Norm's Bio

Norm Anderson's Brief Bio

One of the delights of the Internet is that long lost friends have been slowly finding me or I them. So even though I'm a very private person in some ways, I want to relate enough detail so that you know I really am me.

Maybe you remember that guy:

Who used to play by the brook with you and your sister near the parsonage in South Montville, Maine back in the 1950s.
Or who took you scrambling over the large rock formations near the Black River in the early 1960s and was playing soccer with you on the Duttonsville School grounds when JFK was shot.
Or who sat with you under a tree at Happy T Ranch in Rumney, New Hampshire, listening while you explained your denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, before a bus whisked you away in the summer of -- was it 1965?
Or who sat in the desk next to yours in biology class at the New Bedford High School in 1967 and shared your objection to the killing of creatures great or small for purposes of high school dissection. (I was the quiet one who doodled whenever I had a chance, drawing tall ships.)
Or who took pains to show you how to play chess at Nokomis Regional High and who alone kept the Bangor High chess club from sweeping Nokomis in 1968/9 by, for once, not making any of the stupid mistakes that caused him (ah, that is, me) to be ranked second.
Or who was pealing potatoes with you in the school cafeteria shortly before graduation ceremonies at Nokomis in 1969.
Or who sat with you on the steps of Winn Library in the early 1970s and shared simple lyrics he had written in Greek.
Or who in 1971 was raided with you in a campground in Romania because someone else had been distributing religious tracts in downtown Bucharest. (I was caught with a Greek Testament in my pack and accused of being the ring leader!)
Or who with you formed a small informal society in the 1980s for the discussion of subjects others found obscure, such as the Greek idea of theoria or the history of pre-Columbian North America. (One of you has in fact reconnected with me.)
Or who helped you transcribe the handwriting of Cotton Mather at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Or who used to discuss with you the deep structures of religious rites and the weaknesses of instrumentalism.

How many other poignant moments with special friends now out of touch come to mind!

Whether or not you do hold any of these memories, my long lost friend, I would love to hear from you. Another delight, of course, is communicating with current friends and finding new ones. I would love to hear from you too.

I was born to Elliott Lindell Anderson (1921-1996), an American Baptist pastor, originally from Attleboro, Massachusetts, and Georgia Elliott Anderson, a teacher, originally from Rumney, New Hampshire. I was the oldest of four children. I have two sisters and a brother.

If the records can be believed, my mother's ancestry includes among many other characters, Stephen Batchelder, a Puritan who founded several New England towns and was accused of bigamy, and Susannah North Martin, one of the twenty executed following the Salem witch trials (she by hanging). I'm always glad to hear from relatives, close or distant.

In 1969 I met Nancy Linda Griffin, of Westfield, New Jersey. We later married and had two children, Forrest North Lindell Anderson and Travis Ward Anderson.

Places I have lived include Boston, Massachusetts; South Montville, Maine (1952-1957); Cavendish, Vermont (1957-1964); New Bedford, Massachusetts (1964-1967); Hartland, Maine (1967-1969); Lee, Maine (1969); Wenham, Mass. (1969-1972); South Hamilton, Mass. (1972-1973); Essex, Mass. (1973-1975); West Gloucester, Mass. (1975-1982); Ipswich, Mass. (1982-1990); and Rowley, Mass. (1990 to the present).

However, the place that has been most constant in my life has been Davisville in East Falmouth, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. I have spent a significant part of most of the summers of my life there, only a short walk from the Vineyard Sound, where I have been known to snorkel day and night and to ride eight to fourteen-foot roughtail stingrays. I regard Davisville as my childhood home, more so than any other place, with the possible exception of Cavendish.

I have had a bit of formal education, starting with grade one in Cavendish. The school had three classrooms for grades one through eight. Grades nine through twelve were each spent at a different school (starting with Keith Junior High in New Bedford), which meant having to find my footing afresh at the beginning of each school year and picking up French, for instance, somewhere other than where I left off. I was part of the first graduating class of Nokomis Regional High School in 1969.

I recall one day at Nokomis when a computer was carted into a student assembly and we were told that this curiosity was to be our future. Five years later, computers became part of my daily existence.

From Nokomis I went to Gordon College for a Bachelor of Arts degree, where I majored in Bible and minored in philosophy and Greek. I even acquired a little German. After completing my work in 1972, I went on to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary for a Master of Divinity (1973-1976), where I received a marvelous classical education, picked up a bit of Hebrew and Latin, and gained tremendous experience working in the library, which is where I was employed in various capacities from 1973 to 1997. (The school is very different now from when I was a student.) After receiving my M. Div., I went on to Simmons School of Library and Information Science for a Master of Science degree (1976-1978), during which time I managed to achieve some synthesis of my education.

Besides the usual library stuff, I took an opportunity in one of my Simmons classes to dabble in Old English. The assignment was to translate a passage in a language we did not know and then to explain our translation to the class. The point was to instill in us confidence to handle information in any language. It proved to be a valuable lesson, one of many I picked up from library school. Since then I have dabbled in many other languages, Old Norse being one of my favorites. But I suppose this small digression wouldn't help you know that you've found the person you are looking for, unless you happened to be a member of that class.

You might also have met me in your church. I've visited a lot of them, of many different kinds. (I've visited a number places of worship in other religions too.) I generally gravitate towards Episcopal churches, although I count as my current home a Congregational church not far from where I live.

Generally church is not a good place to get to know me, though, since I have a severe reaction to certain scented products and minimize the time I spend enclosed and immobile with crowds. Believe me, after an episode of such reaction, it's awfully hard to return. It's like going back to have your chest kicked in by a mule. I may be that wilted guy you saw leave early. However, I have learned that a lot more people than I ever imagined have similar respiratory sensitivities, so it may have been somebody else.

Well, this little vita, especially combined with details found in other pages at this site, should be more than enough to help old friends identify me. Please feel welcome and encouraged to contact me.

Posted, January 4, 1998; new url, January 27, 2004; last modification, January 27, 2004

Go to profile

Go to main page