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.