Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Half Swede

Yeah, I am half Swedish. I was messing around on Blogger and found this blog: The Emigrant. He is from Sweden and had a link to information about Swedish Americans, on Wikipedia, of course. Well, it turns out that North Dakota has the second highest percentage of Swedes of any state, 5%, but does not make the top ten numbers-wise. Why? Because hardly anyone lives in North Dakota, I guess.
Swedes are a hardy bunch and yeah, they were Vikings back in the bad old days, but most of the really bad-asses moved to the islands now called Great Britain after killing most of the men and marrying the women left, or something like that. That left the nice guys and farmers who made a really good country, make good furniture and pancakes. OK, they are known for more than that, but you can read Wikipedia for more information.
This is sort of tongue in cheek, as I have never been in touch with my Swedish half, preferring the kinder, gentler German-Russian half. Yeah, there actually is such an ethnic group, sort of. Kinds of gets confusing, but a lot of them moved to North Dakota as well in the late 1800's and early 1900's. They were a tough bunch of people and survived those cold winters just fine and in fact thrived there.
As for myself, I am drawn, psychically to rainy, windy, rocky places with lots of cold water and dark winters. I guess that is the Swede in me. I could have been Norwegian as well, but I will leave that to my friend Jarle (we call him Jerry because Jarle just does not sound right).
I hope this leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy or something, but that is not the point, is it?

No comments: