Blue Highways: Bagley, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

Spring is in the air, where I live, as the days are starting to get incrementally warmer.  And that means baseball season is starting.  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) talks with an old man in Bagley who misses the imagery and imagination of the old baseball terms.  I agree with him, and this post will tell you why.  To find your location, I'll give you an inside pitch:  Here's the map - I promise, no curveballs!

Book Quote

"'Hear that?' a dwindled man asked.  He was from the time when boys drew 'Kilroy-Was-Here' faces on alley fences.  'Did you hear the announcer?'

"'I wasn't listening'

"'He said 'velocity'...He's talking about a fastball...This is a baseball game, not a NASA shot....'

"'....That's how they tell you speed now.  They don't try to show it to you: 'smoke,' 'hummer,' the high hard one.'  I miss the old cliches....'

"....The man took a long smacking pull on his Grain Belt.  "Damn shame.' he said.  'There's a word for what television's turned this game into.'

"'What's the word?'

"'Beans,' he said.  'Nothing but beans and hot air.'"

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Lake Lomond at Bagley City Park. Photo at the Bagley City website. Click on photo to go to host site.

Bagley, Minnesota

Like many a kid, summers were lazy times for me.  My family was lucky enough to own some property in the wilderness along a river, and we would go there every weekend in the summer, and sometimes for a week or even two weeks.  We only had a cabin on the property which was used mostly for storage in the summer, so all the time spent there was outdoors.  We ate outdoors and slept outdoors after roasting marshmallows over a large campfire.  My father had hooked up lights to a generator, so we did have lights courtesy of a large, gas-powered machine.

TV was out of the question.  So afternoons were spent swimming, eating and listening to baseball games.  In fact, I got my formal education in baseball not by going to baseball games, because we lived a four-hour drive from the nearest major league parks, but by listening to announcers for the San Francisco Giants, Oakland A's and occasionally, the Los Angeles Dodgers on the radio.

In other words, I learned baseball through the lingo, the universal patois that announcers used and the individualities that they brought to their craft.  You couldn't listen to a Dodgers game without hearing Vin Scully.  The Dodgers were my favorite team at the time (even though the Bay Area was closer, I couldn't bring myself to root for the Giants or the A's).  Every time Scully would call a home run, you'd hear the crack of the bat on the radio and then Scully would say "Forget it!" or "She - is - gone!!" followed by a description of the home run.  Always especially exciting was when the Dodgers played the Giants, because most of my friends were Giants fans.  The Dodgers always seemed pretty good year after year, but the Giants were always dangerous because of the rivalry, and Willie McCovey was a great home run hitter.  The Giants also had some good announcers, including Lon Simmons, Bill Thompson, Al Michaels and Gary Park.  In Milwaukee, I always enjoyed the announcing of Bob Uecker, the voice of the Brewers.

Radio announcers had to use colorful and descriptive language in calling games because they had to put the pictures of the game into the listener's mind.  It was one thing to call a single, but the game came more alive, more exciting, if the single was a frozen rope, or a Texas leaguer.  A home run was much more meaningful if it was a shot, or a four bagger, or a round tripper.  I never realized just how more vivid these games were than watching games on television or even attending the game.  A great announcer could add nuances and depths to the game that you just couldn't get anywhere else.

On television, however, announcers could become lazy.  They didn't have to describe the game vividly because the action unfolded in front of the viewer on the screen.  The camera could only capture certain aspects of the game, however, and mostly focused on pitcher, batter and catcher.  What the camera couldn't often capture, except in brief bursts, were the infield cheating in on the hitter if they suspected a bunt was coming, or the second baseman moving in on the runner to try to get a quick throw from the pitcher and tag him out, or the outfield cheating to the right because they knew that the hitter tended to hit to the opposite field.  All of those little bits of strategy were lost as the game became primarily about the battle between pitcher and batter on the small screen, and the other players reduced to bit parts in that drama.

On the other hand, nothing beats going to a baseball game and watching from the stands.  You can take in the whole field and see the game in its wholeness and entirety as it unfolds.  But again, something is missing.  Unless you take a portable radio (or now something that live streams audio), you don't get the benefit of the announcers, so the vividness of the presentation is replaced by your own inner monologue of what is happening.

To me, the picture painted by a good announcer is one key to really understanding and loving baseball, and for me it was the major key given my lack of access to major league parks.  It's unfortunate that baseball has declined in popularity over the years, giving way to football and basketball though it still calls itself the national pasttime.  To give you a sense of how descriptive it is, I hereby present a ninth inning of a close game, called by a fictional announcer in my head, using baseball's colorful and unique language.

As we head into the ninth inning, the Isotopes find themselves down one with the top of the order coming up.  The Zephyrs' Carmine is taking his warmup pitches.  Since taking over the closer role, Carmine has been bringing it to hitters, but he occasionally throws wild.  Robinson will be the first to bat for the 'Topes.  He's had a tough year this year, hitting only this side of the Mendoza line but in this game he's gone 2 for 3 and barely missed with a line shot to center.  If he gets on, he's a problem for the Zeph's because he's got wheels.

Carmine looks in, deals and Robinson takes it for a strike.  Robinson looks at the ump as if he doesn't agree.  Carmine shakes off the catcher and deals high heat, but Robinson holds back for ball one.  Carmine looks in and brings it.  Robinson swings late but connects!  Its a Baltimore chop that bounced over the head of the first baseman into right field.  Robinson's on!

Carmine has to pitch from the windup to Stokes, who might be called on to sacrifice.  He looks over at Robinson, who is taking his lead.  He throws to first hoping to catch Robinson off the bag, but Robinson dives back in.  Carmine looks in at the signal, shakes his head, and seems to accept.  Stokes is not giving anything away.  Carmine deals...Stokes lays down a perfect bunt, a dribbler up the third base line.  Sanchez charges in from third, barehands it, and beats the runner with the throw by a step.  Robinson goes to second on the sac bunt!

The home crowd is into this one!  Next up is Williams.  He can hit the ball a country mile but he's also among the leaders in whiffs.  Carmine takes a look back at second.  The second baseman is cheating in toward Robinson but Carmine winds and deals.  A called strike on the outside corner.  Carmine looks again, deals, ball one in the dirt.  Williams steps off the plate, looks toward the bench, and steps in again.  Carmine takes a quick look at Robinson's lead, winds, and here's the pitch.  Williams swings under it and it's a high pop...Rodriguez is under it and shags the routine fly in shallow left.

Bert Johnson, the Big Bertha, is striding to the plate.  He is having an outstanding year this year, leading the team in ribbies and round-trippers.  The catcher calls time and comes out to make sure he's on the same page with Carmine.  Here comes blue to get them back to the game.  The plate ump brushes off the plate, and here we go.  Carmine looks in, Bertha stares back.  Carmine throws high and inside and brushes Johnson back.  Big Bertha isn't happy with that, and steps back in with a glare.  Another high and inside from Carmine, and this time Johnson has to go down.  That was close to being a beaner.  Johnson picks himself up, and you know he's angry.  The ump calls time and warns Carmine.  Carmine takes the ball and goes back to the rubber.  He looks at Robinson, who's just fine where he is.  Carmine turns and fires.  A hanging fastball!  A swing and a hit!  It's a monster out toward left center.  The left fielder is racing back, he leaps at the wall and he's got it...wait, he lost it over the wall!  He had a snow cone that popped out over the wall when he hit the padding.  The crowd has gone berserk.  The 'Topes win on a downtowner by Big Bertha!  What a game!

I wasn't completely fictional...the two team names are Triple-A clubs from the last two cities where I have lived, New Orleans and Albuquerque.  Any resemblance otherwise to baseball players living or dead is purely coincidental. 

When a radio baseball announcer is on, the results can be poetry.  I do not flatter myself that I've reached that level in my example above, but I hope that it has given you a sense of what you might hear.  I think that the old man in Bagley, who pronounces that television has turned the game into "beans," is right on the money.  The poetry, the cadence, the vividness, and most importantly, the epic human drama of baseball is lost when you aren't lead to images through the words of a skilled announcer.  Listening to many of those announcers can be equivalent, to a rabid baseball fan or a young boy with a transistor radio in the 70s, to listening to an epic recited by Homer (pun only slightly intended) or Virgil.

Musical Interlude

I believe (I may be wrong but I believe), that baseball, more than any other sport, has inspired songs.  I have put two of my favorite baseball songs for your musical interlude.  Steve Goodman sings about a dying Chicago Cubs fan's last request, and Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball, by Buddy Johnson and Count Basie, about the pioneering baseball player who integrated the major leagues.

If you want to know more about Bagley

City of Bagley
Farmers Independent (newspaper)
Lakes 'n' Woods Guide to Bagley
Wikipedia: Bagley

Next up: Lake Itasca, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Thief River Falls, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

Thief River Falls sounds like an ominous place, but actually appears to look quite nice.  It also has an interesting history about its unique name.  I'll examine the allure of secret places in this post.  To locate this once hidden and secret location, steal on over to the map.

Book Quote

"Thief River Falls, another town of Nordic cleanliness, reportedly got its name through an odd mingling of history and language.  A group of Dakota Sioux lived on the rich hunting grounds here for some years.  Although the bellicose Chippewa controlled the wooded territory, the Dakotas managed to conceal a remote settlement by building an earthen wall around it and disappearing inside whenever the enemy came near.  They even hunted with bows and arrows rather than risk the noise of guns.  But the Chippewa finally found them out and annihilated them.  Because the mounds hid a portion of the river, the Chippewa referred to it as 'Secret Earth River.'  Through some error, early white traders called it 'Stealing Earth River'; through additional misunderstanding, it came to be 'Thief River.'"

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Photo at Menupix. Click on photo to go to host page.

Thief River Falls, Minnesota

I remember the first "big" book that I ever got.  I can't remember the exact date but I must have been about 10 or 11.  It was a thick paperback book, and it had more pages than I'd ever seen in my life.  I was a good reader, but I felt a little daunted by this book and masked it with indifference.  I couldn't see why I should read it, after all, I was doing just fine.  I was a good reader, and had impressed my third grade teachers by reading at an eighth grade level.  But as I looked at this heavy book, it made me nervous.

I eventually read it, and I was glad I did.  It was the perfect book for young kid who thought that going outside and playing army men and riding his bike was the epitomy of a perfect day.  I couldn't put the book down, and when I finished, I was sorry that the book had to end.  It also cemented my love of fiction, works that (prior to my knowing about Homer) had an Odyssey like quality to them (predating my love of travel books) and also sent me down the fantasy road that introduced me to works like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Silverlock.  What, you haven't read Silverlock?  Well, go get yourself a copy and read it as soon as you can!

The book was Watership Down, and I'm associating it with this post because of the quote above.  In Watership Down, a group of rabbits is driven by a tragedy at their original home to travail cross-country to find a new home.  They encounter and surmount dangers, and find a new home in an abandoned rabbit warren under a copse of trees on a small hill.  The hidden and isolated nature of their new home protects them from predators and from being discovered by other rabbit warrens.  Eventually, their need for females to help populate the new warren brings them into contact with an authoritarian and fascist warren and they eventually are discovered.  Unlike the Dakota Sioux in LHM's quote, however, they survive being discovered after winning a decisive battle.

There are lots of references to groups of people who have used the hidden nature of their surroundings to thrive and survive.  J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the aforementioned Lord of the Rings, writes in The Silmarillion about the hidden and mighty city of Gondolin in the age before the events of the Lord of the Rings.  Those who entered the city were never permitted to leave.  It was only when Gondolin was betrayed that it was destroyed by the forces of evil.

In Turkey, in the Cappadocia region, there are as many as a hundred hidden underground cities near established towns and villages.  They were used by villagers to escape wild animals and people that meant them harm.  Carved in the tufa, or ancient volcanic rock, they could use up to 5000 people on multiple levels.  They were utilized by early Christians to escape persecution, and some fine Byzantine-era churches complete with fantastic frescoes can be found carved in the rock there.

Of course, there have often been cities and cultures hiding in plain sight among us.  National Geographic recently had a feature on the catacombs underneath Paris that draws a whole host of "cataphiles," even though it is illegal to go there.  I've read about underground scenes in other cities as well.  I took a tour of the Seattle underground, and New York has a whole set of abandoned subway stations.  So does Berlin - phantom stations that were closed off after the Berlin Wall was built.

I wonder how the Dakota Sioux were able to get away with such a ruse in what would become Thief River Falls, Minnesota?  Did the Chippewa just not traverse the area very much to see the earthen wall?  Did the Dakota do such a good job of building the wall that it appeared a natural feature of the riverbank?  Was there some superstitions at work that are an untold part of the story?  Was the place sacred to the Chippewa and therefore they overlooked a people living right under their noses until one day they discovered the affront to their religious sensibilities?

In my experience, we tend to see things that we want to see and miss things that we don't.  In my personal life, I'm often amazed how I can be frantically looking all over the place for something, like car keys, that are hanging on a hook that my eye gazes at over and over.  Why don't I see the keys?  Or, I might be looking for something in the refrigerator that is front and center and I just don't register it.  Perhaps the Dakota had the right idea - if you don't want to be seen, hide in plain sight.  Our paper just had a story about a man who was indicted for murder and who was just caught after 25 years on the run.  He had been a street musician in San Francisco, seen by a lot of people every day.

I recently read a book called The Secret Garden, which was not only a coming of age book about children but also a study in selective perception.  The father in the story, a hunchback, lost his beautiful wife at a young age and as a result lost his ability to enjoy life.  He began to selectively ignore and avoid anything that reminded him of his wife, particularly the beautiful garden they built together and the young son they made.  The garden, the son, and the girl who befriends him were all metaphors for beauty ignored and left to develop on its own.  It becomes flawed, but will spring back if given the right attention, love and care.  Finally, the father is able to see his son after he and the garden have been tended and become strong and beautiful again.

We daily use such selective perception, which can serve us well or ill.  It would not be a stretch to think that hidden places that elude our awareness exist right in front of us, and will be revealed, if ever, in their due time and when we are ready.

Musical Interlude

I found this 70s progressive rock song completely by accident.  It is called Secret Places, and was recorded by Gary Moore.  The lyrics are very appropriate to the theme of this post.

If you want to know more about Thief River Falls

City of Thief River Falls
Northland Community and Technical College - Thief River Falls
Thief River Falls Times and Northern Watch (newspaper)
Wikipedia: Thief River Falls

Next up: Bagley, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Viking, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

We continue to ride with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) into western Minnesota, past the town of Viking and its sunflower crops.  Don't they look beautiful!  Let's stop and peruse them for a while, giving ourself an emotional lift and allowing us to appreciate beauty in the world.  To see where these sunflowers grow, please, look at the map!

Book Quote

"Near Viking, tall stalks from the sunflower crop of a year earlier rattled in the warm wind.  For miles I had been seeing a change in the face of the Northland brought about because Americans find it easier to clean house paint out of brushes with water than with turpentine.  This area once grew much of the flax that linseed oil comes from, but with the advent of water-base paint, the demand for flax decreased; in its stead, of all things, came the sunflower, and now it was becoming the big cash crop of the Dakotas and Minnesota - with more acreage going each year to new hybrids developed from Russian seeds - because 'flower' is a row crop that farmers can economically reap by combine after the grain harvest."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Metal scarecrow in Viking, Minnesota. Photo by "matchboxND" and hosted at DB-City.com. Click on photo to go to host site.Viking, Minnesota

Did you know that the image at left symbolizes a type of terrorism?  Neither did I!  I use the word terrorism in jest, really, because the sunflower is a component of what is called "guerilla gardening," in which bands of eco-warriors head out on International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day to plant sunflowers in neglected and blighted cityscape plots.  Not only do the plants brighten the area but if there are toxins in the soil, the plants often soak up those toxins, and provide a natural way to help clean the environment.  Maybe instead of terrorism, we could call it "elationism."  I can imagine the happy warriors of the guerilla gardening movement heading out with their seeds, trowels and water to wreak havoc on blight through floriculture.

In fact, I can think of no better way to brighten up anything, because I don't know about you, but I cannot remain in a funk if I look at sunflowers.  There's just no way.

Throughout my childhood, I knew that sunflowers existed, but weren't grown very much where I grew up.  There were some in isolated gardens, but I didn't get much exposure to them.  The only thing I knew about sunflowers was all wrapped up in the packages of seeds that my friends would buy at the store.  They ate and then spit them, so that sunflower seed shell carcasses littered the ground around their feet.  I tried them, and while they had an interesting flavor, I didn't think all the work of splitting the seeds to get the little morsel of nut meat inside was worth the effort.

So it wasn't until I moved, and particularly when I moved to the Southwest, that I really got exposed to sunflowers.  Suddenly they were everywhere I looked on warm summer days.  The coffee shop around the corner had a whole row of sunflowers growing alongside its adobe fence.  Gardens always seemed to have a section of sunflowers.  On my drives to Lubbock when I was teaching, I would pass by a scattered field or two of sunflowers in bloom.  And whenever I looked at them, no matter what the circumstance, my spirits would lift.  When my spirits were high, the sunflowers affirmed that I felt good about the world.  When my spirits were low, the sunflowers would take me briefly out of dark places and remind me that there was beauty and light in the world.

The sunflower is also full of natural mystery in its beauty.  Look at that picture of the sunflower above.  Notice the spiral pattern in the middle.  The sunflower is actually not one flower but a group of 1000-2000 small flowers called florets, and the spiral pattern of these florets in the center follows a mathematical sequence called a Fibonacci sequence, where each successive spiral consists of florets that are the sum of the florets in the two spirals before.  According to Wikipedia, there are usually 34 spirals in one direction, and 55 in another, though they can be bigger.  Mathematics aside, I just look at that pattern and it puts me in wonder of the complexity and the beauty of the universe, as if a supreme power put a Spirograph on the world in the form of a yellow living thing of beauty.

Sunflowers have made a roundabout trip from and to the US.  They were probably among the very first crops cultivated by Native Americans, perhaps even earlier than corn.  They eventually made their way to Europe through the explorations of the Spaniards, who took the seeds back to Europe.  They eventually made their way to Russia where refinements in hybridization led to cultivation for the mass production of oil and food.  It was then that these new hybrids were reintroduced to the United States and planted for mass harvest in the upper Midwest.

In my previous post, I speculated about how Scandinavians in the upper Midwest could come to be known for their industriousness, their dourness and their quietness, so much so that they make fun of themselves for it.  The land, I surmised, with its long harsh winters and hot blazing summers probably takes a lot of mental energy to exist, coupled with the hard work of farming.

But the planting of sunflowers as cash crops makes me wonder if these perennial beauties, growing anywhere from six to twelve feet high, provides a lift to people who live there.  I can imagine, just for a moment, a taciturn Norwegian Minnesotan farmer, going out to his work on a summer morning before the weather gets too hot, stopping at the field of sunflowers he has planted.  In those moments, I imagine his dour look relaxes as he gazes on the sunflowers, and a brief smile appears before he gets to the hard work on another morning.

Musical Interlude

I'm giving you a sunflower double shot, today, Littourati.  For those of you that like some rock, I'm going to give you the Grateful Dead's China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider.  It seems like it would be a great road tune, especially going through the sunflowers of Viking.  The second is a jazz fusion tune by Freddie Hubbard called Little Sunflower, with vocals by Al Jarreau.  Enjoy!

If you want to know more about Viking

What can I say?  It's a small place.

Wikipedia: Viking

Next up: Thief River Falls, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Oslo, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

We have entered Minnesota with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM), and it almost seems like we have entered Norway instead.  All the place names have changed to ones that evoke Scandinavia.  In this post, I'll look at little at why so many Scandinavians settled in the region.  If you would like to locate where Norwegians live but fjords are very scarce, click here for the map.

Book Quote

"I drove up the valley of the Red River of the North (which empties into Hudson Bay) and crossed into Oslo, Minnesota."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Oslo, Minnestota in winter. Photo by "shu12" at Panoramio. Click on photo to go to host page.

Oslo, Minnesota

You'll notice, as we travel through this set of stops in Minnesota with LHM, that there will be a lot of place names that refer to the area's Scandinavian roots.  In the quote I pulled for the previous post on Grand Forks, LHM refers to the city as being "clean as a Norwegian kitchen."  This post is centered on Oslo, Minnesota, the name taken from the capital of Norway.  The next post I do will be centered around Viking, Minnesota, with the obvious connotations.

How extensive is Scandinavian descent in the United States?  According to Wikipedia, while only 2% of all Americans claim Norwegian descent, 16.5 percent of Minnesotans claim Norwegian descent, as well as a whopping 33 percent of all North Dakotans.  Swedes make up 9.9 percent of Minnesota's population.  Danes and Finns also have sizable populations in the state as well.  Why did so many Scandinavians settle in the upper Midwest?  One reason might have been economic conditions in the old country. Most Scandinavians, according to what I've read, appear to have settled in other areas before heading to places like Minnesota. Another reason was probably, in part, because the climate and conditions were a lot like their European homelands (minus the Norwegian fjords).  The Duluth area, where we'll be in a future post, attracted Scandinavians who fished for a livelihood because of its position at the western end of Lake Superior.  Also, displacement and resettlement of the Native Americans in the area made land available for cheap.

Make no mistake, these lands weren't a garden of Eden.  Living in them was harsh.  The summers could be brutally hot.  But the winters were, and still often are, extremely difficult.  Feet of snow on the ground, blizzard conditions for days.  Many homesteads were often buried in snow and cut off from other people until warmer weather made for easier traveling.  It took hardy people, used to harsh climates, to settle these areas and the Scandinavians fit that description.

When I first lived in Milwaukee, I was introduced to the Scandinavian heritage of the upper Midwest.  Milwaukee itself was not a Scandinavian city - it was settled by Germans, Irish, and Poles.  But people in Milwaukee used to make gentle fun of the Norwegians and Swedes up north, and even inherited some of their slang and expression that characterized their speech, such as using the expressive "uff da."  I was introduced to Ole and Lena jokes, which made fun of Scandinavian-American culture (sort of like Italian or Polish jokes).  Here's an example:

Ole and Lena was at the kitchen table for the usual morning cup of coffee and listening to a weather report coming from the radio.  "There will be 3 to 5 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. All vehicles should be parked on the odd-numbered side of the streets today to facilitate snowplows," the radio voice declared.

"Oh, gosh, OK," said Ole, getting up, bundling up and heading outside to dutifully put his car on the odd-numbered side of the street.

Two days later, Ole and Lena were at morning coffee when the radio voice said: "There will be 2 to 4 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. You must park your vehicles on the even-numbered side of the streets."  Ole got up from his coffee as before. He bundled up, shuffled off, and put his car on the even-numbered side of the street.

A few days later, the couple was at the table when the radio voice declared: "There will be 6 to 8 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. You must park your cars on the ..." Just then, the power went out.

"Park it where?" Ole asked in the dark, "What should I do?"

"Aw, to heck with them, Ole," Lena said, "Don't worry about it today. Just leave the car in the garage."

We'd hear about fish-boils and interesting food such as casseroles with potato chip toppings.  We'd wrinkle up our noses when we heard about the Norwegian delicacy of lutefisk, which involves soaking whitefish in lye until it is almost a gelatin.  While I've never had it, I've heard that it smells bad.

It was while I was in Milwaukee that I was introduced to National Public Radio and Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, which extolled and gently poked fun at the Scandinavian side of Minnesota in his News from Lake Wobegon segment on the show.  Many the protagonists in this ongoing series of stories seemed to have last names like Ingqvist and the town had The Sons of Knute fraternal organization and the Statue of the Unknown Norwegian (the model left before the sculptor could get his name).

All of this gave me a picture of the Scandinavians of the upper Midwest as being very dour, practical and industrious.  The population seemed all to be very matter of fact and not a lot of fun, though they were quick to make fun of themselves for these very characteristics.

It all jarred with my reality because I remembered that in my senior year of college, we had a couple of Norwegian foreign students on my dorm floor, and I remember these guys as being completely crazy.  They were pranksters, they drank a lot, they loved to tell jokes about the Swedes (because the Norwegians and the Swedes are rivals even though they have the same ethnic background).  If there was a noisy night on the dorm, if the Norwegian guys didn't start it they were surely in the middle of it.

Even in my present, a group of Scandinavian skiers that competed for the University of New Mexico lived four doors down from me.  They just moved out.  They were the typical Nordic athletic types - good looking, tended blond, extremely in shape.  They were also intense partiers and noisy.  If there was noise in the neighborhood, you didn't have to look any farther than the Nordic ski team down the block.  Their neighbor was glad they moved.

So what happened to those Norwegians and Swedes in the upper Midwest to make them so dour and serious that they make fun of themselves for it?  I'm not sure.  I do know, however, that I while I like Minnesota and would be happy to visit Minneapolis and St. Paul again, I really, really want to visit Scandinavia.  It seems like a fun, beautiful place and from what I hear, the people there are very friendly.  I also know that Scandinavian women are beautiful - not that I care that much...

Musical Interlude

This video is apropos of nothing to this post, other than it was a mid-1980s hit for this Norwegian band that went to number one.  It is also a pretty cool video.  Enjoy a-ha and Take On Me.

If you want to know more about Oslo

City of Oslo
Lakes 'n' Woods Guide to Oslo
Wikipedia: Oslo

Next up: Viking, Minnesota