Astros 3
A’s 4
I’ve been thinking a lot about genealogy. You probably don’t knows this, but part of my family are recent immigrants. My mother, Styörn, only came to the states in the 60s. She was born in Skvlänlandia, which is a small north European country separating Southern Finland from Russia. Grandfather Tumsk was in the Skvlänlandian resistance, skiing from fir tree to fir tree, taking pot shots at first Russian and the German tanks with his reindeer rifle.
The Skvlänlandians have an odd Y-Chromosome genetic trait: without the Y-chromosome, the women look a bit like Khaleesi, only taller and more athletic. The men, with the Y, are short, as broad as they are tall, and hairy. Oddly, when things get crossed up, the Skvändvandlians think the women beautiful and the men ugly. At 6-feet in Skvländvandlia, I would be a freak. I can remember my grandfather saying that a short, broad woman looked beautifully warm.
The Skvländvandlian diet consists mostly of reindeer and root vegetables, and after the war my grandfather went home to the countryside to grow beets. During the long winter–and most of the Skvländvandlian seasons are winter–my grandfather coached a girls’ travel biathlon team. He would take a group of 8 year-old girls from Norway to Siberia to ski and shoot, ski and shoot. My grandfather always said that if you couldn’t ski and shoot by the time you were 8, you were tostadas against the Russkies.
My mother Styörn was a great biathlon talent, and was 4th among women in the 1960 Winter Olympics. For me, more importantly, she was thrown onto the world sports stage as the first great sports beauty. Tall, blond, fit, with the mildly Asian features of the far north, she was, well, to Southern eyes, spectacular. Pretty plain to a Skvlänvandian You probably remember the Iconic Life magazine cover of the long-haired blonde beauty in the white jumpsuit on skis in the snow, holding the long Skvländvandlian reindeer rifle, facing east towards Russia. That was my mother.
My father was from Houston. His family had a pipe threading services company that had threaded every oil patch pipe in East Texas. By the 60s they were going international. He saw the Life cover. He was Houston oil patch, and he sought out my mother and wooed, and won.
With my mother in Houston, my grandfather came to the States and started beet farming in Pearland. My father sold his services company to Halliburton in the 80s, and then lost it all on a real estate development off of 288, Silver Snowes. In early 2008 my grandfather sold his beet farm for $200,000 an acre for single-family home development. Like a lot of immigrants, baseball had helped him assimilate. He’s a huge Astros fan, but he only speaks Sklvändlish.
I watched the games this week at my grandfather’s assisted living facility. Me, my grandfather (who looks now like a smaller Jabba the Hutt, only very hairy), and my mother ( who looks a bit like Grace Kelly, if Grace Kelly had aged as gracefully as she possibly could have aged).
“har rätt till undervisning. Undervisningen skall vara kostnadsfri, åtminstone på de elementära och grundläggande stadierna. Den elementära undervisningen skall vara obligatorisk. Yrkesundervisning och teknisk undervisning skall vara allmänt tillgänglig. Den högre undervisningen skall stå öppen i lika mån för alla på grundval av deras duglighet.
Undervisningen skall syfta till personlighetens fulla utveckling och . . . “
“Mom, what did he say?”
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it snows.”
“har rätt till undervisning. Undervisningen skall vara kostnadsfri, åtminstone på de elementära och grundläggande stadierna. Den elementära undervisningen skall vara obligatorisk. Yrkesundervisning och teknisk undervisning skall vara allmänt tillgänglig. Den högre undervisningen skall stå öppen i lika mån för alla på grundval av deras duglighet.
Undervisningen skall syfta till personlighetens fulla utveckling och . . . “
“Mom?”
“ Fucking Neshek.”
“har rätt till undervisning. Undervisningen skall vara kostnadsfri, åtminstone på de elementära och grundläggande stadierna. Den elementära undervisningen skall vara obligatorisk. Yrkesundervisning och teknisk undervisning skall vara allmänt tillgänglig. Den högre undervisningen skall stå öppen i lika mån för alla på grundval av deras duglighet.
Undervisningen skall syfta till personlighetens fulla utveckling och . . . “
Grandpa’s hand was gripping mine hard and tight. I didn’t need a translation, and he muttered it in English: “Winter is coming.”