The
Finn Who Would Not Take a Sauna - by
Garrison Keillor
where
a woman is a woman and some things never change,
where
winter lasts nine months a year, there is no spring or fall,
where
it gets so cold the mercury cannot be seen at all.
and
you and 1, we normal folk, would shiver, shake, and chatter,
and
if we used an outhouse, we would grow an extra bladder,
but
even when it's coldest, when our feet would have no feeling,
those
Iron Rangers get dressed up and go out snowmobiling.
Out
across the frozen land and make a couple stops
at
Gino's Lounge and Rudy's Bar for whiskey, beer, and schnapps
and
then they go into a shack that's filled with boiling rocks
hot
enough to sterilize an Iron Ranger's socks
and
sit there till they steam out every sin and every foible
and then jump into a frozen lake and claim that it's enjoible.
But
there was one, a shy young man, and although he was Finnish,
the
joys of winter had, for him, long started to diminish.
HE
WAS A FINN, THE ONLY FINN,
WHO
WOULD NOT TAKE A SAUNA "
It
isn't
that I can't," he said, "I simply do not wanna.
To
jump into a frozen lake is not my fondest wish,
for
just because I am a Finn don't mean that I'm a fish."
His
friends said, "Com on, Toivo! Let's go out to
A
Finn who don't take saunas? Why, there must be some mistake."
But
Toivo said, "There's no mistake. I know that
I would freeze
In
water colder than myself (98.6degrees')."
And
so he stayed close by a stove for nine months of the year
because
he was so sensitive to change of temperature.
One
night he went to Eveleth to attend the Miners' Ball.
(If
you have not danced in Eveleth, you've never danced at all.)
He
met a Finnish beauty there who turned his head around.
She
was broad of beam and when she danced she shook the frozen ground.
She
took that shy young man in hand and swept him off his feet
and bounced him up and down until he learned the polka beat.
She
was fair as she was tall, as tall as she was wide,
and
when the dance was over, he asked her to be his bride.
She
looked him over carefully. She said, 'You're kinda
thin.
but
you must have some courage if it's true you are a Finn.
I
ain't particular 'bout men. I am no prima donna.
but
I would never marry one who would not take a sauna."
They
got into her pickup, and down the road they drove,
and
fifteen minutes later they were stoking up the stove.
She
had a flask of whiskey. They took a couple toots
and
went into the shack and got into their birthday suits.
She
steamed him and she boiled him until his skin turned red;
she
poured it on until his brains were bubbling in his head.
To
improve his circulation and to soften up his hide,
she
took a couple birch boughs and beat him till he cried,
"Oh,
couldn't you just love me now? Oh, don't you think you can?"
She
said, "It's time to step outside and show you are a man."
Straightway
(because he loved her so, he thought his heart would break),
he
jumped right up and out the door and ran down to the lake,
and
though he paused a moment when he saw the lake was frozen
and
tried to think just which snowbank his love had
put his clothes in –
when
he thought of Tina, Lord---that man did not think twice
but
just picked up his size 12 feet and loped across the ice ---
and
coming to the hole that they had cut there with an ax ---
putting
common sense aside, ignoring all the facts ---
he
leaped! Oh, what a leap! And as he dove beneath the surface,
it
thrilled him to his very soul, and also made him surface!
And
it wasn't just the tingling he felt in every limb,
he
cried: "My love! I'm finished! I forgot! I cannot swim!"
She
fished him out and stood him up and gave him an embrace
to
warm a Viking's heart and make the blood rush to his face.
"I
love you, darling dear!" she cried. "I love you with all my
might!"
and
she drove him to Biwabik and married him that
night
and
took him down the road to Carl's Tourist Cabins
and
spent a sleepless night and in the morning, as it happens,
though
it was only April, it was absolutely spring,
birds,
flowers, people put away their parkas and everything.
They
bought a couple acres around
and
began a life of gardening and love and Lutheranism.
And
they live happily to this day, although they sometimes quarrel.
and
there, I guess, the story ends, except for this, the moral.
Marriage,
friends, is a lifelong feast, love is no light lunch.
You
cannot dabble round the edge, but each must take the plunch.
And
though marriage, like that frozen lake, may sometimes make us colder,
it
has its pleasures, too, as you may find out when you're older.
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