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If this page is in any language other than English, then it is an auto-translation that may contain errors I cannot foresee. The original can always be found at
hemmingsweb.com.
In English.
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was the slogan we had on our banners across the globe
in the company I joined, for the first time in Somalia in 1988 as supervisor,
after I have travelled for both smaller and larger companies in many different places since 1968,
and where I finished my career in Panama in 2011. Shortly after that, I started to act, as myself. It has been one of the most inspiring apprenticeships I have had over the years.
I think a Frenchman once went so far as to write: There is no joy, other than the joy of creating.
It is a part of everyone's DNA, although many in their twenties have lost it.
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but take it, sooner or later
A new beginning?
A four-cylinder engine that has shot one connecting rod out of one cylinder is, in theory, finished, unless one or more good Samaritans have decided to make the best of the remaining three. It can never be used again for earth and concrete work. Still, for less physically demanding tasks it can probably be used for several more years if it is looked after, according to all the rules of the art, and the electronics continue to function.
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That's the name of
a Danish King of some Vikings,
who went to churches and monasteries in both England, Scotland, and Ireland,
on Mondays, to get a better life, if the weather was ok,
and they lived even long before
Gorm the Old ordered the rest of the Danes to go to church.
I am not quite sure that I am a direct descendent of King Hemming, for when I hit myself with an axe, then it's ordinary red blood there is running, not blue at all, but, I think I am the Hemming with the most ballast to handle the waves, for before, during, and after my apprenticeship as a shipwright, where I also learned to build ships that could withstand the weather in the North Atlantic, I have occasionally read a book if I was not building bridges, a cement factory, an embassy, a cruise ship, roads, airports, jetties for fishing boats, container ports, a powerplant, dams, water treatment plants of various kinds, and a whole lot of other things, while I was traveling as a construction worker and supervisor. From Uummannaq in Greenland as the northernmost to Stone Town in Zanzibar as the nearly southernmost, via Ånge in Sweden, Helsinki in Finland, Rostock in Germany, and Mogadishu in Somalia, and from Kufa in Iraq as the easternmost, to Apia in Samoa as the south and westernmost, via Gaza, Edi in Eritrea, Mubuku in Uganda, Kingston in Jamaica, Willemstad in Curaçao, and Changuinola in Panama, in my spare time.
I have also traveled less-travelled routes, a bit, at my own expense, to get other pieces of information about the world, so I didn't miss anything important, in my opinion, but books were a big part of my life, until I got a Macintosh Plus, then I was sold.
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"Klamphuggeren" is a Danish nickname I got so many years ago that it might as well be a lie, but it isn't. I was proud of it as a pope, for I got it from some old men, when men were of steel and ships were of wood, according to their own words. (The men's words, in case anyone is in doubt.)
I'm still happy when, at longer intervals, someone still says without asking: What on earth, isn't that "Klamphuggeren"? I thought you'd hung up the clogs years ago, with the life you've lived!
Today, not many people use the denomination "Klamphuggeren" as a good nickname, on the contrary, it is used by many as a nickname coined for people who promise gold and green forests at sale price, but deliver secunda crafts at a premium, sometimes without delivering the goods, even if payment has been made in advance, and without having understanding of what they are doing.
Most people who are exposed to such ones are mostly people who don't want to pay a professional to get a job done.
The few that still use "Klamphuggeren" as a good nickname are insiders who are more or less as old as Methuselah was when he was our age, now it is said straight out. They all know, or rather the few that are left, that "Klamphuggeren" works on target, with one eye on each finger and one in the back of the neck, with the materials at hand. It is implied that it is almost always small ships and schooners there are talked about, as females, for they behave more or less the same.
"Klamphuggeren" could strip them to the skin, to find the naked truth, so to speak, and see if there was anything valuable left after a minor collision, just by sitting with a beer and a pipe of tobacco and listening quietly. Even now, where I neither drink a beer nor smoke a pipe of tobacco anymore, but do many other things, I can still do it just by closing my eyes.
I can of course, still chop down a few trees, make a dory within a few weeks, and cross the North Atlantic in a relatively short time, if the weather is good. You can never forget that stuff, once you've learned it, it stays in your spine until you put off your clogs.
Another Hemming? I am not quite sure that he is a direct descendant of King Hemming either, for I did not see when he hit himself with the axe, then it's not easy to know if he only has ordinary red blood, or the real blue blood.
But it is easy to see that he is also a real klamphugger, who gets something out of the available materials.
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