AWAYS SOMEONE AT THE BOTTOM

(The following was posted in part on Motley Fool)

An Internet colleague has recently been to Finland which brought back reminiscences. Long ago when I was a geology student in 1953 I lived in a Finnish boarding house called Jukala's for a part of summer in Virginia, MN, in what is called the Iron Range which at one time was the biggest iron mining district in the world. By the time I got there, however, it was pretty well shut down. There was a Finnish immigrant there who had been in this country for two years that wanted to improve his English and befriended me. I heard a couple of old Finns talking and asked him what they were saying. He replied "Don't you understand? They are speaking English." I said "They are?" He said that they were putting Finnish endings on the words. I think he said that Finnish has 21 case endings for nouns.

I had the overpowering urge to ask him how he liked America, but I resisted it until we were in a bar one night having a brew. OK, maybe it was the second one when I turned to him and said, "How do you like America?" He replied,"If you are rich, any country is good, but, if you are a worker, America is the best place."

The Finns were the poor laborers of northern Minnesota, sort of the Hispanics of today. Always somebody on the bottom. Some of my Swedish friends warned me not to walk around at night because I was in a bad neighborhood. I did so, however, and never saw any trouble. Actually not many people were walking around at night. I figured that when the Swedes and Norwegians came in looking for trouble they found it. Sunday mornings, I would wake to the sound of people signing hymns at the Lutheran Church next door. When I went out for lunch, they were out on the lawn taking a break, but when I returned they were back in singing again. I had the feeling they spent the whole day there as the singing lasted until into the evening.

I took out a Finnish girl once, and my Swedish friends told me I shouldn't do that. I didn't have a car, otherwise I would have gone out with her more. It reminded me of back home when my parents got nervous if I dated a Roman Catholic or Jewish girl back in High School. "They are nice people, but I wouldn't want my son to marry one."

The following summer I was to work further north in Ely, MN, about 40 mil; north of Duluth, The Gateway To The Wilderness Area, prospecting for magnetic iron ore for the now defunct Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. This was still Finnish country and there was a billboard on the outskirts of town that said "Vote For Saari" (Finns love the double "a" in names) for something or other. I've forgotten what. On Friday nights, the local bars had polka bands. On some songs they changed the name to a Finnish name, e.g. when You and I were Young Maaki and Who's Saari Now.

In 1969, I actually visited Finland for a few days as the guest of the Finnish government and spent a day in their copper-nickel mine - Otukumpu. My impression was that Finland is a pretty flat country with lots of trees, much like northern Minnesota and with a climate to match so I can understand why they found northern Minnesota attractive (along with northern Wisconsin and Michigan). I was on an extended trip of 17 days through northern Europe (Belgium, England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland). I had the impression that my organization was going to pay for this, wrong as it turned out. I had to pick up the whole bill, but I'm glad I took the trip because I doubt if I ever would have taken it had I known I was going to pay for the whole thing. Seeing the fjords of Norway was worth it by themselves.

I think it was back before WW-II and the Soviets invaded Finland. The Finns planted Christmas trees out on a frozen lake and lured the Soviet army onto it and blew it up. Mighty clever. Of course, the Finns eventually settled the war on Soviet terms but remained independent. Finland is also known as the only country to repay their WW-II reparations.