He came from Norway for the Western novels, but stayed to clean
up the Mushroom Mardi Gras.
He came from Norway for the Western novels, but stayed to clean up the Mushroom Mardi Gras.
Per Oscar Nybruget, a principal executive officer from the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo, loves old American Western novels.
Nybruget’s love for history is not a big surprise: He is an archaeologist from the University of Oslo and a former history teacher. He is also an American Civil War buff.
Nybruget’s collection includes nearly 5,000 books on the war and the American West.
The reason he is so interested in American Westerns, Nybruget said, because he had relatives move to Texas and Colorado in the 1850s.
Nybruget met Morgan Hill’s Bill Adams, who also collects Westerns, over the Internet five years ago. He decided to travel last year to the United States to meet Adams.
“I started writing letters to people who bought Western novels on E-Bay, and he responded,” Adams said. “To my surprise, he lives in Norway.”
While he was here, Adams and Frank Portera, father of event director Sunday Minnich, convinced Nybruget to help with the tear down the Mardi Gras, to which he willingly agreed.
“This is the first time in this country and we put him to work,” Portera said.
But not all of Nybruget’s first visit to the United States is manual labor; he is getting a little taste of what the American West really is.
“This has been interesting,” Nybruget said. “I met real people, instead of going to a tourist town, and see how they work.”
Adams took him to Fields Ranch, off Uvas Road in west Morgan Hill, where he showed Nybruget how they weaned calves. He also received lessons on roping them for branding.
Nybruget spoke Tuesday to a joint meeting of the Morgan Hill and San Martin’s Lions Club at 12415 Murphy Ave., following the service club’s dinner. He lectured on a Norwegian specialty: Vikings.
After his stay in Morgan Hill, Nybruget left for to Arizona to visit with Western novelist Fred Grove. He is scheduled to return to Norway on June 11.
