The Groke

Much of our bedtime reading this winter has come from Tove Jansson's wonderful Moomin books. Jansson was a Swede who grew up in Finland, a distinction imperceptible to most of the world that I seem to be stuck on. Her books are a relatively mild phenomenon here in the U.S., but are popular enough in Japan to have landfills worth of discardable toys molded in their tribute. The stories are full of unexpected niceties, and the Moomins, the family at the center of all the inaction, are the kind of folks you wouldn't mind being cooped up with all winter. Mostly because they hibernate.

One of Jansson's least animated characters is the Groke, a shiftless energy sucker who tries to sit on the others to get warm. Parasitis borealis. But despite her efforts, the Groke is doomed to wander forever cold. The Groke has glommed on to our first peek of spring here in Minneapolis, and is currently parking her clammy ass on the crocus shoots in our front yard. A buzz kill? Not really--we did a bunch of gardening before the weather turned--cold-sowing lettuce and spinach--and this snowpack will turn bright green in a few weeks.

Despite twenty inches of snow last week, the powers-that-be declared that life should go on as usual. Some lesser powers dissented: the highway patrol advised against travel. But the schools and the state wanted butts in seats, greasy roads notwithstanding. I stayed home and moved snow, confident my employer would not reimburse damaged taillights and fenders. We hosted a high school student for about an hour after her bus failed to show up for its appointed two-hour delay as the wind flung two-to-three inches of snow an hour at our neighborhood. Finally, alas, the beancounters have seized our collective common sense. And that shiver you can't shake is the Groke trying to sneak a hug.

Today I took the bus to work, the first time that's been necessary since a tailgater totaled our second car in January. I put my transfer in the wrong slot on the University Limited, and was scolded, but the driver thawed a little and didn’t make me pay again. A gritty day with plenty of sallow commuters mounting the dirty snowbanks, and one special-needs pedestrian (or a guy coming off a serious night of partying) in someone else’s clothes, blue jeans a few sizes too small, another's buttock wear highlighting the backs of his thighs above highwater hems and tumbledown socks. The calendar tells us that spring sprang this week, that vital moment when the sun crosses the equator as the earth bows north to the light. But the streets of Minneapolis are pre-vernal today.

© 2006 Michael Nordskog

Counter-Finn

When I set out to write a story about sauna renovation a few years ago, I struck upon a very convenient fact: my great grandfather, known as Charles Erickson (1877-1964) to his fellow Two Harborites, had been born Karl Hagberg of seemingly Finnish ancestry in a remote corner of Sweden. He must have desired to blend in: the Minnesota Historical Society lists five late Charles Ericksons for Lake County alone, and well over 1,500 for the entire state. As many Charles Ericksons have drawn their last breath in Minnesota as would fill a small arena. But the improbable family legend was that he changed his name because there were too many Hagbergs. Erickson is listed on the death certificate as his mother's maiden name, so that reveals the source. While I thought he might have changed his name to shake a trail of finnophobes, the reason remains a mystery.

The fortunate event behind my discovery of his hidden ethnicity dates back to 1928, when a local group in the Swedish province of Värmland purchased the Hagberg farmhouse from Karl's brother Johan and moved it to a local homestead museum--Gräsmarks Hembygdsgård--dedicated to preserving the Finnish imprint in the mountainous borderlands near Norway. When I visited relatives in the region as a teenager in 1982, they took me to visit the home, but they spoke no English and my Danish companion was little interested in the yokels.

I was recently pleased to find pictures of the house on the museum's website while revisiting my research. I also found much more information: the house dates to 1832, and the Hagbergs were relatively prosperous and probably not Finnish. When I wrote the story, I corresponded with a local Swede who confirmed that the buildings at the museum were all of Finnish origin. But my recent painstaking (i.e., Swedish language) review of newly posted information about Gräsmark suggests that the museum is a bit more ecumenical. The Hagberg farm, Asphagen ("aspen meadow"), occupied the western shore of Lake Rottnen, the Swedish bygd, or district, of Gräsmark. Its farmhouse appears to have been moved to the museum grounds to represent Swedish farm life. I've often thought that my incipient finnishness made the sauna story work on a separate level, and so this is perhaps my James Frey moment, however unintentional. Thus I've rushed this correction to self-publication, where its obscurity is assured.

The house seems larger than I remember: two full stories and a gable roof, a plain and respectable dwelling. A house affording a little room to ramble, not a backcountry stuga. Not that there's any shame in resuming this Swedish quarter of my selfhood: life in Värmland around the time of Karl Hagberg's youth is detailed in several of the books of the great Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf (Gösta Berlings Saga), who grew up on and later reacquired her family estate at Mårbacka, a few miles east of Gräsmark. My recent discovery inspired me to read Lagerlöf's memoirs, named for the farm. She was an earnest supporter of her Finnish neighbors and Sweden's--the first woman to win the Nobel prize for literature, she donated her medal to the Finnish resistance against the Russians during the Winter War. I'm eager to someday again explore this part of the world with more curiosity and attention than I showed the first time around.



© 2006 Michael Nordskog

"Jump on my back. I'll carry you."

We invest a lot of glory in sports figures, most of it undeserved. And they are paid well enough anyway that it sort of transcends glory. The synthetically dominant Barry Bonds embodies this prima donna ethic, refusing to be formed into anybody's image of an idol but his own. Maybe he doesn't realize that deigning to be a hero, at the worst a nuisance for him, can make a kid's year. What do I know--maybe he is just peachy face to face with fans. But he refuses to allow the media to amplify his potential to inspire.

Kirby Puckett was the consummate sports hero. He led, he cheered, and he performed. In every encounter I read about today, his generosity of spirit shone through; this guy had it great and knew it, and he shared that benefit with seemingly everyone he met while he wore a Twins uniform. One attribute I never saw mentioned, though, was Puckett's clear loyalty to his teammates and fans. More so than his perfectly suited name, his surprising speed, or his tenacity, what made him such a standout was his commitment to one team. He was one of the few athletes, at least since television made heroism astromonical and highly portable, to enjoy tremendous success by staying put for a little less money. If you can't sit back and enjoy sport and be a homer once in a while, what's the point of even tuning in? That's why people loved him, Kirby, the homer.

The quote above comes, of course, from game six of the 1991 series against the Braves, when Puckett famously robbed Ron Gant of a homer and then hit one of his own in extra innings, generating game seven with a single stroke. I was in a bar in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, a major league no-man's land where no loyalty prevails, but everybody seemed to be Twins fans that night and I felt close to home. Similarly, despite his off-field tangles, most everyone revives a fond memory of Kirby Puckett this week.

© 2006 Michael Nordskog