Mai oh mai

Mai oh mai
First as daughter, then as Mom
by Ann Morrison

The first time I recall hearing the words “Syttende Mai” was when I was in first grade and eavesdropping on a conversation my father was having with his best friend Hank. They were talking about a new festival in Westby. I was enjoying the early May sun, doing cartwheels in the front yard of our cabin in Ferryville, Wisconsin, with its magnificent view of the Mississippi.

My father and Hank had recently purchased the cabin from an old hunting buddy of theirs, Doc Kuehn. Doc Kuehn was, at that time, Viroqua’s eye, ear, and throat specialist, with his office up the long, scary stairs to the second floor of the old Dahl building.

My father was railing at Hank (whose parents had actually emigrated from Norway) about how “those Norwegians in Westby” ought to be celebrating America’s Independence Day, on July 4, instead of Norway’s polite secession from Swedish rule, Syttende de Mai, the seventeenth of May in Norwegian. I rolled the words Syttende Mai around in my mouth, learning perfectly, as a child does by ear, how to pronounce it.

Learning to spell it came much later, in seventh grade, with a student teacher in social studies who had grown up in Westby. She got mad at us for calling the Westby football team the Norskies. “They are the Norse-MEN!” she insisted. According to our young instructor, Norskie was the N-word for Norwegian. I feel nervous to this day even putting the word Norskie in print.

The majority of us seventh graders, even here in Viroqua, were at least partly Norwegian. Were we racist against our own selves? “Ja,” we said to ourselves, considering this disturbing food for thought. “Oof da nei!”

The United States has July 4 as its national day commemorating the American Declaration of Independence. The French celebrate July 14 in memory of the storming of the Bastille and the downfall of the l’ancien regime. But May 17 is Norway’s national day, marking the country’s declaration of independence from Sweden. The day still remains the great spring festival in Norway, in a country with a winter that is both long and cold. Sound like Wisconsin? No wonder the Norwegians were so attracted to the frozen hillsides of the Coulee Region—just like home!

Westby, with its population of predominantly Norwegian descendents, held its first Syttende Mai celebration in 1969, as a heritage celebration of the past. I tried to get this point across to my father in later years—that it was a heritage celebration, not a political one—but it was Bud Morrison’s world, and we, Hank included, just lived in it. Dad could just never give up a point. Westby’s 2008 Syttende Mai celebration kicks off with the coronation of the Syttende Mai princess and her court on May 10. The fest continues throughout the next eight days, culminating with a big parade on Sunday, May 18. The Troll Hunt—big bucks if you can follow the clues, in the form of riddles, and find where in town the little bugger’s hidden—has always intrigued me, but my only true participation in the Syttende Mai celebration has been in the parade.

Viroqua’s bands, both middle and high school, always march at Syttende Mai. We had to wear the black uniforms at all events, whether there was snow, rain, blistering heat, or hail. Now the bands have a choice of sweaters or T-shirts, and if it’s hot outside, the bandmembers’ parents run behind them with water bottles— to stave off dehydration? Not in my wildest imagination could I see my parents trotting behind us with water bottles. For us, marching band was more like an episode of Survivor.

A few years ago, my own daughter participated in the Syttende Mai parade. The Vernon County Humane Society had created a float fashioned in the shape of a Viking boat. Our dog Roy, a rescued dog himself, was slated to be one of the parading pets. He refused, however, to get in the boat, so my poor daughter had to walk him on a leash, to the side of the float. He pulled at the leash so much that he gagged, slavering the whole way through the parade. Not a great advertisement for the adopt-a-pet program: “Look, you too can have an ill-behaved, gagging dog that’s too much of a wuss to get in a boat! He’d be great for duck hunting!”

Next month my daughter will be “marching” in the Syttende Mai parade on a pair of stilts. A group of Youth Initiative High School students will be showing off the skills they learn at “that juggling and circus school,” as a friend of mine calls it jokingly, on Sunday, May 18. When I asked my daughter if she needed some sort of costume, she looked at me strangely and replied, “Yeah, stilt pants.” Oh, of course. I should know, ’cause, like, hasn’t everybody paraded down Westby’s Main Street on stilts? I’m looking forward to going, though, and once again celebrating my, albeit only one half, Norwegian heritage. Ya gotta love a place where they throw cheese curds in parades.

Ann Morrison works as a long-term crisis counselor for Lutheran Social Services and has a landscaping business, Designscapes.