Happy Settende Mai!

[This post is really for Joey Sobrino*, assuming he finally got on the right airplane at the right time to get out of Japan].

Today is Settende Mai, Norwegian Constitution Day. It has a special place in my memory. When I arrived in Minnesota, almost exactly 30 years ago, I had no idea that there was anything special about the 17th of May. It was my first semester in grad school under Master Bernard and I was trying to master Medieval Latin. I spent most of my evenings in the university library, in one particular desk by the big windows, close to the Niermeyer dictionary of Medieval Latin (which is a different critter from classical Latin).

One evening, so late on 17 May that it was almost 18 May, I packed up my books and headed back towards McKnight Tower. I had just turned the corner of Cedar Riverside when I saw a crowd of people marching unsteadily down the sidewalk singing in a language I didn't recognize and carrying the largest Norwegian flag I have ever seen.

It was Settende Mai I was later told, as if I were a child for not knowing.

But now you know.

*Mr Sobrino, who is Hispanic by government definition, loves Norway, and has been mistaken for a Norwegian while traveling in that country. Go figure.