Moon-eyed Finns

Situated to the west of my hometown in Georgia is a mountaintop called Fort Mountain.  It’s a spot that always figured prominently in our summertime visits to the States because of the 3712-acre (1500-hectare) state park that occupies the top of the mountain.  When the kids were small, we never failed to make at least one trip to the park each summer so they could enjoy a round of mini-golf and cool off in the park’s lake, one of the highest in the state. 

At 2848 feet (868 meters), Fort Mountain is not an extremely high peak, even by Georgia standards.  But from the west, where the mountain plunges over 2000 feet to a flat, broad valley, it appears like a towering rampart. 

You might be mistaken in thinking that the striking view from the valley of this natural barricade was the inspiration for the mountain’s name.  It’s more complicated, and strange, than that. 

Near one of the mountain’s summits, a short distance from rocky cliffs that overlook the valley far below, is the mountain’s real namesake, a primitive “fort” of low zigzagging walls made up of loose rock.  The builders of this rudimentary structure are a mystery, and archeologists doubt that defense was even its intended purpose.  Still, popular speculation is that Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto’s men might have constructed the walls as improvised fortifications when passing through the area almost 500 years ago. 

Conquistador Hernando de Soto, probably never 
mistaken for a Moon-eyed Person himself.

The native Cherokees had a different explanation.  According to a legend of theirs, the rubble walls were built by a race of “Moon-eyed People” who lived in the area before them.  Adding to the mystery, the Cherokee said this tribe of fort-builders were blond, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and able to see in the dark. 

Some people have seen these stories as enticing evidence for the hoary legend that a Welsh explorer, Prince Madoc, sailed twice to America three hundred years before Columbus and settled among the Indians. 

I used to joke with my kids on our visits to Fort Mountain that they, in fact, are the Moon-eyed People, because of their blue eyes and blond hair.  And because they, like all Finns, can see in the dark.  Or so it seems to someone like me who needs all the bright light he can get. 

I’m reminded of this now that we’re at the end of November, it’s dark by four o’clock, and the very gloomiest time of the year is still three weeks away.  Already for several weeks now, I’ve been going around the house in the evening turning on lights for members of my Finnish family who somehow haven’t noticed that they’ve been sitting there for an hour reading in the dark.  Being a Moon-eyed Person certainly has its advantages during these dark Finnish nights – at least you can save a bundle on electricity bills.  

Famous Georgians

Often when I tell someone in Finland that I’m from the American state of Georgia, I get a blank look in return.  If “Georgia” seems to mean nothing to them, I offer the explanation of “Floridan lähellä” (near Florida).  Everyone knows Florida. 

In the past I’ve tried to correct this lack of Finnish awareness of Georgia by listing (or boasting, as the case may be) some of the famous people who have come from the Peach State.  I even gained a bit of a reputation among my colleges for doing this to a highly annoying degree. 

Foremost is Martin Luther King, who is without question the best-known Georgian anywhere in the world.  And, of course, there’s Jimmy Carter, whom Finns of a certain age are definitely familiar with, though they might not necessarily associate him with Georgia. 

Beyond these two famous men, Finns (and, for that matter, anyone else outside of Georgia) are much less aware of the other prominent folks from the state. 

This is where I come in, happy to enlighten the uninformed that renowned Georgians also include Mr. Ray Charles and Mr. James Brown.  Okay, it’s true the Godfather of Soul was born across the river in South Carolina, but he lived most of his life in Georgia.  And Ray Charles, the man who made “Georgia on My Mind” such a classic, would deserve to be an honorary Georgian, even if he hadn’t been born there. 

But, the list goes on, especially in the musical realm:  Little Richard, Otis Redding, Gladys Knight, all R&B and Soul legends, all from my home state.  Closer to my own time, the alternate musical scene in the college town of Athens -- a liberal oasis in a sea of diehard conservatives -- spawned acts such as The B-52s and, of course, R.E.M., the best band ever, period.  Sorry, Tenacious D. 

And then there’s the Georgians who left home to make it big in Hollywood, starting with Oliver Hardy, the larger half of the Laurel and Hardy comedy duo.  Hardy briefly attended boarding school in Young Harris, the tiny mountain town where I went to college almost 70 years later.  Other, somewhat more modern entertainers from Georgia are Julia Roberts, Burt Reynolds (how could Burt not be from Georgia), and the delectable Kim Basinger.  I once worked with someone in Athens who had gone to school with Kim.  She once showed her high school yearbook, where the teenage Basinger certainly looked pretty in her school photo, but not so different at the time from many of the other girls in her class. 

I realize I’m dating myself badly with all these references to figures who are already starting to fade from the scene.  Or maybe it shows I haven’t lived in the state for a long time.  Anyway, the best-known native sons of Georgia nowadays are two that sadly I’m not proud of at all.  And both are running for president. 

One of them, Newt Gingrich, is in fact the current Republican frontrunner, which means he is the “anti-Romney” of the moment.  (Republicans seem desperate to find some marginally acceptable candidate who is not Mitt Romney so that this person [fill in the blank] will appeal to Republicans apparently desperate to vote for anybody – except maybe Mitt Romney – who is not Barack Obama.) 

Finns might be puzzled by the name “Newt”, especially if they realize that it’s English for vesilisko.  Of course, Newt’s simply a nickname for Gingrich’s actual first name “Newton”, but it’s hard to imagine a name more fitting to his personality.  (And for this I mean no disrespect to actual newts, God bless ‘em.)

As Speaker of the House in the 90s, Gingrich led rebellious Republicans in a failed and ill-advised attempt to shut down the federal government.  A bit later, he was more successful in clamoring for the impeachment of Bill Clinton over his lying about sexual misconduct – while Gingrich himself (who was 55 at the time and married) was dappling in a little sexual misconduct of his own with a 32-year-old congressional employee.  She became his third and – at least for now – current wife.  Gingrich has since blamed his forays into adultery on his overriding passion for America.  Seriously. 

Despite all this, Newt has somehow gained the reputation of being an intellectual, the gray eminence of the Republican Party, which does nothing to mask the belligerent, mean-spirited nature that makes him a uniquely unlikable person. 

On the other hand, the other Georgian running for president appears to be extremely likeable.  Too bad he also appears completely incompetent for the job of highest office in the land.  Herman Cain is, by all accounts, a likeable guy, a powerful motivational speaker, and – as the former CEO of the Godfather’s Pizza chain – probably a fairly successful businessman.  That doesn’t, however, make him presidential material, as recent events have shown.  His only shtick is a simplistic flat tax plan, branded “9-9-9”, that most economists agree would hurt poor people the most.  Beyond that – and a fine singing voice – he’s got nothing. 

But Cain is good at promoting himself and was briefly the frontrunner in the quest for the “Anti-Romney-Obama”.  That was until his star began to fade a few weeks ago after stories of past sexual misconduct started to emerge and his campaign started to stumble. 

The sex allegations now seemed to have fizzled, with no new developments lately, and I think that’s fine.  I would hate to see Cain drop out of the race due to unproven claims of hanky panky with any woman he happens to run across who isn’t his wife.  Instead, it is much more fitting that his campaign self-destructs because voters finally can’t ignore the fact that, behind his upbeat nature and his gimmicky 9-9-9 plan, he hasn’t got a clue what he would do as president.  His recent flubs at answering straightforward foreign policy questions on Libya have proven just how out of his depth he is. 

I think that even more than Gingrich, who probably seriously thinks he could be president and actually has some chance of winning, Cain is only in the race for free publicity to sell his books and boost his personal brand.  Both men, in their own ways, are embarrassments and not the kind of Georgians I would want to brag about – or be president.   

Fungus of the Forest

This autumn on my regular bike rides through the local forest, I have occasionally encountered some earthy-looking individuals suddenly emerging at random spots from the woods.  They were all carrying plastic bags.  Some were holding knives in their hands. 

There was nothing, of course, to be alarmed about.  As everyone here would instantly recognize, these people are mushroom hunters, taking advantage of this autumn’s unseasonably warm and wet weather that has resulted in one of the best seasons ever for fungus foraging. 

Chanterelle mushrooms. Photo: Strobilomyces

Finns are great forest scavengers.  Even for urban Helsinkians, it’s not uncommon to head out to the nearest woods to pick berries or mushrooms.  It’s practically a national pastime, and another one of the ways that Finns are more closely connected to the land than, say, the average American would be. 

When I was growing up in Georgia, my family did its share of berry picking, mostly blackberries.  (Blackberries do not grow wild in Finland, where they are called karhunvatukka or “bear’s raspberries”).  My parents would have us put on sturdy boots and long-sleeve shirts (almost unbearable in the middle of a Georgia summer) and wade into thorny thickets of blackberry “vines”, sometimes chest high.  My mom would make jelly and jam from the berries, and fantastic cobbler pies that I can still almost taste. 

But mushroom picking is not something that we – or, for that matter, anyone I knew in Georgia - ever did, so I’ve never felt inclined to search out rotten logs for a little something to put on my pizza.  In any case, as long as I’ve lived here, we’ve had enough wild mushrooms in the freezer, thanks to my wife’s parents who keep us well supplied with various berries and fungal staples, like chanterelles, that they find in the forest. 

Poisonous false morels for sale.
Photo:  Imari Karonen

And then there’s the poison thing.  The woods here are full of delicious safe mushrooms, and others that can kill you in a matter of hours (which may also be delicious, but that’s kind of beside the point as your liver turns to goo).  So, I’ve been happy to leave the mushroom gathering to the experts in my family, or just stick with store-bought variety. 

Even there you might have watch out.  A few years ago, a foreigner shopping in large grocery store in Helsinki bought some korvasieni (false morels), which are dangerous to even touch but are (apparently) delicious once properly prepared (in this case, that means boiling the piss out of them).  As I recall the story, there was no sign in the store warning that this particular produce was poisonous, since – as steeped in mushroom culture as Finns are – “everyone” here knows this already.  Or, it could be that the warnings were only in Finnish.  (Stores now by law must warn customers in six languages how toxic these morsels are.)  Luckily, the unsuspecting foreign shopper survived his encounter with this delicacy of the forest. 

This is an example of why I’ve never been overeager to go looking for mushrooms on my own.  However, a few weeks ago I joined a group of well-informed friends and harvested my first haul of wild fungi.  I picked only one type, suppilovahvero (trumpet chanterelle), a perfectly safe and impossible-to-mistake-for-anything-that-can-possibly-kill-you mushroom that also happens to be highly prized in Finnish cuisine.  I sautéed them with creme and served them with boiled potatoes.  Can’t get much more Finnish than that.  

My haul of suppilovahvero (trumpet chanterelle).

Northern Nights, Northern Lights

This past week we in Helsinki have apparently been treated to a display of Northern Lights, or aurora borealis for the scientifically inclined.  I say “apparently”, since I haven’t been lucky enough to see anything through the cover of low clouds that’s been hanging over Helsinki every time I’ve remembered to look up at the sky. 

As with any event that requires peering up at the night sky, Helsinki has the huge disadvantage of almost never having an actual view of the night sky.  Compared, that is, with other parts of the world.  Check out the night sky in the arid American West sometime and you realize just how much of the heavens (the Milky Way!) folks back in Helsinki have never even seen. 

Aurora over Malmesjaur Lake, Swedish Lapland.  Photo:  Jerry Magnum Porsbjer

But when it comes to the Northern Lights, Helsinki is doubly cursed, because here in Finland the ghostly lights synonymous with the Far North are rarely visible this far south.  While I have seen nice displays of revontulet (the Finnish name, which literally means “foxfires”) a few times in Lapland, I’ve seen them in Helsinki only once or twice in all the time I’ve lived here, and even then they were hardly visible. 

That might be surprising for a city sitting at a latitude of 60 degrees, closer to the North Pole than well over 99.7% of everyone else on Earth.  The thing is, the Northern Lights don’t have anything to do with the pole at the top of the world.  The aurora, which is created when the solar wind streaming from the sun collides with Earth’s atmosphere, is spread out in a ring around the magnetic North Pole, which – not tethered to the actual North Pole – has a tendency to wander around.  For the last century or so, it’s been located somewhere in the Arctic wastes of Canada, moving toward Russia.  That’s why those of us who occasionally carry compasses to different parts of the world have to adjust them from time to time. 

It’s also why the Northern Lights are more visible in North America than in Finland.  They even sometimes make an appearance in my home state of Georgia, like this past week when a powerful solar storm pushed them as far south as both Atlanta and Helsinki.  Only, ironically enough, the folks in Georgia had a better chance of actually seeing them. 

Northern Lights with a rare blue streak.  Photo: Varjisakka

Body Parts

The way some things are done back in the States make perfect sense to me, and some don’t.  One example of the former is the “right on red” traffic rule that seems to be in force in most states.  I’ve heard Finns who have driven in the US rave about this simple rule that allows a driver to turn right at an intersection, even when the light is red, provided there’s no oncoming traffic.  It’s left up to the driver to decide whether it’s safe to proceed.  I think it’s great.  It helps keep traffic flowing and seems to be safe enough. 

It’s hard to imagine this being allowed in Finland, or for that matter in most other countries I’ve driven in.  I once turned right on red in Panama City (in Panama, that is, not Florida) after seeing several other cars do it at the very same intersection.  Only, when I made my turn I got pulled over and was requested to pay the policeman an on-the-spot “fine” of forty US dollars, neatly concealed in my passport.  Apparently, he was really good at spotting me as a tourist. 

Something else in the States that I think makes perfect sense is how – at least in Georgia back in the 80s, and probably still today – drivers who want to be organ donors can have this indicated on their licenses.  As I recall, each time you renew your license at the DMV, you are asked if you want to be an organ donor, and if so, it is marked on your new license.  It’s an elegantly simple idea.  Let’s face it, a major source of donated organs is, sadly enough, traffic accidents.  And what better way to give the paramedics attending your demise a heads up that you are a donor than to have your status clearly indicated on the license they find among your personal effects.   

The Finnish donor card available on-line
and already obsolete. 

It's not done that way in Finland, so after I moved here my status as an organ donor lapsed.  This I regret, since making sure my organs can be put to good use if I come to an untimely end is something I feel strongly about.  When I finally got around to asking my wife about how I could correct this, she told me I just need to pick up a donor card from any pharmacy.  That turned out to be slightly outdated info, since nowadays the cards are (of course) available online and only need to be printed out and signed. 

But, it’s even simpler than that.  Until August of last year, the law allowed organs to be harvested even without explicit permission, confirmed by a donor card, as long as the deceased’s wishes were known.  A wife, knowing her late husband would have wanted it that way, could give the okay even if the lazy bum had never got around to signing a card. 

Such a policy might not fly in the US.  But last year Finland, to combat a serious shortage of organs for transplants, changed the law again to make organ donation even more elegantly simple.  Now organs can be harvested from any brain-dead patient, unless they were known to have explicitly been against donating their organs.  In effect, it’s an opt-out system, which is mirrored by several other European countries.  I can imagine that certain libertarian types in the US would have fits over such a policy, but here – where a reported 90% of Finns are personally in favor of donation – the switch to the new policy went largely unnoticed.  And that seems like a very Finnish attitude to me.