Jan Kiergard: Real DeKalb Viking
Jan Kiergard of DeKalb, Illinois died a few years ago. He had the Viking spirit, maybe too much for this day and age.
I shed some tears when I learned that he was gone.
Jan was tall, with dark hair, wide mouth, low voice, deep intellect and teutonic outlook on life. He loved to fish in the border regions up north. Rumor had it that he’d get in a fight every now and then, which I can believe, though I never saw it. He certainly cultivated a manly presence, and like the ancestors, he loved his beer.
He once told me, after we examined at a photograph of him, that he had the kind of look that demanded a bronze age helmet on his head. He was right. He looked barbaric. Yet, he was an intellectual, working for years at Northern Illinois University’s English Department.
Long ago, when I was single and Jan was married, he said, “Mark, I’m damned sure that if I was single I’d enjoy it a heck of a lot more than you are.” He was right, of course. He had a live hard, enjoy life outlook that demanded good steaks, being outdoors, smoking good cigarettes, and drinking fine spirits.
My favorite memory of Jan is on the golf course. When a ball hits a green it makes a dent, and most golfers know the etiquette. They take a tee and drive it into the dent and pull up here and there until the green is flat again. I remember the first time that we golfed, I made my shot and looked up to see Jan performing surgery on the green with his gigantic folding knife, carefully wiping it clean on the green, and putting it back in its little leather holder on his belt.
That’s the kind of detail that was typical of Jan and drew me into his company time and time again.
I hope that you think of me now and then, Jan, up there in the Hall. I hope they’ll at least let me pay you a visit there when it is all over.
