Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Battle of Copenhagen

I'm sure you've all heard of Copenhagen - I mean the snuff, not the city in Denmark. It's some ugly stuff, and I'm so fortunate that Ole has never had the desire to use it, so I don't know a lot about it. BUT, I do have just a couple of stories to tell about it.

Back when we were living in Iceland we drove a little Bug. Remember the little Volkswagens? They were so cute, and they worked well in Iceland because they didn't have much of a heater and Iceland never got very cold. Well, what heater ours did have quit working at one point and Ole had to go to the car parts store to buy parts.

One of the countermen took a bit of a break, pulled out his snuff pouch and stuck a wad up his nose and sniffed. "Ahhh," he said. His counterman buddy, apparently new to both the business and to snuff, asked what that was and agreed to try it. Now this man was pretty much on the bald side, only he refused to admit it and had a terrible combover. He took a pinch of snuff, sucked it up his nose and immediately started to sneeze, and sneeze, and sneeze - very severely. Apparently he had used a lot of hairspray on his combover that morning, and each time he would sneeze, his combover would flop up and down off his head. He tried to hold it down, but the sneezes were so severe that it couldn't be done. By the time he got done he had beaten off all the hairspray and his hair was askew. He excused himself to the back room and continued to sneeze. I often wonder if he ever tried snuff again.

Now I don't think that snuff is nearly as messy and awful as the plugs that you chew, and I know that for very good reason. Ole's father used to chew - and spit - yuck. He kept an old coffee can on the floor in the front seat of his car, right by his feet on the driver's side. One day I needed to borrow his car, but he never told me that there was a large coffee can sitting on the floor that was half full of spit out tobacco plugs. Now that's not normally something that you would find on the floor of a car, so I stepped into the car very innocently and immediately kicked over this nasty coffee can. Needless to say all the "slop" went all over the floor, under the mats and lay there in wads of used tobacco and spit. It was awful.

So anyway, I thought you might enjoy this - it's a little poem about how Copenhagen came to be. Now while you're reading this keep in mind that the Swedes and the Norwegians never got along very well back in the Old Country. Now I'm half Norwegian and half Swede - so just imagine the conflict that takes place inside of me!! No wonder I'm always stressed out (snicker).

Ten T’ousand Svedes

Ten T’ousand Svedes ran tru da veeds
Chased by vun Norvegian
Ten t’ousand more ran to da shore
In da battle of Copenhagen.

Vay, vay back in history
Back ven da vorld vas new
Norvegians searched all over
To find some snoose to chew.

Dey fished for Lutefisk and Torsk
It helped to make dem strong
And you and me, ve know a Norsk
Cannot do nutting wrong.

But Svedes and Danes were envious
Of Viking trips and raids
Da Viking shields and helmet horns
Made all dose folks afraid.

T’roughout da world da Vikings sailed
To Ireland and to France
Dey even found America
Vun afternoon by chance.

My Grandpa says, and he should know,
Da Svedes made up their minds
To beat da Norsky Vikings
And kick a few “behinds.”

But history, so my Grandpa says,
Shows dat da Norskies von
Dey clobbered all da Svedes and Danes
And made it lots of fun.

Ten t’ousand Svedes ran tru da veeds
Chased by vun Norvegian
Da dust from da veeds made snoose for da Svedes
And dey called it COPENHAGEN!

4 comments:

Marge said...

I haven't heard that for years! Thanks for sharing it. And now I will share it with my brother-in-law who thinks he is pure Norwegian. However, we have the family tree, traced back to King Olaf actually, and sprinkled through the marriages are: so and so, princess of Denmark, so and so, dutchess of Saxony, and men and women of other countries. No pure blood Norwegian here!

I'm actually half Norwegian and half German, so I say uff da and ach do leiber!

Marge said...

PS: Love that photo header!

Anonymous said...

Love da poem!

Paula said...

Dats pretty funny!!!