From: Charlie Rose
Dear Jan,
I was born and grew up in the woods of 'Northern Michigan'. The state of Michigan is in two pieces - the northern part is attached to the northeast corner of Wisconsin. If you look at an atlas, you'll find it together with the town of Escanaba where I was born. The landscape is very similar to areas of Sweden and Norway, and so many people from those countries emigrated to this area during the last century. My grandparents were among them. I clearly remember listening to the Swedes and Norwegians having a wonderful time 'making fun' of each other all the time. For instance, a Norwegian would sing out, "A thousand Swedes ran through the weeds, all chased by one Norwegian!", to which the Swede would then answer, "Vell, ja - that's true, but it's only because the Norwegian smelled so bad!" The Swedes and Norwegians would be 'at each other' until a Dane happened to come in. Then the Swedes and Norwegians would suddenly be the best of friends, and they would both give the Dane trouble. The Dane would have to fight back, alone, until a Finlander came by. Then the Dane became a trusted and valued ally, and the only thing that could save the Finn would be if a French Canadian (a 'Canuck') came into the room! Upper Michigan was a funny, funny place!
Now here is something interesting: I finally had a chance to look through all your Swede Jokes, and found many of them to be American Polish Jokes with the names changed. This has led me to hypothesize that, when the Universe came into being, a fixed number of jokes was created together with all the chemical elements and energy fields. Hence, there are no New Jokes in the world; rather, we are forced to recycle the ones with which we were supplied. The question now becomes - did the Americans derive their Polish Jokes from the Norwegian's Swedish Jokes, was it vice-versa ... or could it be that *both* came from the Germans making fun of the Tirolians? However it works, it's great fun, and I thank you, again, for putting up your web site!
Cheers!