Finland Trip

 “Finland, arise, for to the world thou criest

That thou hast thrown off thy slavery
Beneath oppression's yoke thou never liest
Thy morning's come, O Finland of ours!”

         Jean Sibelius, “Finlandia,” lyrics by V.A. Koskenniemi

abstract Sibelius monument in Helsinki by Eila Hiltunen; user duress the bust of Sibelius was added

After enduring an hour-long line for the purpose of having our passports and boarding passes checked and double-checked, Dave and I flew on a Finnair Airbus to Helsinki.  During the overnight flight I watched two great movies, “Lady Bird” (Laurie Metcalf deserved an Oscar as the mother of a disgruntled teenager) and “The Post,” starring Meryl Streep as Katherine Graham and “The Americans” co-star Matthew Rhys as Pentagon Papers pilferer Daniel Ellsberg. The film begins with Ellsberg on a disastrous patrol in Vietnam and ends with Watergate watchman Frank Wills discovering something amiss at Democratic National Headquarters. After turning our watches ahead eight hours, we went through customs easily and rented an Opel Signum from Avis with built-in GPS.  Despite little or no sleep, Dave drove 160 miles (257 kilometers) to Jyväskylä for the twentieth biennial International Oral History Association (IOHA) conference. At the Scandic Hotel’s Moe’s Café we had Karhu beer on draft and, at Angie’s prior suggestion, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches on delicious toast before calling it an evening.

 first Finland photos

Registering for the IOHA conference at the University of Jyväskylä, I inquired if Dave could attend a few sessions; organizer Tiina-Riitta Lappi, learning he was an inner city high school teacher, gave him a lanyard that entitled him to attend all events.  I ran into Anna Green, whom I remembered from a NOHANZ conference in Wellington, New Zealand.  Toni is still in touch with Beverly Morris, who with husband Peter hosted us.  During the opening ceremony, University of Helsinki prodigy Zipora Oyola played native folksongs on a kantele, a 39-string Finnish instrument.  Aussie Paula Hamilton’s  keynote address, “Rethinking Oral History and the Landscape of Memory” opened with a video on a large screen of the Crystals performing “Then He Kissed Me.”  That got our interest and me singing along.
IOHA opening reception

I recognized South Africans Sean Field, a dorm mate in Istanbul, on the program and Philippe Denis, organizer of the 2002 Pietermaritzburg conference.  Sipping champagne at the opening reception hosted by the city of Jyväskylä, I chatted with Sean and a scholar from Australia, Cate Pattison, while old friend and fellow Marylander Don Ritchie struck up a conversation with Dave about, among other things, Elmore Leonard mystery novels.  Cate was also on our tour of the Alvar Aalto Museum, which not only highlighted Aalto’s architectural achievements but also his  and wife Elissa's design of furniture and other decorative items.

Over the next two days I attended a half-dozen sessions. “Troubling Trauma” included talks about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, women combatants in the Mozambique anti-colonial struggle, and memories of the apartheid era in South Africa, a subject Dave covers extensively in an advanced English course.  In the “Arts and Music” session Michael Kilburn’s “Hey Ferdo, it’s only rock and roll: Antipolitical politics and antipoetical poetics in the Czech underground,” featured commentary on the punk band The Plastic People of the Universe and the album “Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned.”  Kati Kallio spoke movingly about Finnish folk songs and then sang two of them, a nice touch.  One about young men conscripted into the Russian army during World War I contained these lines:

So the boys are picked

The white-heads are chosen

Who gets the lot

The lot leaps to the unlucky

According to Kallio, entire villages bid conscripts farewell in an elaborate ritual.

Irish scholar Jamie Canovan opened the “Difficult Childhood” session discussing abused foster children consigned to Irish state care. Sally Zwartz summarized the shocking findings of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.  Slightly more uplifting was Spyridoula Pyrpyli’s account of working children’s memories playing for a legendary Greek football (soccer) team.  Chairing a session entitled “Different Oralities,” Don Ritchie expressed bewilderment at the subtitle devised by conference organizers: “Documenting the Human Experience of Conflict through the ‘I’ and the ‘We.’”  Claire Kotnes introduced the audience to Polish immigrant Mia Truskier, an advocate for both Jewish and Haitian refugees.  Husband Andor Kotnes spoke about Baltimore community organizer Juanita Jackson Mitchell, the first African-American woman recipient of a University of Maryland law degree and a protégé of Thurgood Marshall. 

I met interesting young scholars during meals and coffee breaks, including Niels Rebetez from Switzerland, Shatarupa Thakurta from India, and South African Tshepo Moloi.  I was talking about Gary mayor Richard Hatcher being arrested during a 1985 anti-apartheid demonstration in front of the South African embassy when Don Ritchie joined us.  Historian of the U.S. Senate at the time, Ritchie was demonstrating with a group of Academicians against Apartheid on a day when singer Stevie Wonder showed up and got arrested.   

Wednesday’s keynote speaker Shelley Trower spoke about studying British seniors’ reading habits during childhood and adolescence, citing such motivations as self-improvement and desire for vicarious adventure.  Kate Moore, whom I’d palled around with in Rio, Istanbul, and Pietermaritzburg, noticed my hand up during the Q and A.  I told her of my intent to bring up the seeking of sex information as a motive, citing the popularity of “Peyton Place” and “Playboy” during Baby Boomers’ formative years.  She quipped: “I’m glad you weren’t called on.  Maybe she wasn’t joking?  She recalled a rhinoceros charging our vehicle during a Pietermaritzburg conference field trip, something I had forgotten.

The much anticipated keynote by Alessandro Portelli did not disappoint.  Concentrating on the current plight of refugees, he opened with Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” whose opening lines were based on an English song of Italian origin.  Emphasizing the evolution of folk songs in a global context, he described discovering a Bob Dylan café in India.  Portelli enlivened his talk with anecdotes about recording a Senegalese immigrant’s lament similar to Dylan’s “blue-eyed son” only the darker-skinned sojourner could not return to the land of his birth.  Portelli recorded a Bulgarian street performer who showed up with a boom box and sang “Oh Solo Mio” and a Beyoncé hit.  When he inquired about gypsy folksongs, she promised to learn some and return in a couple weeks.

 lake cruise 

Bad Ass Brass band entertains

Weather was perfect for our cruise on Lake Päijänne followed by a Midsummer holiday celebration that included dinner, champagne, and music provided by the super-cool Bad Ass Brass Band, whose impressive repertoire ranged from jazz to punk.  We sat with Rommel Curaming from Brunei and South African Tshepo Moloi, who was impressed with Dave’s knowledge of his country’s history.  Don Ritchie introduced me to Czech republic scholar Pavel Mücke, and wife Anne informed me of Maryland grad Charles Walker’s new book on the 1968 Washington, D.C., riot, the results of which we often drove by on research trips to the Library of Congress.  Near evening’s end, I spotted Kate Moore on the dance floor with a tall, friendly Norwegian and joined them. Afterwards, Kate acknowledged, “You can still dance.”

 Dave at Seuassari Island

Driving to Helsinki, we found Joe and Davidow and Jaana-Maria Jukkara’s place on a road, Tinasepantie, that we subsequently dubbed “Tina’s panty.”  Thanks to their generosity, we had the house to themselves while they spent the weekend in the country, like most Helsinki residents.  Following their suggestion, we visited an open-air museum on Seuassari Island, where tar was harvested during the nineteenth century for use on ships. The Midsummer festivities included folk dancing and the lighting of a huge bonfire off shore.  

Helsinki Cathedral (Lutheran), a stop on Hop On, Hop Off Bus route

Over the next five days, by car, train  and bus, we hit many popular attractions including Helsinki Cathedral, the downtown market, and a huge fortress on the island of Suomenlinna that was built in the mid-eighteenth century as protection against Russian expansion when Finland was under Swedish control.  An entrance-way called King’s Gate was designed to welcome King Adolf Frederick, who died after consuming a meal that included lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, kippers, champagne, and 14 servings of his favorite desert, a sweet roll named semi served in a bowl of hot milk.  The fortress became a Russian possession in 1808.  

fortress on Suomenlinna; Hard Rock Cafe

In addition to these tourist spots, Dave and I also visited Sea Life, Linnamaki Amusement Park, Korkeassaari Zoo (I loved the uncaged peacocks and the brown karhu polar bear whose likeness is on cans of our favorite Finnish beer).  We enjoyed out Finnish meal so much at Bryggeri Pub and Brewery that we each bought t-shirts.  Lunch at the Hard Rock Café was also on out to-do list.  

Joe and Jaana returned during our last two days in Finland.  By the time we left, we considered them to be dear friends.  Mike Bayer’s half-brother, Joe recalled many of our “lefty” friends from visits to Gary.  He directs films about American civil rights struggles for Finnish TV.  Joe was impressed with Dave’s knowledge of black intellectual James Baldwin and how well the two of us got along.  After hearing him call me Jimbo, he did, too. Our last night in Helsinki, Joe cooked salmon over a fire and Jaana contributed a delicious salad.  Joe’s friend Jeremy Gould, an anthropologist whose has spent many years in Zambia, brought the makings for guacamole and prepared a fire for a sauna, a common Finnish custom that Dave experienced with his two companions.  Both Joe and Jaana are soccer fans, so we caught an exciting World Cup match between Argentina and Nigeria.   

              Joe making fire for salmon dinner                   

 Jimbo and Jaana; below, Joe, Jaana, Dave, Jeremy

The flight home was uneventful. I watched “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and enough of “Black Panther” to appreciate its appeal to black moviegoers and fans of Marvel Studio productions.  We encountered seemingly endless lines going through customs at O’Hare, but limo driver Darryl got us home in record time considering Friday rush hour traffic.  After filling Toni in on trip highlights, I hit the sack for 12 hours straight. While I was away, Michael Jackson’s father, a Gary native and brutal task master, died.  In Lexington, Virginia, Red Hen Restaurant  owner Stephanie Wilkinson asked Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave after learning that her staff was uncomfortable serving her.  The ensuing bruhaha produced a typically ill-mannered presidential tweet, to wit: “The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”  Suck wind, Mr. President, off to meet his pal Putin in Helsinki in two weeks.