polite but had two sides. One person saw, and the other was devious. With his creativity, he always tried to come up with problems, with the goal of having me blamed. The peak event was putting the hay on fire to burn down our farm, but it was stopped in time. He then told the adults he had seen me by the hay with the fire. I was inside the house with my mother, who was as puzzled as I was. We could never fully understand where his behavior originated, why I was the target, or why he never seemed to learn, even when he was caught red- handed each time. The final straw was the attempt to burn the farm down. I was then around 11, and Steinar was 13, which meant it was no longer a children’s prank. We did not think it was so much about the fire and the consequences it would have caused if not stopped, but more about singling me out as the one who did it. The judge was in shock. Steinar had impacted me 50 years ago, and for the District Judge, Steinar had impacted him also for decades. Christian Have you heard about Steinar since leaving the farm at age 13? Ove I only heard about him once, through the grapevine, some years later. When it was time to do the required army duty in Norway, the army had a very hard time finding Steinar a suitable place. After various attempts, he was assigned to the group that packed parachutes. I then recall saying to myself, I was very happy he did not pack mine. I tried at the time to believe he had changed and that the people jumping from airplanes were safe. After this, I never heard about Steinar before the dinner in 1995, 40 years later.
Christian Did the talk with the judge affect you? Ove
Yes. Despite always wanting to believe the best about people, and always trying not be judgmental, it was confirmation of what I had
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THE ALGORITHM
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