“When I grow old, I want to be just as fit and stylish as Grandpa”
– Son, September 17, 2010 at the Museum of Natural History

As long as I can remember, people have told me that I look exactly like my father. Of course, I don’t, and of course, I can’t see it, but since so many different people – including Wife – say it, there must be something in it.

Not that I mind it. Not one bit.

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“Prrrhkkkkhhhhh!”
– Son, making an explosion sound, Nov 9, 2010.

The one thing that always annoyed me with Buster, the excellent sports comic book that had its heyday in the 1970s, was that there was never any hockey. I remember only one series, and it was short-lived. They might have had a hockey player on the cover, and I’d only realize that there were no hockey stories inside after I had bought that and 20 other comic books at the second-hand store around the corner from Dad’s work.

But I loved Buster. Johnny Cougar (Puuma in Finnish), the wrestler, was cool, Hot-Shot Hamish (Super-Mac) funny, Billy Dane (Benny Goldfoot in Finland and Sweden, a boy who became a fantastic soccer player whenever he wore Jimmy “Dead Shot” Kean’s old boots) exciting, Buster himself silly, and the club pages full of interesting trivia.

And then there was Roy Race.

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Traveling with a family of four means that there will always be special sleeping arrangements. At hotels, we need a pull-out sofa or an extra bed, and when staying with friends and family, we’ll just have to make do with whatever is there.

If there’s only one king-sized bed, in our family, that means that I will sleep on the floor.

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When I got the job as trainee at the Swedish custom publishing company what now not only seems like a long time ago, but is a long time ago, I didn’t really know what I was hired for. The five of us, varying in age and sex – two guys, three young women – had different backgrounds, which was the whole purpose of the exercise.

The company was ultrainternational, ultranational, with representatives of over a dozen different nationalities on staff. The times were good, we had nice offices across the street from the Royal Palace in Stockholm, and we were a pretty hot ticket in town.

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