… while here in the States, things continue to keep on slip-sliding away.
In Finland 2021 is off to a fast start
![That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/welcometohell-150x150.jpg "That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]")
Next post: The Hive and the Town
Previous post: Time in a Bottle: Dust in the Wind and the Summer of 77
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Comments on this entry are closed.
A true Finn wouldn’t have had a towel wrapped around himself.
@John: Au contraire! How’s he going to wipe the sweat off when he finishes that sprint?
Looks to me like UPS should be hiring some smart-alec Finnish sprinters for winter deliveries.
Point taken, Mike, possibly I was not basing my assertion on enough statistical data. The one data point I leaned on was a Finnish friend who also races motorcycles on icy lakes. I was at a race he was participating in up in northern Michigan, and at the same lake there was one of those polar bear swims going on. When my friend noticed the participants gathered round the hole in the ice, after the race, he rode his bike over and asked if it would be alright if he took a dip. When they said “No problem,” he stripped down to his skivvies, and dove right in, swam around for a bit, unlike the other polar bear participants who jumped in and immediately out, and then stood around for a bit talking all things Finnish; sauna, icy dips, etc.; while still in his skivvies. All the rest of the polar bear plungers had donned boots, heavy blankets, or warm jackets. After chatting them all up for 10 or 15 minutes, he climbed backed into his ice racing gear, and rode off. And he didn’t have a towel.
Happy New Year Gerard. Thank you for all you do.
SISU–is a very real quality and it seems to be only applicable to the Finns! Love em!
I dunno 🤷🏻♂️ Gerard, I didn’t hear a gun go off so I’m going to call “false start” or “jump the start” on that crazy 😜 Finn.
Happy New Year sir. May you keep offering us your unique take on the weirdness and wonder of the world.
P.S. Can you repost your story on “Spare a Quatah?” someday? Always makes me laugh 😆.
“Looks to me like UPS should be hiring some smart-alec Finnish sprinters for winter deliveries.”
Canadian hockey players can do the job too– and they might jump at the chance to get away from Trudeau.
For 30 years I lived on a street much like that back in MN. That UPS driver wasn’t a native. First off, he’s not wearing shorts. UPS drivers wear shorts. Period. Second, a true Minnesotan woulda sized up the situation right away. Brace up on the back of the van and a healthy shove would have delivered that sucker right to the door. A slap shot with a hockey stick would work better but UPS drivers usually don’t carry sticks around in the truck. FedEx maybe, but not UPS.
[UPS driver] Here comes Rocket Richard up the ice at a furious pace! He shoots!! He scores!!!
John and Mike, I have actually been on the Finnish lake and smack-dab right on the Arctic Circle (it theoretically ran right through the lake) and I was expecting buck nekked! The Finns sauna and jump in the drink in their birthday suits.
My host, a retired Finnish Navy Captain, informed me that the Arctic Circle moves about. The reason is that it delineates the place where one full solar day and one full day of darkness each occur once annually. Just a bit of geographic trivia for ya. The reindeer run around like bandits, and the girls are worth seeing. I’m just reporting the truth.
As a native northern Minnesotan raised where it’s always “colder by the Lake (Superior)” by a father who spoke only Finnish until he entered elementary school, I understand both the humor and reality of these videos. That I am also a retiree from UPS brings things to a another level. Proud of the good delivery service against the odds, enjoyed the surprise ice sprint, and simply can not stop joyful laughter from bubbling up inside me. Thank you for the positive gift to end 2020.
When we first got married (Wyoming) Husman and I went hotpotting just outside Yellowstone Park. We were naked, in winter, and walked through bitter, ice cold, calf deep water…to join the other nekkid bathers in a warm pool of neck deep hotsprings water. Ahhh. Good times. It was the only place without ice. Lots of steam, but no ice.
I have taken a dip in the Beaufort Sea (Arctic Ocean) at Prudhoe Bay, quite invigorating.
One of my less pleasant memories while learning to deal with life in the arctic and sub-arctic; in the spring coming out of a Finnish style sauna, deciding to dive head first naked into a snow bank to cool off. The snow bank was on a south slope, the sun had glazed a hard, rough, layer of ice atop it. Hence, instead of diving in I found myself naked belly skating some twenty feet across it.
Hence, instead of diving in I found myself naked belly skating some twenty feet across it.
That had to be more abrasive, than bracing, James.
Here in my little Midwest town, the 1st day of 2021 is looking and feeling a bit gloomy- dark and overcast skies, no susnshine, a persistent cold wind, a layer of ice over everything, foggy, and freezing rain coming down in waves.
I sure hope that’s not an indication of how the rest of the year will be!
born south shore of lake erie, here- the driver’s a rookie. walk in the snow, push the box.
and I grew up next to a town of Finns, beautiful, flaxen-haired Finns.
A member of the UPS Curling team?
A comment on the Youtube side of the finland runner:
“It’s him, it’s Jesus”
Then,
“Catch him! He’s trying to get away!”