I was going to save and use this another time, finding it sweet that the only ‘calling’ card in my Grandpa’s wallet with one of his children’s name was of my mother, Aasta May, then Carlson.

As it would have been her 89th birthday today – she passed in September, 2005 – it seemed right to refer to this now. Aasta was also the name of her mother and obviously my Grandma. By all accounts, the name means many things, from Greek and Latin origins ‘star’, ‘august’, ‘dignified’, ‘like a star’, and perhaps more contemporarily ‘love’, this latter in Norwegian apparently, and as my mother’s family is of Danish decent, with the small town of Elk Horn being a significant Danish community, I am sure that is what it means, for all kinds of reasons: