Outskirts Press, INC.

Bergens Guttehjem (Boy's home)

The author of these memoirs, Olof A. Eriksen, was born in Norway 1936.

In 1952 he moved to Karlskrona, Sweden to study Mechanical Engineering, and 1956 he immigrated to the United States. This book is his diary containing his true life memories.

"A fascinating, unbelievable, and heart-rending story that will make you shake your head in disbelief."

One publisher wrote:

"If your accomplishments were not so well documented, readers would want to characterize your writings as a fictitious tale of adventure, filled with exaggeration and fantasy. But we are more amazed to know that this is not fiction, but rather an autobiographical account of, how through determination, creativity and sheer genius, you successfully overcame seemingly insurmountable odds, to live a life so special, most of us can only dream of or see in the movies.

This extraordinary book deserves a wide audience, indeed."

One Professional writer,

Nina M. Sherwood wrote:

"Olof's life is riveting and inspiring. It is hard to imagine that one person could have gone through so much and still come out a "winner"! This definitely is a story that movies and dreams are made from."

(continued inside cover)

This true story will take you back through the trials and tribulations of a little boy from Norway whose mother abandoned him in 1944 during WWII when he was only 8 years old and whose father was a hopeless drunk.
Despite terrible injuries during the war, he stares death in the face as a child with many more to follow in later years. After the horror of WW II, he is forced into a boy’s home where he is beaten and brutalized for seven years.
In 1956, he arrives in the USA on a cruise ship that later sinks the Italian liner Andréa Dorio. He has only $5.00 in his wallet, and no knowledge of the English language.
He learns the English language, and studies with a correspondence school because he can not afford college.
Slowly, he gets recognized for his awesome abilities to solve mountainous problems, bringing one employer a life saving device and taking another out of bankruptcy, and when his efforts are ignored, he starts his own company.
Working 18 hours a day in order to succeed, he collapses into a coma for 4 weeks, and stares death in the face again for the tenth time in his life.
He succeeds in his business, but the evil of others nearly bankrupts him. He fights back for his very existence and turns the greed of others into his own recovery and outsmarts them all.
Ten years later, he faces bankruptcy again due to greed by a corporate giant, and as he fights corporate America, he loses. Just when he is about to submit to failure, read about his incredible discovery on a fateful “Easter Sunday,” and watch as the careless ignorance of the corporate giant leads to the full recovery of all his million dollar losses.

And then, as you delve into this author’s past, you will witness and become part of this individual’s musical talents and awesome abilities creating ship models and pieces of art.
Ripley’s “Believe it or Not” should see this.
Can you imagine?
A guitar made from 20,000 kitchen matches. (Page 481)
A model of a Hammond Organ with a keyboard so small, one can only play it using toothpicks, and it plays, and that is only the beginning. (Page 489)
Mr. Eriksen is the only person known in the world today who can create museum quality ship models by welding, using steel only.