Long time no see

It has been a while since I wrote something on this blog. I have started to fix my teeth now, it is painful and expensive, but it feels good after it is done. The dentist, Karl Keisu is a real artist, I feel completely safe. I felt fear for the dentist until I started to go to him. I don't go so often, 10-12 years between the visits, when the teeth fall out from the mouth. Karl makes it better than it was before. I have a great respect for people who is master in their proffession.
Karl Keisu is one example, my Uncle Bertil is another. He has been a Teacher for furniture carpenters and has worked in four African countries. I have seen a picture in intarsia of the school my sons John and Peter studied in. Intarsia is when you cut out wood from a furniture and fill the surface with other kinds of very thin wood. He used 300 pieces of wood for the school, the window pieces were burnt in the corners so it looks like shadows. His daughter Eva is a glass artist, I am full of respect for her too. She is a member of a group of 17 women, artists in Visby, Gotland called Kvinnfolki. They have a shop where they sell their Art. My own family is very talented in many things if my say so. More talented people, I saw the final of Swedish Idol yesterday, amazing how many completely unknown artists there are in this country, Tove, Erik and Calle who was in the Semi Final is really good, Erik won the Final in the Globe.

Stealing helpers

Among the worst things I know is people who steal from helporganizaitions.
Some years ago a man who had acess to autistic children's summercamp money stole 800000 SEK of that money with the result that autistic children in Norrbotten lost their Summercamp.
Another man from Haparanda was a so called Good man to mentally disabled persons and had acess to their money, he stole 800000 to. I see him sometimes and have thought many times that I shall ask him who has payed for his car. The worst example is Johan af Donner, he has been chairman both for The Cancer Foundaition and The Swedish Red Cross, he has stolen over five million SEK to pay for his luxury life, he had a very good salary too. People collect money, knit socks, give clothes and furniture to help poor and sick people, and assholes like af Donner take the money. The last example is from Luleå this week, a leading person in the Red Cross there has been fired because he has stolen money. People don't want to give to these organizaitions anymore. I don't understand how a man can go out and look into people's eyes if he has stolen from people who has a very hard life.

The seven daughters of Eve

It was a while since I wrote something on this blog. It is Winter now, cold and windy and I have been reading a very interesting book by Bryan Sykes, professor in genetics. He and his crew has DNA tested people all over the World in order to investigate where their ancestors came from and how all people on Earth are related. The book, The seven daughters of Eve claims that all people in Europe remains from only seven women, the oldest lived 45000 years ago.
He can say this because he has tested the mithocondrial DNA (mtDNA). It is a DNA that copies itself and goes from mother to daughter through the generations. He has found a relative to the iceman Ötzi who died 5300 years ago in South England, and a relative to the 12000 old Cheddar man from South England. It was Lord Bath's butler Cuthbert. One of these women lived in Spain, and her Clan went very far North when the Ice age ended, they have found her relatives among the Sami people in Scandinavia. One % of the Aboriginal people in USA remains from a woman who was born in Europe. I think this is very interesting, I would like to DNA test myself.
The oldest People in Europe is the Basques in North East Spain and South West France, their skeletons look exactly like 20000 old Cromagnon skeletons. The first modern people in Europe were hunters, they had bloodtype A Rh-, it is a very common bloodtype among the Basques, later another group came from Anatolia, Turkey, they were the first farmers, they had bloodtype A Rh +. I have A Rh- myself, so I consider myself to a relative to the first modern Europeans. They haven't found any relatives to the Neanderthals.

Jack Nicholson

My favourite actor is Jack Nicholson, born 1937. He plays often neurotic characters, very funny to watch. He grew up in Neptune, New Jersey, his alcoholized father left the family when Jack was a child and he grew up with his Grandmother who had a beauty parlor. Jack thought that she was his mother, he didn't know until 1974 that she was his Grandmother and that the girl that he thought was his sister was his mother. He has been a film actor since 1958.

Jose' Guiroa alias Walt Disney

In my serie" Facts about celebrities that you didn't know that you wanted to know about", has the turn come to Walt Disney. There was a very attractive wash woman in the Spanish city Mojacar 1890. Her name was Isabel Zamora Ascensio, known as La Bicha. She was very popular among the men and was pregnant with the married doctor Jose' Guiroa. She got a son who was called Jose' Guiroa after his father. The doctor died, and she decided to emigrate to USA because she wanted to protect the reputation of her and the doctor's families. She came to California 1890. At the same time there was a man who remained from the Normand conquerors of England 1066, one of them was called d'Isigny, he got land in England for his services and the family changed the name to Disney. Some of them emigrated to USA, and Elias Disney was a poor carpenter who left his family for long periods to search for gold in California. Isabel and Elias met there, and a birthcertificate was made for a boy named Walter Disney 1890. It was eleven years before Walt Disney was officially born. Elias was married to Flora and had a housekeeper from Mojacar, Spain. Walt Disney had contact with FBI, and 1940 FBI agents visited Mojacar. Many of Disney's films are about children without a parent. Bambi for example.
Most of these facts are taken from the book by Marc Eliot ,Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince.

The Glenn Miller Conspiracy

Glenn Miller is one of the most loved orchestraleaders ever. He died in the Second World War. The official explainaition to his death was that his plane had been bombed by mistake over the English Channel. Now the author Hunton Downs says in his book The Glenn Miller Conspiracy that Glenn Miller died as a War Hero.
According to Downs, General Eisenhower, Commander of the Allied Forces had an agreement with the German General von Rundstedt and two other Generals that Major Glenn Miller and soldiers from 101 Airborne Division should fly to Krefeld and be protected there by von Rundstedt's forces. After that they should fly to Berlin and hide there under protection by the West agent Fritz Kolbe. The plan was to take over the Berlin radiostation an play Millermusic and send propaganda and messages from Eisenhower to the German people. Unfourtnately there was a leak in Eisenhower's staff, so the Germans knew about it. Miller was caught by Colonel Otto Skorzeny, personal choosen by Hitler as expert on dirty tricks. He had reliesed Mussolini from Gran Sasso and had a group SS soldiers dressed in American uniforms. The allied considered him as a hired killer. He used Miller as a decoy to get Eisenhower. Miller was found on the street outside a brothel in Paris, it was also GESTAPO's headquarters. He was tortured and before he died at a military hospital, he whispered a warning to Eisenhower. He got the Bronze Star.
This information was top secret,nobody was allowed to say anything. Skorzeny organized the organizaition ODESSA after the war and helped Nazi war criminals to escape to South America. I read a book by him when I was young.

Somewhere over the rainbow

The Church election

It was election to the Church yesterday, not many voted, only 12%. I usually don't vote, but I did it this time. I didn't vote for anyone, I voted against. There were three lists there that I had to vote against, one that worked for more Finnish in Church, I think it is enough as it it is. One list was against homo marriages, I say, they pay their taxes to the Church too, they don't get any homoreduce of the taxes, so why not use all what the Church can offer. The third list was the Sweden Democrats with Nazis as candidates, they see their opportunity to get power in the the Church when few people vote. They are not for Christianity, they are against Muslims. The leading Ministers and the oppositionleader wasn't in Sweden this day, they were on Mallorca celebrating Michael Bindefeldt's Birthday. He is the leading partyfixer in Sweden. This was a signal to everybody else that this Election isn't so important.

Lars Levi's relatives

It was an interesting article in Haparandabladet today, they have DNA tested members of the Niemis in Kaunisvaara and found that they remain from Lars Levi Laestadius, more information on www.hbwebben. se. Fritz Niemi is an exact copy of LLL in looks and behaviour. I know that this is interesting for some of my readers.

HBwebben.se

HBwebben is a separate product that shall be a complement to Haparandabladet says Örjan Pekka, director. It is still under progress, they shall do like bloggers and follow news in other newspapers and collect news from Tornevalley.

Haparandabladet on the Internet

Now you can read Haparandabladet on the Internet, www.hbwebben.se it started yesterday

Nazis and Communists in Tärendö

It is an interesting article in www.nsd.se/tärendö 5/9. It is about the politics in Tärendö, Tornevalley in the Thirties. In the election only three parties got votes, the Nazis 146, the Communists 124, Högern(conservative) 134. It was the biggest victory for the Nazis in Sweden. The Nazis supported the ideas of regional independence, wich gave Finnish the same value as Swedish. Elderly married women supported the Nazis in Tärendö. Their strong man in Tärendö was the man who gave work in the forest for the men,many people was depending on him, so they had to vote for the Nazis to get a job. There were no votesecret, the Communist was prisoned in the workcamp or concentrationcamp Storsien in Kalix County. Sweden supported Germany until they lost in Stalingrad. One guy from there that I knew told me that one of his Grandfathers was Nazi, the other Communist. This study is written by Tage Alalehto and Mats Johansson, University of Umeå.

My favourite filmlunitic

Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchachevich von Schluderbachero is his real name, Herbert Lom his artistname. I bet not so many of you know who he is, but if I say Ha ha ha! Clouseau! Ha ha ha! I shall kill him! Ha ha ha! maybe a bell rings. I have just seen him on TV in The Pink Panther strikes again (1976) with Peter Sellers. He is a Czech-born actor born 1917. More information about Herbert Lom on Wikipedia. He dominates every scene he appears in.He is Chief Inspector Dreyfus who hates inspector Clouseau who has got his job when he got mad because of Clouseau. In this film he has escaped from a mental asylum and threats to destroy the whole world if he doesnt get Clouseau. Herbert Lom was born in an upperclass Jewish family, most of the funniest actors are Jews, they have a special kind of humour. I know these Jewish comedyactors real names too, If somebody is interested, give me a comment, I can write them. I have had many happy moments with these; Jerry Lewis,Tony Curtis,Goldie Hawn,Mel Brooks,Woody Allen, Richard Dreyfuss,The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Kirk Douglas,Bette Midler,Barbra Streisand,Marty Feldman,Gene Wilder,Zero Mostel,Walter Matthau,Danny Kaye,Dustin Hoffman.The whole american filmindustry was built up by Jews, for example Metro Goldwyn Mayer, United Artists was made by among others Charlie Chaplin.
Jewish actors in other kinds of films are Lauren Bacall, Edward G Robinson, James Garner,Peter Lorre, Charles Bronson,Erland Josephson. Some of these names are their birthnames, others for example Kirk Douglas, he was born Issur Danielovitch Demsky, I have seen one film that was produced by Issur Danielovitch.

Update bad dads

In www.nsd.se today 2/9 you can read that the Zyklon-B man has hung himself and that the vojakkalacriminal has visited his daughter's school again and carved with a knife in the car so that the staff could see it. A slap in the face says the Headmaster.

Religious dresscodes

I have just read a discussion in a Laestadian site in USA about how to dress in different situations, I found out that you can dress more free if you are not a member. I thought about that earlier this Summer when I met two Jehova's women and noticed their extremly ugly clothes, it is the same with the men, ugly suits. I don't know, but I don't think that ugly clothes makes you less Christian, or that you get less chances to go to Heaven. Mormons have a kind of uniform too, when I see these, my instincts say immediately, I don't want to have your fucking information when I am out walking, believe what you want, but leave me alone. This Summer it was a Laestadian Bigmeeting near my house, and I was surprised, for the first time it was kids there who looked like ordinary kids, no long skirts,purses, long hair.
There were a lot of them of course,probably because of no TV and condoms. I say like Groucho Marx, I like my cigar, but I take it out sometimes. I have readers from USA that might be offended of some subjects that I am writing about, I can be a little provocative, but if not this blog should be so boring so I couldn't stand reading it myself. A little filminformation, Elina(As if I didn't exist), see it on Youtube is a very good film from Tornevalley. It was another thing that struck me when I read the site, it was about a filmlist about Laestadians, our Laestadians here don't go to a movie, it is sin. Is it different in USA?

Bad Dads

I have read many gruesome news this Summer about men in Sweden who has done so horrible things against their families so it has made me very sad.
The Zyklon-B man that I wrote about earlier got nine years in prison, the punishment wasn't longer because nobody died. I think of the children, what a memory to grow up with. Another man struck his daughter 14 times in the head with a wrench in Denmark. She died. The criminal that got half his head chopped off in Vojakkala here, I have written about it before, went to his daughter's school in Karungi the other day, she had fallen when they played and got hurt in the head. He shouted to the staff and the children that he shall kill all there. He is in such a bad shape that he can't sit in prison, he is sentenced to 70 days for another crime, but he can go to school and say that he shall place every body against a wall and shoot them. He looks very gruesome too, now the parents have taken the children from school. Poor girl with that father. Finally, this week a man has killed his ex with a boltgun three hours after she had got the custody of their little children. It happened in a village outside Luleå, her name was Frida Stenberg, 24 years old.The child saw it.He had earlier destroyed the car with the tractor when she was in it. All children need a good start, these children and their families will have these bad memories for the rest of their lifes

Knapsublogg

I use to follow another blogger from Haparanda, www.knapsublogg.blogspot.com, he is very socialdemocratic, I don't know who he is, but he is mostly very interesting to read and he has good pictures. He has also interesting links to other bloggers from this region. He writes in Swedish. Knapsu means a girlish man, a sissy. I saw one yesterday, I know that one shall be openminded, but it felt strange to see this Jan-Olov Madeleine, maybe I have lived in the Valley too long.

A memorable Summer

This Summer is something to remember because I don't usually get so many new impressions and friends, mostly because I never go anywhere, but now, after my Scotland-trip and with this blog I have met more interesting people than before.
I have learnt about Sames and Finnish speaking natives in North America and that Meänkieli and a certain Meänkieliauthor is very important in USA,I had no idea about that before. I have got a Grandson, my youngest son is going to a University on Saturday, the first of my children to do that. I have seen Prince Charles and Camilla, and today I will look at Crownprincess Victoria and her parents.
The Summer is over,it was -5 C last night, and I shall go to work next week.
I came to think of a Monty Python song when I read some of the comments on my post Etnic clean, it's called Never be rude to a nigger. If you read the comments you see what I mean.Hasse,the busdriver I wrote about before is retired, I sort of missed him when he didn't drive the Stockholm bus, I heard that he had been angry to a little old lady, 73 years old. I have also learnt a man to eat Salmon, he didn't like it before, and about whiskytesting in Scotland, many people that I speak with dream of that, it is everywhere there, in ordinary shops, in the taxfree at the Airport, and it is free, costs nothing.

Ethan Noel

The main purpose for my trip to Scotland was to see my Grandson Ethan Noel for the first time, he was born 30/6. It was such a great feeling to hold him the first time,to know that a new generation continues in my family. This is what life is all about, to give birth to children and hope that everything goes well for them. Ethan is now number 20 in my family tree, the first was born 1425. Grandfather Keith has him as number 13 in his new Harri-clan. He is the first Grandchild in both our families. My wife who believes in astrology says that his future will be bright, that he will be successful. I think so too. It is a great joy with grandchildren.

Dolly the sheep

Dolly was the first cloned sheep,it happened in Rosslyn near the chapel I wrote about earlier,we visited the museum in Edinburgh where they showed up Dolly. She looked very much alive complete with shit on the ground and on the backside.
My daughter in law's Grandfather was a pioneer in cloning, according to an article in a LIFE magazine from the sixties, he was involved in cloning experiments. An interesting man, I have mailcontact with him. I didn't know before that Scotland has been first in many branches of Science and Technology. It was free to go in too, we have to pay in Sweden.

Aboriginals

I shall tell you more about the etnic problems here. The Same people is the aboriginal people here, they have lived here thousands of years, the ice age ended 7000 years ago, but as it is in Greenland, there were icefree areas at the Norweigan coast where people lived, the Komsa culture north of Tromsö. The reindeerowning Sames have certain rights to fish,hunt and driving with vehicles in the mountains that others don't have. Here in Tornevalley there is another group Finnish speaking Kväns. Finnish speaking people in Norway is called Kväns. Lapland is called Finnmark in Norway. Finland and Sweden was one country until 1809, when Finland was lost to Russia, the Finnish speaking people on both sides of the Torneriver was divided into two countries. Some of them think that they have been treated very bad by the Swedish Governement, and the last years a new movement has come, the Kväns. They claim that they were here before the Sames, that they shall have the special rights that the Sames have now. Some years ago, in Karesuando,in one of the northernmost schools in Sweden, the Samechildren stayed home from school because of the Kvänchildren. The road signs are in two languages in these areas, and very often the Samesigns have been thrown out in the terrain.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is full of interesting places, really scary graveyards, I walked there in daylight, but I wouldn't had liked to go there at night, it was Dracula and Frankenstein feeling over them. There were even a house were somebody lived in one of them. In older days there were graverobbers there, so someone lived there to protect the graves. There had been a koncentration camp there too, and there were ghosts and poltergeists, people had been attacked. The Walter Scott monument was impressive, a big statue and a very big tower over it. Sir Walter Scott wrote Ivanhoe. Keith and I walked up to the castle, the oldest chapel is 1000 years old, it is built on an old vulcano, we met the owner of a souvenir shop there, he hadn't opened yet, so he sat there in his underwear and dressed himself in his kilt. He took off the underwear when he had the kilt on, they don't have anything underneath.
The weather changed several times a day, sun,rain,sun again, more rain, I sang a song for myself, It always rains in Edinburgh,Caledonia. It was no problem, I had clothes for it. Most people there had no rainclothes, as I didn't have so much clothes with me, I didn't want to get wet. It was a charm with that too, but I recommend Gore Tex if you go there.

Etnic clean?

I am critical to separatistic movements in Tornevalley as I have written earlier about Bengt Pohjanen. In Haparandabladet 4/8-09 there is a text written by Polo, it says;" And Meänkieli shall us unite, it shall be the bottom and the base, and we all shall be etnic clean, of the Tornevalleykvän rase".
Joseph Goebbels couldn't had said it better. I am so allergic against people who says things like this, look at Bosnia, same movements there.

Okie from Muskogee

Okie from Muskogee is an old country song that by some reason is in my head. When I was in Edinburgh I had to speak English most of the time so that my Canadian friends there should understand me. After a week there I even talked English even if I didn't have to, with my son. I found a friend there, Keith. I sang Okie for myself, and he remembered it too from his youth. This is a little greeting from me, Keith.

Parkbenches Edinburgh-Haparanda

I have been walking around in Edinburgh and in one park there were benches with brass plates with names of donators on them. Very beautiful benches with surface like a sailingboat, not a mark on them. Back in Haparanda, the City has for the first time since I came here put benches between Marielund and central Haparanda, and what happens? Shit happens! I saw one bench today turned over, vandalaized, some Jeesus bullshit was written in Finnish on it. What's the point? why must we who like to walk,walk two km to find a place to sit? It was friendly people there too, I didn't see kids who were kicking on things like it is here. Edinburgh has 100 times more inhabitants than Haparanda, an IKEA, and Centre full of life. Haparanda's is dead. They have also their own Scottish money and flag. Look at that! Meän Kielians.

Scotland

I have always, since I read Walter Scott as a teenager, been interested in Scotland.
Now I have been there in ten days, I am on my way home and I am for the moment in Stockholm. Tomorrow I will go home with Tapani's. Scotland was all that I had hoped it should be, friendly people, a fantastic town, Edinburgh, a beautiful,wild landscape, highlanders with an appearence that I had never imagined, some looked like vikings. I was at a clangathering, Prince Charles and Camilla were there, I saw them on a bigscreen. Some of them had long swords to the ground, some had old fashion tartans, a very long blanket wrapped around them like a kilt and over the shoulder. Some looked like Willie in Simpsons. I saw also a clanleader, a Laird, he had an aura of a man with hundreds of years of tradition behind him. My reason to go to Scotland wasn't this, it's only a bonus, it was to see my Grandson, four weeks old today. His other Grandfather from Canada was there too, we met for the first time, and we became friends. Our first Grandson is a big moment for us. We saw a lot interesting, for example Loch Ness, Rosslyn Chapel, known for the Da Vinci Code. A very interesting thing about that chapel, built 50 years before Columbus is the statues and carvings in the walls. They show corn, an American plant. There was a text there that said that Temle Knights had been in America in the middle of 1300 and met indians who had corn. Many of them we talked with seemed to know their history much more than we know about our. I'll finish here for today, but I will write more about Scotland later.

Zyklon-B

I read today in www.nsd.se about a man who is in court in Luleå for trying to assasinate his ex with Zyklon-B or Uragan as it is called in Czechia, and Cyanide. Zyklon-B is the same gas as they used in Auschwitz. he had put the gas in her car, cyanide in a bottle under her nose, in her Christmas porrige and Zyklon-B on paper outside her door, he has also druged her and raped her.He had gas enough for killing 42000 people, and says that he should only scare her. The gas is for rats, he says. He is in chains in court, it is very seldom that happens. He is an ordinary Swedish man, and I notice that there are very few comments about this compared if a Gypsy chops a criminal in the head with an axe. I wonder how many comments it had been if a Gypsy or an immigrant had done it.

Nameology

The names of places here in the neighbourhood can seem to be Finnish, but are often Swedish or Pre-Nordic. One example is Röyttä, South of Haparanda in Finland. The Swedish colonizers came here by boat 700 years ago and gave names to islands and shores in their language, which is similar to the Kalix dialect. An old Swedish word for stony shore is gryt, in Pre-Nordic, Kalix dialect it is gröyt. They came here,saw a stony shore and called it Gröyt. The Finns can't say two consonants in the beginning of a word, so they called it Röyttä. An other example is the island Kraaseli. Gråsäl, Grey Seal, Kraaseli. In Luleå one island is called Gråsjälören. One island in the Torne river is named by Germans, Tanskinsaari, Danzig Island. Danzig is now called Gdansk, in Poland. An interesting word is the name of the island Suutari, shoemaker. In Latin sutor means shoemaker,taylor. In ancient English sutere and Eng. dialect souter.In ancient Sw. sutare,swthar. In Sw. the island is called Skomakaren. There is also a fish named sutare.

Hasse, the busdriver

I will go on my annual bustrip to Stockholm, 1100 km, on Saturday, after that to Skavsta Airport, Nyköping and Ryan Air to Edinburgh. I use to go with Tapani's bus every year. they change driver in Sundsvall, Hasse takes over, he is the buscompany's answer on Basil Fawlty, always angry if the passengers put the bags wrong, don't know the bookingnumber and so on. He was angry to many people the first time I heard him, even to me because I had asked if i could go off the bus in Haparanda. I had the ticket to Tornio. It is cheaper to buy the ticket from Tornio because they reduce a tax when you travel over the border to Finland. It is only 500 meters between the two bus stations. He had already put in my bag to Tornio and didn't like to move it.
It is the same every year, I listen what he has to say, if he is angry to somebody. I even said it to Tapani's once at a market that I have never seen that kind of busdriver before. It is cheap to take the bus, only 900 SEK to Stockholm and back to Haparanda. But it takes 16 hours one way. Luleå-Stockholm with Norweigan is also cheap,600 SEK, but it costs money to go from Haparanda to Kallax Airport. I recommend you who is keen on visiting north Sweden, take the bus, www.tapanis .se, they drive three times a week. Norweigan has plans for a direct flight from Luleå to maybe, it's not sure, London. One alternative is to go from Helsinki to Kemi, Finland, it is only 25 km from Haparanda. There is a famous snowcastle in Kemi every winter. This was a little touristinformation, I use to do that too from time to time.

The Northbothnian way of saying yes (Sw. ja)

There are many various dialects in Sweden, in Skåne, southernmost Sweden they use a lot of vocals and diphtongs, yes (Sw. ja) is jeou in Skånish, Roger is Rougörr. In Gothenburg yes is ja vesst. The Northbothnian, my way, of saying yes is the most timesaving way of speaking in the world, we say yes when we inhale. We say jo when we take a breath. It is like whisteling backwards. The Sames say it in a different way, they start in the back of the throat like a Hindu. Joo.

Sweden News

I have written about a Gypsy family, if you want to know more about them and other Swedish news, look at www.thelocal.se and write vojakkala as searchword. It is a good site.

Tragicomic in the village

In the village were many original men, often bachelors with alcoholproblems. They had often nicknames as Tralle, Lukeri,Cat-Oskar,Bosso. Tralle was with his son in law in his Summerhouse on an island, they were drinking and the son in law fell into the water. I was told that it was only one meter deep, but instead of going up,he dug with his hands in the bottom and drowned. Tralle took him in the boat and went to the village, and when he came a shore some men stood there and he said I have a dead loss! When he was young he had told another boy to cut off his finger, and he did it. He had a lot of houses on the island, I called it Tralleville. R. is still with us, he has said many funny things, once when he had got his driving licence and bought a car, he was out driving with a friend and stopped in an emty road and opened the window and asked Do Miss care for a ride? His friend asked why he did that. I'm only practicing, he said. R.'s neighbour G. had committed suicide, an some Gypsies wanted to buy his house, they can't live where somebody has died. R. showed them the house, and when they came down to the cellar, there was a rope in the ceiling. There hanged G.! said R. The Gypsies ran out from the house. Cat-Oskar was known as a catkiller, he always chased me when I was a child, once when he chased me I went through a hole in the fence, he was too big, so he climbed over and teared his pants. He went to the sawmill and complained to my dad that he had teared the pants, but he had nothing for that. Once when he saw that I had climbed up in the top of a spruce (gran), he cut off the branches below afterwards so I couldn't go up there again. When I was older and working a week in a factory, he came and said that you have been shooting with a gun. I could proove that it was somebody else he had seen, I was at the factory when he said that he had seen me. I never understood that man, once he throwed ice on me too. Lukeri looked like Hemingway and drank everything with alcohol, they said when he had drank hairwater it smelled good in the toilet. He played accordion, and once when he fell into the water, he was floating on the accordion. My dad took him to an elderly home when he was nearly 80, and he had to make an urintest. He looked at the result and said; Real Brandy!
One man, B. fixed his girlfriend's false teeth with plastic padding. Finally, a man from another village was dancing in our village when a transvestite was there. He took he/she home, and his friends asked afterwards Ble de nå! Did you score! Yes! he said. I use to think of that when I see him.


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More Pacific, Thor Heyerdahl

I notice that i have now 413 wiewers, welcome. I have always been interested in foreign cultures and explorers, my idol is the Norweigan explorer Thor Heyerdahl 1914-2002. He built ancient vessels to proove that the world had been colonized over the oceans thousands of years ago. He first came to think of this when he studied the sea streams when he spent a year as a honeymoon at Fatuhiva, Marquesas 1937, which almost cost them their lifes, he was a Norweigan commandosoldier during the Second World War and 1947 he sailed from Callao in Peru to Raroia north of Tahiti in a bals raft, Kon Tiki, to proove that the Inkas sailed from Peru to Polynesia. He also sailed over the Atlantic and Tigris on reed boats. He lived also in New Zeeland and on the American northwestcoast and found out that the people and the cultures were similar. The Maoris and the Indians had both legends about a man who sailed to Hawaii. The first Maori came from Havaiki. Coco Island is also a proove of this, there is a coconutplantation there, but nobody lives there, it is only made for food and water supply on the way to Galapagos and Easter Island. When The Dutch explorer Roggeven came To Easter Island 1722 he found white people there. There are many similar culture objects in the Old and the New world. Fascinating.

Spike Jones Hawaiian War Chant

As you might have noticed I come to think of songs when I write down my memories, and when I wrote about the Pacific one of my favourites from the past came up in my head, Hawaiian War Chant with Spike Jones, I thought it was very fun, they played on car horns and things like that.

Tahiti

I am interested in my family's history, I know all generations on my father's side as far back as 1425, and on my wife's side to 1580. She has a familybook with 15000 names, I have found one of them in Papeete, Tahiti. She is a famous culturperson in the Pacific, from Finnish Pello. I have helped a man from Tahiti who collects all editions on paperback in all languages of Jostein Gaarder's Sophies world. He use to go to the local bookshop and talk to this woman, and I found out that she is in the same familybook as me. The world is small. He also told me about Paul Gauguin who died in Tahiti 1903. His Grandfather who was a sailor from Stockholm had helped him to build a house there, where he painted and carved wood sculptures. They didn't like Gauguin, and when he died he sent his son to clean up the house. He found a lot of junk there, drawings,paintings,sculptures. The Grandfather told his son to burn everything. A few things were saved, one was sold to the Swedish National Museum for big sum of money. Imagine what it had been worth today. Another artist who wasn't popular was Claude Monet, he had contract to paint from a company, and they didn't like that all paintings looked the same.Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting in his life and cut off his ear. I read a while ago that someone said that it was Gauguin who had cut off van Gogh's ear. Van Gogh shot himself. It isn't easy to be an artist.

Lars Levi Laestadius

Today starts the Laestadius week in Pajala. Lars Levi Laestadius 1800-1861, was a priest and botanist in the Torne valley who started a new, very religious church in the Torne valley. The Same people had very severe problems with alcohol, Laestadius saved them when they became Laestadians. He learnt to speak Finnish,Tornevalleyfinnish and all Same dialects in a few years, he was half-Same himself. Now there are two branches of Laestadianism, West and East. 100000 members,the Tornevalley and Finland branch are East Laestadians, they speak Finnish and sing Psalms and other religious songs. 10000, the Swedish Lapland branch are West Laestadians, they don't sing more than the necessary psalms. I don't know if it is like that now, but earlier they saw sin in everything, curtains was the Devil's underwear and they asked the priest if he was Christian, they considered themselves as the only true Christians. They have their meetings at home, have their own preachers and don't accept women priests, abortion,gaymarriages, birthcontrol. 10-15 children is not unusual.
My Great Grandfather was a West Laestadian, leading in the village, he built the chapel 1922. My Uncle has told me that when they had their meetings they talked about sin, and someone said they sin even when they sleep. He was under the table and heard that. They have Bigmeetings every Summer near my house, 4-5000 people as far away as from Canada.Laestadianism is a branch of the Swedish Church.

Music from Trafalgar Square

Tonight 9.00 Sw. time is an event at Trafalgar Square, it can be heard on www.oneandother.co.uk .they play a song with the Sw. folkmusic group Norrlåtar. It is Last letter from Liikavaara-Frans, a famous song by a famous drunk from Gällivare who used to sing his own funny songs for food or money. e spent his last 25 years at a mental hospital after he had stolen a bike. My aunt lived there when I was a boy and used to come to the Summerhouse in Easter with reindeerbones and made a soup of it. She also used to sing Frans' songs with the right dialect.
"När långt i söter jag sitta inne, då komma Gällivare i mitt sinne
Prukkeriet jag ej klömma kan, Karhakka-torget, voj Kaanans land"
The song is about all his friends and enemies and what will happen when he dies.
We had people with alcoholproblems an funny behaviour in my village too, I'll come back to that later.

The living pikes(gäddorna)in the zink

In the village was the main work 70 years ago the sawmillwork, there wasn't any social security, if the sawmill didn't have any timber, the workers had to go home without salary. In the winter when it was blowing hard East wind and the water was low, it was impossible to get the timber into the sawmill. No salary.
There was one job that was always payed, handyman for the sawmill manager. It was payed 125 Sek for two weeks. The manager lived in a big house with nine rooms, four toilets, one bathroom, two fireplaces, centralheating, a incredible luxury for a boy who lived in an old cowhouse with one room and kitchen together with seven others.
His work was to make fire every day 06.00, take away snow, plant poatoes ,cut grass and so on. My dad had that job, and one day he was ordered to buy two common whitefishes (sikar). He did that and left them, and the next day the Mistress was grumpy and said that they weren't fresh. Two weeks later he was ordered to buy two pikes (gäddor), he went to the same place, was on the ice with the fisherman and took them up alive and hurried back to the House. He filled water in the zinks and put the living pikes there. 15 minutes later, the Mistress told him to kill them, they had messed up the curtains so he thought that he should be fired, but she just said; Now they are fresh. He had one rule that I have tried to follow, Be in time and do your job. You can be quite free in your work and do a little as you wish without anyone interfering if the job is done in a good way. Later he got the job as sawblade sharpener, the best in Sweden. The factory, Sandvik, sent blades to him that they couldn't fix themselves. I am very proud of my father, I only wish that he had lived now to see his Great Grandson.

The Summerhouse

Many of the workers in the village had Summerhouses on the islands, it was a freedom from the low life houses we lived in, hired from the Company. It wasn't high standard on the houses,they were mostly built of wood from older houses. My Grandfather died 1927,36 years old three months before my dad was born. My Grandmother was 29, and was left alone with seven children. They lived in an old cow house. She lived there till 1957, when she and a man, Anton built a new house beside the old one. My dad took the wood and built the Summerhouse 1958. He hired a mason to make the fireplace and the chimney. He lived in a tent there. I was told once that he had no money to food for his family, so he took the gun and shot a brick from his neighbour's chimney so he was hired to fix it. We had a sauna there, and others came there to take a bath. We lived there on the island many Summers, it was a nice life. Now the house belongs to my brother.

Fucking latcentlal

About Gypsies, A Swedish TV serie is called The first Gypsy in Space. I think they saw it in China because their first man in Space was called Taikonaut. I wonder if he ate splinglolls. This gives me a reason to write about my best friend during my childhood, Anders. We were neighbours, he was one year younger than me, and he said L instead of R. This story is about rats. I hate rats, I can't understand how anyone can have them as pets. In the fifties when i grew up, the garbage was taken with a horse and driven to a dump about one km away, not all had water in the house, my parents had to take water from a pump 100 m from the house during my first year, then we moved to another house which had a toilet and water in the kitchen, but no bathroom. The garbage rats are huge, like cats, and we had them in the house, we heard them in the walls. My dad caught them in traps, put sharp teeth from sawblades from the sawmill around the rathole outside. Ít was like that a long time,I think it was several years, and finally they opened under the zink and found a ratnest there.
A man said; Fucking ratcentral! and Anders said; Fucking latcentlal!. He moved to south Sweden when I was nine and we haven't met since 1965.

More about Gypsies

I have mentioned a Gypsy family before which is known as the worst neighbours in Sweden, I will not write their name or where they live so that I end up at the same internetpages as the nazis who writes suggestions how to kill them. I first read about them 25 years ago when they lived outside Piteå and their dog attacked a policeman. The father has been in prison in Finland for a violentcrime. Piteå County bought a house to them in a village outside Haparanda. It didn't take long before the first neighbour had to leave their house, and it has continued like that in 24 years, stabbing,stones,shooting, a priest was beaten with an ironbar and the last, a man was beaten six times in the head with an axe. He survived, but lost an eye and half the scullbone. He, on the other hand is sentenced for manslaughter in Finland and has been in prison for illegal automatic weapons and a stolen fourwheeler during the time he was the nearest neighbour to this family. He has also said in TV that if they come to his house, he shall kill all of them, eight persons. Now the son who held the axe is sentenced to eight years, his father and brother six years for helping, one sister eight months and one sister six months for protecting a criminal and a friend to the family,68 years old, six months I think it was for helping a criminal. The father got six months in the first trial and six years in the second. He was 32 meters from the son with the axe, so the question is that if you are helping to kill somebody if you are standing 32 meters away.
I have known some of these familymembers in many years, and I have always thought that it is nice to talk to them, and they like me too. I think it is like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I must also say that some of the sisters has been payed to take care of the brothers who has psychic problems. Not many Gypsies work with ordinary jobs, these have racehorses, which is one of the causes to the problems, they have thrown stones on the neighbours when they have cut grass. One of the sisters has worked at an elderlycenter and has been very engaged in their welfare. This is something positive, but it has never been written about in media, it was a positive article in Sweden's biggest morningpaper,Dagens Nyheter about them a while ago, and many people were upset about the fact that the reporter wrote something positive. Many people think that they shall lock them in for good and throw away the key. I feel sorry for those people who never can live in an ordinary family with wife,husband,child. They are forced to lived together the whole life. I wouldn't like to change life with them. they are also Jehova's witnesses, imagine that! Who wants to be that, even more isolated from the rest of the society. A Jehova's asked me once if I think she is normal. I don't think it is normal to ask that.

My "Scientific" reports

I met my old schoolteacher from classes 1-3 yesterday when I was shopping. We weren't always friends, once I hade thrown mud on her sister's son, so she looked for me outside my home,but didn't come in, I had ran away. Next day she shouted at me in the class so the entire school heard it. I have studied in different schools in 17 years + one year leader education in the Good Templars. I was a youthleader, discos,tabletennis,miniracing and so on. I had to do investigations and write reports in the different schools, the first was about the history of Swedish film, I wrote 30 pages. It is good to write something that the teatcher doesn't know anything about, if it is wrong, she doesn't notice it. I have also written about my village's history, it was easy,because it was a lot of information available. I have had use of that many years later when I wrote a booklet about local history. I have written three reports together with others, one was about what you see first when you meet the opposite sex. The conclusion was that the men look at the body and the women at the eyes. Another investigation was the teatchers alcoholhabits, we were told by a teatcher to be careful, I didn't know at that time that two of the teatchers there were AA members. One of them visited me during a practice period and was drunk, so he had to come back another day. The visits were important, if I did a bad job, they could tell me to quit school and to something else. One report was about the relations between the staff on another practiceplace. We asked how many personellrooms there were, we thought they should answer the same, but the answers were between 1-5. One said one room, another said five.We knew when we did these investigations that nobody will ever read them, but it was a part of the school. One thing I am a little shamed of is when I studied psychology in High School (Gymnasiet in Sw), we should investigate in a group how handicapped are treated if they need help. We should borrow a wheelchair and pretend that one of us where handicapped.
We didn't do anything,and when it was time to talk to the class, I made up a story that I had fallen with the chair and nobody helped me. Nobody said anything in the class, not even the teatcher. He was a funny character, he had been a missionary in Ethiopia and walked always very close to the wall.

Peter Freuchen

I read a lot when I was young, there were two libraries in the village, the Good Templar's and the Social Democrat's. I read almost all books there.
My favourite books were about trappers,golddiggers,indians,briefly about the hard life in the North. I have Canadian connections now, my Grandson is half Canadian, so when my son had been to the Hudson Bay Company Museum in Winnipeg, he asked me if I knew about Hudson Bay. I was the right person to ask, I know a lot. I have met an author from Jokkmokk, Hans Anderson, who has travelled around the Arctic Circle in 30-40 years and written about people, and I have read most of it, I bought one of his books when I was a teenager. I liked to paddle and walk in the forest and in the mountains. About Peter Freuchen, he was a Danish author and polarexplorer, dead 1957.
He and Knud Rasmussen, a half inuit, founded the Danish tradestation Thule, now an American militarybase on Greenland 1909. They made many polarexpeditions, Knud Rasmussen died in one of them, and Peter Freuchen wrote books about it. I read them all. He had only one leg, he had been trapped under the snow with his sleigh once and couldn't find any other way to survive than making a crap, form a tool, let it freeze and dig himself out.He lost his leg. He also took the MGM lion to USA. My first memories of golddigging was when a man was in Folkets Hus at home and showed goldsand. I have always admired all explores who risked their lifes 100-110 years ago when they discovered the world. Ernest Shackleton was outstanding when he rescued his men with a boat between Elephant Island in Antarctic and South Shetland Islands.

le Rom Katarina Taikon

I sometimes upset people without any intention, one example of that is Katarina Taikon. She was a famous Gypsy author, who wrote among other books a serie of childrens books about herself, Katitzi. The background is that when I was a child, the Taikons had a camp in my village every summer, I never dared go near it. They came to Sweden from Romania and Russia 110 years ago. The Swedish Gypsies, who belong to two different groups, Lovara who has horses and Keldarasha who works with copper remains from them. The Finnish Kale´ Gypsies came to Sweden 500 years ago and were deported to Finland in the 17th Century. Their language Romani Chib is one of Sweden's five minority languages. An other group, the Travellers came to Sweden with the first Gypsies around 1400. Their Language, Swedish Rommani is related. When I was studying, Katarina Taikon came to the school and talked to us, and I said the word Romani, and she was angry about that, it is called Romane´s, she said. I thought it was called Romani, and now the official name is Romani Chib. Later she got a stroke and spent 13 years in bed before she died. Her sister Rosa is a famous silversmith.le Rom is their name of their people, I learnt that from Katarina Taikon.
The Gypsies used to come to the village and sell stuff in people's homes, my Grandmother had a way to say that she wasn't interested which has influenced me too, good or bad, she said on her Kalix-dialect Häv er uti arbete! Go to work!
It is a problem every summer here in Tornevalley that people, very often Gypsies go to elderly people and ask for water and steal all their money, the news never mention the word Gypsy, only women in long skirts.

A gift

When I was in Kalix and sold at Mainstreet there I looked at the people passing by. Many of them were handicapped and had personal assistance. I looked at those poor people and thought that soon my Grandson shall be born and I hoped that nothing should go wrong. Now I have perfect, healthy little Grandson.
It is a gift, he could had been like the ones I mentioned above. It is a joy, and I can only say Thank you.

B-Day

Now I am Grandfather to a boy!

B-Day

It is close now, maybe three hours

The wildlife in Haparanda

I read in Haparandabladet this morning that a woman had seen a bear when she was jogging outside central Haparanda, only 3 km from our house. I have seen tracks every time when we have been in the forest to pick berries. I have liked to walk in the forest before, but now it doesn't feel good, especially as I have a dog, which can make them more aggressive. I have seen lynx tracks too, only 200 m from the house, it had chased a hare. The most worrying animal here is the raccoon dog, it looks like a fat fox or a mix between raccoon and dog. It spreads diseases, you can get sick if you go somewhere where it has been, and here in Haparanda it is the biggest population in Sweden. IKEA's closest neighbours are the musk rats, very aggressive if you piss them off, they jump towards the neck, I saw one just 2 m from me when I was walking to the shop, the tail was thick as a cycle handlebar.We have also hedgehogs right behind the house, they have a grumpy sound. There are beavers in the county, I haven't seen anyone here, but when I was young, I saw one beside the canoe when I was paddling. When we are driving on E4, we always have too look for moose, if you hit one in 100 you are dead. I have hit one once, and have been close several times. There are also two kinds of seals here. There is always a risk to hit a reindeer too when you are driving, but they are so small so you don't end up dead. Every reindeer has an owner, so they are not wildlife. This was just a little information, maybe someone finds it interesting.

Some like it hot

The title refers to the first movie allowed from 15 I saw, I think it was 1960. My dad was the cinema operator, so I saw it from the projector room. It is about two musicians, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon who happens to see the Valentine's Day massacre 1929 and is chased by the maffia. They dress themselves in ladies clothes and hide in a ladies orchestra, there they meet the sexy Sugar, Marilyn Monroe. A millionaire, Joe E. Brown , known in the filmhistory for the biggest laugh, is in love with Jack Lemmon as he thinks he is a woman, in the end when Jack says that he is a man, Joe says; Nobody is perfect. It is a very funny film, and also a musical,Sugar.
I saw almost all films when I was young,except for in Summer when we lived in our Summerhouse on an island. There were no age limits, I saw everything, the only limit was if the film was very long, it was only wooden chairs, so I left after half the film, Dr Zhivago with Omar Sharif is one example. We sometimes ate plums and brown beans before so we could fart during the film. Mostly the film wasn't the most important, it was the talking before it started and in the pause in the middle when he changed film in the projector. It was an important meetingplace in the village.

The Day B

We were in Kalix today, it was very hot there on the sunny side of the street. I have been eating painkillers for the last days and put ice from the freezer to the chin, but nothing has helped. I was hungry so I bought Thai food down the street, and believe it or not, the pain vanished at once. I have a little hobby; I look for lookalikes, and today I saw Victoria Silvstedt and Willie Nelson. Bluto from Popeye lives here. The title The Day B refers to the day I have been waiting for the last nine months, the Baby Day, I will be Grandfather in a very near future. Lill-Babs says it very well in the song 'Välkommen till världen',(Welcome to the world).Youtube is very good, you can look at a video and understand the meaning of a song without understanding the lyrics.

Bror The Porcupineman

I was in Kalix yesterday with my wife at the Kalixdays. We were selling bling bling at Mainstreet there. I met Bror there, he owns two secondhand stores, and he had a table outside his store with stuff that all were 10 SEK. He sold clothes in the fifties,and used to come to my village and sell in Folkets Hus. My dad bought all clothes from him. It was cheap, it was always possible to get a lower prize from him.
I remember when we bought gloves, I had a pair, very warm of catskin, I don't think the sell catskin gloves today. Once he showed us a pair of gloves, this is porcupine (Sw.piggsvin)he said. He showed the text inside, Pigskin. I always think of porcupine when I see him. English isn't easy. We shall go there today too, I hope I can manage it, I have a toothproblem so I have to eat painkillers. Yesterday they gave klådda to all there, it is a Kalix dish, bread, fish and potatoes. It gives me another memory, when I was a little child I said to my dad that a little old lady looked like a klådda. He said that I shall say Aunt, so I said Aunt Klådda next time we saw her

Ingemar Johansson vs Floyd Patterson

It is 50 years today since the heavyweight match between Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson when Ingemar became Champion. No white man has become champion after that.
Ingemar and Floyd were very good friends, and Floyd was very popular in Sweden.
I heard the match on the radio, and later there was a film about a lazy boxer who didn't like the training, Swedish Floyd. My Aunt Karin's husband Åke was a big man with hands like toilet seats. A journalist at the magazine 'Se' was in their house, I was there too and the journalist, Gits Olsson made him 'Sweden's most man'. He got a small role in the film as a boxer who was carried out. It was exciting when he was filming, one of Sweden's most popular artists, Lill-Babs was in the film too. When Beatles came to Sweden the first time, she gave them autographs,and they warmed up the audience for her. When we saw the movie at the cinema we looked for Åke, I think I missed him. Lill-Babs is still very popular, now mostly called by her real name Barbro Svensson. They show the match on TV tonight.

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Anton Nilsson, the Amalthea man

There was a strike in Malmö 1908, and the company took British strikebreakers there on the ship Amalthea. Three youngsocialists, Anton Nilsson,Algot Rosberg and Alfred Stern decided to put a bomb on the ship to scare them. One was killed, 23 injured, Anton Nilsson was sentenced to death, but got prison instead. He was free during the First World War and went to Soviet and became a pilot in their Airforce. He came back to Sweden and lived in Tyresö outside Stockholm. My Grandmother was a friend to his wife, and she and my mother met them there in 1940. When he was almost 100 years old he was talking at Social Democratic electionmeetings

Loch Lomond

There is a very beautiful lake in Scotland, which I hope to see next month. It's called Loch Lomond. The song Loch Lomond was written by a dying soldier who knew that he should never see the lake again. It is about that his comrades take the high road, the ordinary roads there, and he takes the low road,the death road, "And I'll be in Scotland afore ye". He should be there first.
I mentioned earlier that I was teatching English in the evenings, one group was retired seniors. It was fun, much funnier than the other group with younger persons I had another evening that period. Anyway, It was ten evenings, three lessonhours an evening, and the last evening they had brought coffee and cookies. I had songbooks, and we should sing Loch Lomond, I said that they should sing it with Scottish accent, and they did. "By yon bonnie banks And by yon bonnie brraes Where the sun shines brright of Loch Lomond". They gave me a gift too.

Jim Reeves and Gunnar Wiklund

I looked at clips similar to my clip with William Clauson, and found Jim Reeves and Gunnar Wiklund. It gives me memories from my youth when I was at the movie twice a week. It was free for me because my dad was the cinema operator. He played a record before it started, and almost every time it was Jim Reeves with Adios amigo. Jim Reeves died in a planecrash in 1964. Gunnar Wiklund sang his songs in Swedish, he was from Luleå, and my mum said once that he was a distant relative to us. Once when I had walked up on a mountain and stood at the top, i came to think about that it was 500 miles to home, so I sang their song Away from home, away from home. I'm 500 miles away from home(Detroit City) Gunnar Wiklund had problems with oral galvanism in many years, I saw him perform at a market before he died.

The Vatican

I studied Latin seven hours a week in two years, humanistic half-classic, I still remember Caesar's speech; Cum tacent, clamant. cum quiescunt, probant. I dreamt about it, talked in the sleep. The teatcher wanted to go to the Vatican with us, but we never did, but I have in a way come there anyway. Authors sometimes ask people for help in their research, and Yours Truly is one of them. I have helped several authors, and one of them is an elderly man who has written a book about all Popes.
He thanked me personally in the book for the help and he was invited to the Pope Johannes Paulus II. The book is in the Vatican and so is my name.
It feels great.
By the way, Cum tacent, clamant means when they are quiet, they shout. I have forgot the translation of the rest.

The Stockholm Syndrome II

I was before my time when I wrote about the Stockholm Syndrome. I read today in www.aftonbladet.se that Janne Olsson is in Sweden to promote his book Stockholm Syndromet. He lives in Thailand and runs a little shop. He was in Court to see Clark Olofsson. He said I am free, he is not.

Languages

I have been interested in languages since I was a boy, when I was 10, I wrote frases in a book in different languages. Later I studied English, Latin, French, Spanish and I also like to speak the Kalix dialect which nobody in the Tornevalley understands. If I come to Piteå I fall into their intonation. Finnish is a natural part of my life as I live here in Tornevalley, but Meänkieli, Tornevalleyfinnish is mixed up with Swedish so I don't understand when it is OK to put in a Swedish word and just end it with an -i. Lastbil- Lastipiili, Buss-Bussi. It is fun to say something naughty in Kalix dialect here and nobody is offended because they don't understand what I say, for example, I must warn sensitive readers here, Kåål ne wo do wil,je kåål ne bolla. Call it what you want, I call it balls.
I have a special message to one of my readers, j'espe're vouz êtes en Caledonie quand le petit Ethan est ne'. I am also interested in dead languages, for example the Hettitians in Turkey were Indoeuropeans, 1300 BC, their word for water is watr.
Fascinating, and brother in Sanskrit is bratr. I have had some use this for as extra work in the evenings as a language teatcher. The different dialect variations here is a result of different colonisations here 700 years ago in the river valleys and isolation, no roads, only boats. I really like to understand languages, I am sorry that I don't understand Sami, I use to watch the Sami news on TV. I am the official flykiller at work, and I have a Latin sentence on my flyswatter, Nunc musca mortem occumberet, Now the fly meets a violent death. I try to find funny things in everything.

William Clauson

In the sixties I liked an artist very much, his name was William Clauson. He sang Latin-american songs, I still like them very much and I saw him once in Kalix. One guy shouted cocoroco to him. One of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard is Evert Taube's Min älskling du är som en ros. It is from a Scottish song by Robert Burns My love is a red red rose. I heard it with William Clauson in Spanish for more than 30 years ago on the radio and I have never heard it again until now. He has emigrated to America and I thought he was dead. I found it on youtube today, Mi amor tu es una rosa.

M.A. Numminen

Mauri Antero Numminen is a Finnish singer with a very special way of singing. He and his accordion companion Pedro Hietanen has been very poular in Sweden since the sixties. He sings covers of popular melodies in his very own way, he even sings texts by the German philosopher Wittgenstein. I use to sing like M.A. by myself; "Like a ball I come back to you" Gymmiboll (Rubberball).
As I said earlier, I worked two Summers, 1975 and 1976 at a camp for youth from Stockholm, it was hiking,waterskiing,paddling,bathing, activities that I like and it was well payed. One summer there was a boy who couldn't walk when we were hiking, I had to take him in my car and go to the hospital, they sent us to a bigger hospital to have an x-ray. I had the radio on in the car and suddenly we heard M.A. Numminen.
We sang Katten också, hon har vackra öökon (Cheepers creepers). The boy laughed,I think it was easier for him at that moment, because after the x-ray he was sent back to Stockholm in a taxi with a bed, 700 km. M.A. is the only one I know who plays with telephone catalogs.
He played at Skansen, Stockholm 2007, do I need to say that I was walking outside and heard him.

Spyaffair II, the Morjärvman

There are two Kalixcounties, upper and lower, and upper, Överkalix has been known lately for criminality. There are only 4000 inhabitants in the county, and very few policemen. The dialect is impossibe to understand for others than themselves, the lowerkalix dialect is very slow "A machinegun sounds paa paa paa paa, but much faster".
Morjärv, or Murderjärv as I sometimes call it is on the border between these two.
Many outlaws seem to like to live there, but 30 years ago it was known for the Morjärvman, Sanfrid Eriksson.
I had finished my military duty in March 1974 and hadn't any work yet, so I was skiing on the seaice among other things. One day when I had been out several hours, I had been skiing maybe 15 km, a man was waiting for me at home, he was talking Överkalixdialect. "Heej,my name is Sanfrit Eeriksson". He came from the Statistic Central Bureau and should interview me. I didn't know that he should come, and he had been waiting several hours. He interviewed me again later, it was a tooth investigation, so he called me every third month. It was fun to hear from him when I was working at a summercamp for Stockholm youth.
He lived in Morjärv and some years later he was arrested and locked in in the Policehouse in Haparanda for spying for Soviet.
The Security Police had followed him in 10 years, an informer lived in his house.
In his work he had driven on military roads that were forbidden for foreigners, he knew that they followed him, so he made an extra turn near the military buildings, they even helped him once when he had driven outside the road.
The big newspapers wrote about him, but it ended up with that he was reliesed, totally innocent. He got a lot of money for his suffering and traveled around the world. The only planes he had photographed were Russian, from a train outside Leningrad.

Robert Aschberg and Gert Fylking

Robert Aschberg and Gert Fylking has walked 1920 km from Ystad to Haparanda in three months and have collected over eight million SEK to the Cancer Fund. Here they are in Kukkola Rapids in order to bath in a smoke sauna. A smoke sauna has no windows or chimney, you make a fire which heats up stones, then you open the door and let the smoke come out, when you bath, you put water on the hot stones. Kukkola has a Sauna Academy with several different saunas, one is for 40 persons

The Enbom Affair

1952 there was a spyaffair in Sweden. A former reporter at the communist newspaper Norrskensflamman, Fritiof Enbom had was arrested for spying for Soviet. Six other persons were arrested after his arrest. Enbom and Hugo Gjersvold got lifetime in prison, Fingal Larsson six years. This is a big scandal, because Enbom has made it all up. Enbom said to the Police that Larsson had talked about secret defense buildings in a village in Norrbotten, but there weren't any there, they were built three years later. Gjersvold spent 10 years in prison for driving a truck to some fortresses. Their children are still fighting for their right.
1972 a TV serie was filmed about this, my dad had been in a radiotheater, so he was asked if he could play Enbom. He worked at the sawmill, so he said no. The role was given to Helge Skoog, today the funniest master of improvisation in Sweden. My mum and I was in the film. I was there one day, it was a political meeting, and my relatives Thores Trio was playing.
They cut my hair, and the next time I was asked to go there, I didn't want to because the hair had grown out. I got some pictures from the film from Bror, a guy from the film that I met several years later when we studied together. He used to notice what I said and write in the schoolpaper. I had to tell him not to.

Wikipedia:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritiof_Enbom

Cornelis Vreesvijk

It was 1965 and I was with my dad at a Parlament election meeting in Kalix. The partyleader C H Hermansson was there and he had Cornelis Vreesvijk with him. Cornelis was 28 years old, had come to Sweden when he was 12. He was very famous for his texts and how he lived. Some people didn't like a fat Dutchman who drank and sung texts like The hen Agda, which was about a rooster who picked off Agda's feathers because he wanted to have her naked. Cornelis sung his songs in the meeting. Hermansson has said later that they were on tour all over the country, and once Cornelis disappeared in Umeå and showed up in Gothenburg. He had always problems with taxes, authorities and once he took home two women who was men when he examined them closer. He chased them out with a knife. He was prisoned for that. He was very respected in the end of his life, he died in cancer 50 years old. He never had money when he lived, but now his songs generate money, and a fund in his name gives money to an artist who has never got any prizes before and sings in Cornelis' spirit.

There are three national poets in Sweden, Bellman, Taube and Cornelis.

I am very glad that I was at that meeting 1965, but I didn't understand it at that time.

Karl-Göran Välivaara

I have just read in http://www.aftonbladet.se/ about Karl-Göran Välivaara. He is a politician, Christ Democrat from Haparanda. He has said in a speech in Gällivare that Hitler did something good when he built the roads in Germany, but it went bad for some people. they asked him who, and he said the jews. He is a very religious man, laestadian. The laestadians don't accept women as priests, gaymarriages, TV, dancing, movies, birthcontrol. I shall write more about that later, it has connection to my own ancestors too.

I wrote a fairytale about politics in Haparanda many years ago, where I called Välivaara (KDS) for Kådis-Kalle, Condom-Charlie. Haparandabladet thought it was to much so they called him Church-Charlie instead.

The Sociology Professor

When I was 11 years old, the sawmill in my village was closing and the people left for southern Sweden. There were massive protests against this, and it was known all over the country, even the Prime Minister, Erlander, visited the village. The workers were either communists or social democrats. I remember how shocked a British woman was when she visited my school and asked if we know the name of a British newspaper, I think she was thinking about the Times. I said Daily Worker, the communist paper. I had never heard about the Times. This was the situation when a sociology student named Åke came to the village.

He was writing a sociology study about the village to become doctor of sociology.
He interviewed the workers, lived with them and ate with them, he was in our home too.

It resulted in a book which was used as literature in sociology studies, I read it myself when i studied sociology for 20 points. I was an expert on that book, and other students started with common sauna-bathing after reading it. The names were made up in the book, but I knew which persons it was about.

Some years ago, Åke wrote a new book where he wrote the story of how he had done when he studied my village, and wrote the actual names as well. He is now a retired professor. He wrote that he had bought two jackets in a worker clothing store and shaved of his moustache, he ate sloppy and walked with big steps to blend in. He called the leader for the communists a 'communist bigshot'. They had become friends when he wrote the book and he had never thought that he could become friend with a communist.

I called Henry, the communist and told him about what Åke had written, and he bought a book. After that I sent a letter to Åke and was critical, I didn't like that people that is still alive are mentioned in a book without being asked for their consent.

The professor

I mentioned earlier the professor I met in the military tent. I noticed him at once because he had tweedknickers when we signed in. Someone said that he was a chemistry professor from Uppsala, I keep the name for myself, he is still with us. He was boss in the University for our commanding officer, a lieutenant. I remember him because was laying in the tent and singing an underbelt version of Tivedshambo by Stikkan Andersson, ABBA's manager. I know the text, but If I write it somebody might be offended. When the Nobel Prize was given one year, I saw his name, he is member of the Royal Academy of Science. What I want to say with this is that the military repetition weeks makes boys of men. We are all the same no matter what we do in the civilian life as soon as we wear the uniform, all social roles disappear.

Stockholm syndrome

I was in the military in August 1973, the old king Gustaf VI Adolf was lying on his death bed in Helsingborg. A criminal, Janne Olsson took three bankemployees hostage and locked himself in with them in a bank vault at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm. After some time, he ordered the Police to bring Clark Olofsson to the vault. Clark is Sweden's most known criminal, he has been in the press since 1964 when he was chased all over Sweden for the murder of a guard. His partner in crime, Gunnar Norgren, shot him when they where discovered.

There were three hostages, two women and one man. The women sympathizised with Janne and Clark and that was called the Stockholm syndrome after that. The men spent a long time in prison after that, Janne was here in the county in an open prison, met a woman, and started a pigfarm in south Sweden, emigrated to Thailand and is now back in Sweden. Clark emigrated to Belgium, changed name, has had a charterboat in the Caribbean an is now locked up again for smuggling heroin.

1977 I was called in for a military exercise at the Arctic Circle for three weeks in February. They always had their meetings when it was the coldest time of the year, -40, in a tent with wet firewood, bad clothes and only reindeer skins and pinebranches on the ground. I had never frozen that much before, i went home during the weekend and took my feather sleepingbag.

I say this because I met the male hostage from the vault there in the tent, he wasn't feeling well.

I met also a professor who was involved in the Nobel Prize in the tent, but more about him later.

Björn Afzelius

40 years ago there were a lot of groups who played progressive music, 'progg' in Swedish.
One of those bands was Hoola Bandoola Band. The name comes from an old Donald Duck film.
Donald is on picnic and has food on a blanket, the ants see it and calls the others. 'Hoolabandoola, hoolabandola!'. Donald loses the fight of course.
The leading members in the band was Björn Afzelius and Mikael Wiehe. Mikael plays in the neighbourhood this summer with Stefan Nilsson. Björn smoked very much so he died of cancer.
Their songs are very pleasant to listen to, I was on a Björn Afzelius concert here, I liked it very much, and our daughters have the same name too, just the spelling differs.

Bengt Pohjanen

I have written about Bengt Pohjanen in the local newspaper several times the last month. The reason for that is that he is celebrating the old fennomans. A fennoman is a finnish nationalist who wants to wipe out everything that isn't Finnish and also integrate the Finnish speaking part of Sweden, Tornevalley into Finland. He has written that he wants to blow away the statue of the founder of The Peoples Highschool in Övertorneå, De Vylder, and replace it with the fennoman Wanhainen. De Vylder's son is 95 and has been very upset about this. Pohjanen has also said that that 'the devil has come to Meänmaa', Our Land in Tornevalleyfinnish, he means De Vylder. Now he has appologized in Haparandabladet.

I have written more that haven't been published yet, I have suggested a Pohjanen musical with songs like 'I wanna be like you', 'Don't cry for me' and 'Pajala, Pajala'.

He has been crying over Wanhainen's grave in Övertorneå. I have also written a fairytale about an owl whitch makes fun of him and his parents.

Stefan Nilsson

When I was 15, my cousin had played in pop bands in several years, one day he came to us with two new bandmembers from Kukasjärvi, Tornevalley. One of them, Stefan Nilsson, 13 years, was fantastic on piano and organ. Now he is one of the best composers of film music in the world.

He has written music to Bergman films, and one of my favourite films, "As it is in heaven" was filmed here in Norrbotten, it was Oscar nominated. Gabriella's song performed by the best singer in Sweden in my opinion is a very beautiful song. Helen will be performing on Broadway in the nearest future in Björn and Benny's musical Kristina.

I think you can see a line in my writing now, I write about artists I have met or seen live

ABBA

In the sixties I liked several bands, for example Hep Stars, two of the members were Svenne Hedlund and Benny Andersson, they had a hit with 'Cadillac'. "My baby drew up with a brand new Cadillac". Svenne had scoliosis, a hunchback, so once a guy shouted to him " Take off the rucksack!" All girls had a poster of him on the wall.

An other band was Hootenanny Singers with Hansi Schwartz and Björn Ulvaeus, they sang 'Gabrielle wipe your tears'. Benny and Björn formed a new band with their girlfriends, they called themselves Fästfolket, the Couples, but changed name after a while and used their initials Annifrid, Benny, Agnetha, Björn. ABBA.

I was in the Military in 1973, and the first day there, there was a guy who said that he would leave because he was going to play with ABBA. In Midsummer that year I went to a 'Festival mountain' about 120 km from home, Brännaberget, I used to go dancing every weekend.

ABBA played there, I stood and listened for a while, then I left, 'only playback' I thought, the girls in the dancehall were more attractive.

In 1974, ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest and were world famous.

Välkommen, Welcome

Välkommen till min blogg, jag kommer att skriva resten av det här inlägget på engelska så att mina vänner overseas förstår.

Welcome to my blog, I live in a region in north Sweden that is quite unknown in the south Sweden, and most likely in the rest of the world, Torne Valley is an exciting mix between Swedish, Finnish and Lappish. There is a week here in the fall when the workers on the farms was allowed to seek new jobs in the old days, it's called Römppäviikko in Tornevalleyfinnish, Rumpvecka in Swedish, Ass-week in English. This week, they found new lovers.

It is more men than women here, the girls move and the boys stay and hunt and fish and drive snowmobile. One year a group of British women came to the week, it is still celebrated, and one of them got the question if she knows how it is like here. She answered that she had read Jean M. Auel's book about the Neanderthals, so she knows how it is.

There is a book by Mikael Niemi, Popularmusic, that describes the region, it also gives me memories from my childhood.

I will tell you about interesting people and stories from my life in the blog.

I am engaged in the local debate by writing anonymus texts in the local newspaper under different signatures, for the moment it is Ummikko, it is a name that Finnish speaking people give Swedes who can't speak Finnish. I don't like the name Ummikko at all, but I use it of the same reason an afroamerican can call himself nigger.

In Haparandabladet a famous Swedish author, Bengt Pohjanen has written about bad Swedish Police, Customs, School, Church, in several years, he attacs people who has been dead in 50 years and their children, so I write songs, limericks, a fairytale about him. He doesn' t like it.

More about that later.

One year the Social Democrats had no working class flags or songs at First May.

I didn't like it, so I wrote a song that they could use next time, it was in Swedish, but the meaning was like this; Working class Day we give a shit, The songs are heard a little bit.

This region is very beautiful, friendly people and I hope that I can give a good picture of it so people want to visit here.

I will also tell you about a Gypsy family here who are known as the most dysfunctional family in Sweden, some of them are my friends.

That's all for now folks