My second reply to Gene. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Teresa" <tadbit@houston.rr.com> To: <mnhennep@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 1:13 PM Subject: Re: [MNHennep] FW: Forget that self-promoter Columbus - let'scelebratethe modest Vikings > Gene, > > Here's a bit of genealogy with a bit of history. As you know, this country > was built on a moral people and cannot exist without the people having > morals if we are to have a decent place to live. The following shows how > much influence just one man can have on his own family and descendants. > > Jonathan Edwards entered Yale College at age 13 and graduated with honors. > He became a pastor, and his sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry > God," > started the Great Awakening, a revival that swept America, uniting the > colonies prior to the Revolution. He became President of Princeton > College. > He was born October 5, 1703. > Jonathan married Sarah Pierrepont, and, according to "A Study in Education > and Heredity" by A.E. Winship (1900), their descendants included a U.S. > Vice-President, 3 U.S. Senators, 3 governors, 3 mayors, 13 college > presidents, 30 judges, 65 professors, 80 public office holders, 100 > lawyers, > and 100 missionaries. > This same study examined a family known as "Jukes." > In 1877, after visiting New York's prisons, Richard Dugdale found inmates > with 42 different last names all descended from one man, called "Max," > born > 1720 of Dutch stock. > Max was idle, ignorant and vulgar. His descendants included only 20 with a > trade, 310 paupers, who, combined spent 2,300 years in poorhouses, 50 > women > of debauchery, 400 physically wrecked by indulgent living, 7 murderers, 60 > thieves, and 130 other convicts. > The "Jukes" cost the state more than $1,250,000 (this was in 1900, just > think what it would have cost today!). http://www.americanminute.com/ > > Teresa > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Gene Norum" <haggar35@hotmail.com> > To: <MNHENNEP-D@rootsweb.com>; <MINNESOTA-D@rootsweb.com>; > <MNOTTERT-D-request@rootsweb.com>; <NORWAY-L-request@rootsweb.com>; > <NDSDMN-L@rootsweb.com>; <DWade64986@aol.com> > Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 9:47 AM > Subject: [MNHennep] FW: Forget that self-promoter Columbus - let's > celebratethe modest Vikings > > >> Gene H. Norum >> haggar35@hotmail.com >> >> ----Original Message Follows---- >> >> Subject: Forget that self-promoter Columbus - let's celebrate the modest >> Vikings >> Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:43:06 -0400 >> >> baltimoresun.com: Forget that self-promoter Columbus - let's celebrate >> the >> modest Vikings >> To all you true Norums: >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Forget that self-promoter Columbus - let's celebrate the modest Vikings >> By Garrison Keillor >> October 12, 2006 >> >> Oct. 12, the traditional Columbus Day, is a day to reflect on the nature >> of >> celebrity. Columbus was a pirate and tyrant who sailed off and bumped >> into >> the Bahamas, had no idea where he was, and to his dying day believed he >> had >> reached the Indies. By the time he arrived in the New World, America was >> old >> news to the Vikings. They already had that T-shirt. >> Five hundred years before, the Vikings had been sailing the Atlantic with >> confidence, making new friends and influencing people. Thorvald >> Asvaldsson >> sailed to Iceland in the 10th century with his son Erik the Red, after >> they'd been banished from Norway for manslaughter - if you've ever been >> in >> an argument with Norwegians, you probably considered manslaughter too - >> and >> from Iceland, Erik explored the icebound island to the west, which he >> named >> Greenland, for promotional purposes. >> >> In 986, Bjarni Herjulfsson and his men sailed along the coast of New >> England. Around the same time, Leif Eriksson, the son of Erik the Red, >> sailed over and may have landed on the island of Manhattan. Did he come >> ashore and try to buy it for $23 worth of junk jewelry? No. And do we >> celebrate Bjarni Herjulfsson Day? No, we do not. The Vikings weren't into >> self-promotion, and Reykjavik was not a world media center at the time. >> >> The Vikings were not out to lord it over the Indians or bring democracy >> here >> or teach folks about Nordic gods. They were free spirits, sailors, >> explorers, so they left some carved stones here and there, relished the >> exhilaration of the voyage and the sight of new lands, and went home and >> composed sagas for the amusement of their friends and families. That >> arrogant fool Columbus, who demanded 10 percent of all the gold the >> Spanish >> stole in the New World, got the holiday, the nation's federal district, a >> town in Ohio and another in Georgia, a major river in the Northwest, and >> a >> university in New York. >> >> But who cares? Scandinavians don't. They celebrate Columbus Day as we all >> do, by going to the sale and saving 30 percent on towels and bed linens. >> And >> by covering the roses and putting the lawn furniture away. >> >> Their history after Leif and Erik and Bjarni has been tangled, of course. >> The Norwegians suffered under the Danes and then the Swedes. The Danes >> suffered under the delusion that they were French. The Swedes suffered >> under >> August Strindberg and Ingmar Bergman, neither of whom was the life of the >> party. All of them suffered from the long, gray winters with twilight at >> noon and the lunches of fried herring and potatoes and aquavit and the >> general prohibition against raising your voice or driving pink Cadillacs. >> But Lutheranism urged them toward kindness, industriousness and >> self-effacement, and this is not a bad strategy for contentment. >> >> Look around today and you will find the Viking descendants, a calm and >> stoical and somewhat formal people, by and large, not given to extremes >> of >> fashion or chanting "We're Number One" or writing memoirs that hang out >> the >> family underwear. Walter F. Mondale is pretty much the prototype. He lost >> the presidency by one of the biggest landslides in history to an aging >> actor >> whose grip on reality, never firm to begin with, was becoming >> hallucinatory. >> Ronald Reagan was sort of the Columbus of our time, a better PR man than >> sailor, but so be it. Mr. Mondale is a buoyant man with a sense of humor >> who >> enjoys his life in Minnesota, where people are happy to see him, and when >> you do, you see that losing is far from the worst thing that can happen >> to >> a >> man. Far from it. >> >> I propose that we change Columbus Day to Bush Day, a cautionary holiday, >> like Halloween, a day to meditate on the hazards of ambition. We could >> observe it by going through the basement and garage and throwing out >> stuff >> we don't want or need. Also by not mortgaging the house to pay for a >> vacation, and not yelling at the neighbors, and not assuming that the law >> is >> for other people. A day to honor kindness, industriousness and modesty. >> >> >> >> Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday >> nights >> on public radio stations across the country. >> >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> MNHENNEP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > MNHENNEP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message