, at that time, we were about 200 who had settled in the United States. And a larger number of Danish sailors had settled in Newcastle, England. And they will also be back there. We will celebrate, and then the Queen comes. And I have recently received the exact details of the meeting that we're going to have at a certain memorial place, where there's a big anchor in downtown Copenhagen. And right by this anchor, there's going to be a big memorial and speeches and re-laying and so on. So they're going to later read, and the Queen will later read, and the trumpet will play, and the Queen will take one step backwards. You know, all in details, I just got the information. I think I got it right here. But of course you can't read it. It's in Danish.

[01:20:41] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How long will you be in here?

[01:20:43] Paul Reffstrup:

We will take three weeks. Rosie will go with me, because I will be no longer, I'm not able to do everything, travel everything, and go alone. It is the sketch of the area where the anchor is, and it's right in Copenhagen. And of course, like I said, this won't do you any good, because it's all in Danish.

[01:21:19] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How many people do you think will be there after 60 years? You said there were 200?

[01:21:26] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, from here. All in all, there will be thousands of people. There will be lots of people.

[01:21:39] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Will you visit other places in Denmark, your family?

[01:21:44] Paul Reffstrup:

I hope so, yes. I still have a brother and my sister-in-law. And then I have a great number of nephews and nieces. My brother is not well enough to entertain people. My sister-in-law is. And by the way, she's an archivist for town. For the town? Yes. A small town where she was born, and she was recently honored for her work.

[01:22:23] Elizabeth Uhlig:

What town is that?

[01:22:25] Paul Reffstrup:

Well, it's a town called Nursery, a small town.

[01:22:30] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Will you visit any other World War II sites or other events?

[01:22:44] Paul Reffstrup:

We will probably go to Newcastle.

[01:22:48] Elizabeth Uhlig:

In England?

[01:22:49] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes. Great big Britain. And the reason for that is that the Danish sailors were so well-established over there that they even have a Danish church there. And they have union things there. And they have many of them settled and married in England. And so there's really a colony back there. And I like to go back. I've heard so much about Newcastle about it. But a while ago, we were talking about this captain who wrote the book. And he later became the leader in Newcastle. But he was the captain of the Tasmania. And so I'm reading a book. Somebody give it to me when I was here in 2001. And so I'm reading a book. And it was a strange feeling. He reads it. They left from Hong Kong. I mean, from Yokohama and went to Hong Kong where they had to go and dry dark. And then they went from there to Vietnam. And Vietnam in those days was called, they went into China and to load coal. And I'll tell you about that later, how they load it. Anyway, and I said, wait a minute. I was on there. So I'm reading a book and I'm meeting myself. That's the strange feeling. And I didn't know that. I mean, I didn't know about that. And so because that captain, he picked me up in Yokohama. I was in the hospital in Yokohama. And he picked me up. He came through the end and said, that guy don't look sick to me. And I was ready to go. I was tired of late. So I went there. But I had a boil on my legs. But after we went to Hong Kong and to Vietnam, and by the time we got back, oh, we were supposed to go to Italy with the coal. But the war broke out. You know, it was in September 1939. Now the war broke out then. So we got words to go back to the United States. And when we got back to Japan, I got back in the hospital with my legs. So I was only on that ship. But it was a strange feeling to read along that trip with the ship and the whole thing. I had forgotten a captain's name because an ancient room guy don't have anything to do with a captain. So unless you stayed here for a while and really get acquainted, you don't know. One thing else I want to ask you about is you say you're a magician. Yes. And you showed me this picture of you with a lot of young children. Maybe you could talk about this. Well, this is often happens that they want a picture of what the magician is before it's over. I remember one time, and you get ready to leave, and so here's a bunch of kids, and they said, we didn't get a turn. We didn't get a turn. I tried to involve as many of them as possible. And so we did something like that, and they just learned. And another time...

[01:27:01] Elizabeth Uhlig:

Okay, those are children from the Head Start program?

[01:27:04] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes.

[01:27:05] Elizabeth Uhlig:

And you went there and presented a magician program for them?

[01:27:09] Paul Reffstrup:

Yes, yes. I do that. And I do that about once a year to show footage. Not because... Now, Roshi's daughter is the head teacher, so that's how this came about. But I just love those kids, and they like the magician coming around. You showed me this large blue sheet of paper with a thank you from the children. Yes. And they either write that, or else they write individual little ones. Of course, they don't write the teachers, because they can't write them. But it's a very satisfying thing. It's much more satisfying than having to be paid for. But I've done this all over.

[01:28:11] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How long have you been a magician?

[01:28:14] Paul Reffstrup:

Eighty years. No, I haven't been, but I say it's 80 years since I first flipped the coin up my sleeve. And so that's where it started.

[01:28:25] Elizabeth Uhlig:

How did you learn?

[01:28:28] Paul Reffstrup:

Gradually you learn it, and you're interested in it. And you get through so that you get a knack for it, and you can see it, and you can learn that way. I remember a special thing. I was watching a movie in Japan, and the magician did what we call torn and restored newspaper. You tear it up, and then you unfold it in its form. And I saw it in the moon, and I had never seen it before. And I started doing it, and I did it for ten years until I learned how to do it right. And there's shortcuts, and there's things that you can do. It sort of makes it much easier. It's almost impossible to do it the way I did it in the beginning, but that's part of it. We were in Philippine Islands, and so we have rowing over to the little island over there. And there's 500 people living on this island, 250 in this village, and 250 on the other side of the island. They didn't have anything to do with each other. And we were over there, so there's 250 people living there, and still houses, you know. They come up so the snakes can't come up to their houses. And so we went in there, and we had a good time in there, and I brought my little bag of twix along. And I remember particularly I was doing one where I took cigarettes out of the air, you know, not smoking ones. They were just cigarettes, and put them in my hands, you know, lots of them. And then when I was all through, I was able to pass them around and give them to me. And that, of course, went over big, but I could afford that because a pack of cigarettes, to me at that time, cost six and a half cents. Now they cost three and a half dollars for 20 seconds, but they cost six and a half cents. The cotton was 65 cents, and those things. And that went over great. Let's see. Are there other questions I should have asked you, or are there things you'd like to talk about? I think we're pretty well covered. I can't think of a whole lot, except that I think I mentioned that, actually, my wife and I, we had great times. We were married 52 years, and it was a good marriage. And while I was sailing, she traveled with me as much as was possible. And like I explained before, the wives would travel on land and set up a party. So when we got there with the boat and then we would be working out of that same place for maybe months, and that would be fun, you know. And that way, we were in Florida most of the time, and we were in Texas.

[01:32:28] Elizabeth Uhlig:

You know, like, what's the name in Texas?

[01:32:34] Paul Reffstrup:

Why didn't you call for Mexico? The pictures up there, that's from the same time. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. But we worked there, and we worked, you know. They called for Mexico, and Key West, and that's where we worked with the boat, except for the trip to Greenland. That was a bad trip. I mean, we took off from New York at that time. Then we were to meet a convoy, and yeah, we were to meet a convoy in that island right off Halifax, St. John's, St. John's. And that place was closed in with a torpedo net and everything, and we were inside. I sampled the convoy. Then we took off from there and started out and going up through the Belle Isle Strait up north of Halifax and were hidden across. And there we were attacked by a submarine. Not us, but we were like 40-something ships, and one got sunk and one got damaged, and the corvettes, Canadian corvettes, sailed all around and dropped depth charges. And our little boat, which was the salvage boat at that time, that was the salvage boat, and it was an old fishing boat. It was actually a real old. It was built in 1919 in Spain, and it was a steamer, and we had a great big boom on it so we could lift 50 tons with a crane. That was the main thing, and then we had divers aboard. That was the only thing that made us a salvage boat. And so we couldn't, when the rest of them fled, you could say, after the attack, they could go 14, 18 knots. We could make eights with the tail wind, maybe, so they all left after the attack, and we were there all alone, so the captain had just pulled over an anchor up there. It's called the Belle Isle Straits. It's up near Halifax, and next morning, we picked up 41 men out of the water. They were from the sunken freighter, and we didn't have room for them, because we had barely room for the ones. We were 80-some people aboard the ship, and it's only 180 feet long, and I don't know if you can make any concept or how thick that is. It's not very thick, and here we got another crew aboard, another 40, 50 guys, and so the captain pulled in up there eventually, and we couldn't radio for help because there were radio silence, and we pulled in there in Canada, in that part, and the most beautiful natural harbor that I have ever seen. You know, green grass coming down the slope with a little opening here and then a larger opening in here. It's a beautiful, natural harbor, and there's a couple nut buildings, shacks, up there, and so we pulled in, and so right away they came tearing out from there and said, oh, you come to get us. You come to get us. No, we didn't come to get us. We really came to leave off some guys, but what we found out was that a ship had been sunk 12 hours earlier, and those guys were there, waiting to be picked up, and so forget it. So we had to wait around there for about three days to the Canadian Coast Guard founder and came and got there to cook, and then we went on our way to Queensland where we had a job to do, a salvage job, and it was rough weather. It was so rough that we did not look for submarines. We just held on. You know, you whore on with one hand and you do your work with another one. It's hard, and I don't know if you know this, but you get a big ship out in the water, and when the waves go past it, then the ship goes this, bends two or three feet, you know, because the water is on both ends and it's down like this, but when the wave comes into the center and the ends are empty, then the middle goes up and the ends go down, and, you know, two or three feet of ship bends, if you stand by the rail and look. Yeah, it's scary. But we went up there, and we worked, we found a ship, and it's sitting out of water, and it was sitting 23 and a half degrees. That's about like that, and the water was up to here, so we had to build what we called a cuffer dam around the hatch. That means that we built a cuffer dam up here, just like this, and then pump out the ship and then, you know, hope it comes up, and so we started that, but, of course, it didn't come up, so we found out there were holes in the bottom. So the diver would go down and see if there's a rock sticking through the bottom so that it has to dynamite the rock and get it out of there and patch the hole and then start pumping it. And they did that a couple of times, and every time it would start coming up and then go back down again, and they couldn't keep up with it, so there was all the holes. And when it finally got just about ready, then the iceberg came down the fjord, big iceberg, because the small one, we were able to go out there with a motorboat and push them away, you know, but here come a big one, and you couldn't move, and that came down and then wiped out. So then we got the word to come on home. The ship was loaded with clear light. Have you any idea? It's a white subject. No, that's not subject. Substance. There you go. I have words at times that are difficult. Soda-like, you know. I compare it to soda or rock salt or something. That's the part of consistency, and it's used in aluminum production, and it's mined. The only place that mine is is in Greenland. Okay, salt. The ship was loaded with that, and that's why we went after it, but we didn't get it, and so we got the word to come back home. So we spent three months there. After you moved to Eugene, did you ever go back on the boat, or did you take a cruise? Oh, no, no. Cruise, I detest cruise. But boats, no, I love boats. And yes, I'm still a sailor. I'm still a sailor. That's funny, and I'm still a Dane, very much. But I'm first of all in America, and I'm primarily in Oregon, because Oregon is a definite place.