Sven and Ula Do Nebraska
“Vere?” Ula asked, squinting off into the distance.
“Dere!” said Sven, pointing with his left hand while holding his Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 to his eye with his right.
“Vere?” Ula repeated, getting impatient with the vagueness of Sven’s directions.
“Uffdah Ula, are you blind? ‘e’s right dere next to dat little cedar tree--as big as life!’ Sven said as he tried to hold the camera steady against his brow and cheek. “I can pull ‘im vit’in ‘bout two ‘undred yards vit dis t’ing. Gawd, I love dis camera!”
“I don’t ‘ave a super duper camera, but I’m not too blind to see dat dere’s t’ousands of trees on dat ‘illside and I ‘ave no doggone idea vich vun of dem you’re pointing to Sven Guyson!” Ula spit out, his expression contorted now almost beyond recognition.
“Look vere I’m pointing, you eastern Palmville d-dummy!’ Sven sputtered back, knowing Ula was getting pretty perturbed when he used Sven’s last name with his first name. “It’s by dat vun tree dat’s only ‘bout five feet tall.”
“You’re calling me a dummy? All da trees on da other side of da Niobrara River are dat size! I t’ink you’re joshin’ me now. You’re imagining vun because you vant to see vun so bad! I’m leaving!’ Ula yelled backing away from the overlook and starting back down the narrow trail. “You’re full of it!”
“Vait! Looky ‘ere! Ula!’ Sven hollered back, turning away from the brink and sending a cascade of small stones down below in his rush. “I took some pictures of ‘im! Ula!”
Ula stopped long enough for Sven to catch up, turning his back to the near-vertical inclined trail he was about to ascend. “Look at dis, ‘ Sven said triumphantly as he cupped his hand over the LCD monitor to shield the image from the glare of the sun. “‘ere ‘e is as big as life, a two ‘undred yard image from a half mile avay.”
“Yah Sven, I shouldn’t ‘ave doubted you. Dat’s a fine bison specimen, if I ever saw one,” Ula said cupping both his hands to his eyes to see the monitor.
“Uh, vat you lookin’ at dere Ula? Dat dere’s a buffalo. It’s centered in da picture, eh,” replied Sven with his eyebrows crunched up in concern. "See it dere? Da big dark-brown animal by da little cedar tree is vat I’ve been talkin' 'bout...”
Ula, straightening his back from bending low to peer into Sven’s camera, said “Yah shure Sven, I see it. It’s as big as da doggone nose on your face. Dat’s a ‘bison,’ not a buffalo.”
Sven, turning his face toward the ground to keep from laughing right in Ula’s. “Ula, you yokester, dis ‘ere animal is a buffalo. I know it and you know it. It’s not a bison. It’s a buffalo. Plain and simple, simple and plain--make no mistake in dat big brain of yours, dis ‘ere animal is an American buffalo! Not some silly bison t’ing.”
Ula, knowing where this disagreement was going to go, turned up the trail and away from Sven, calling back, ”It’s a bison.”
“Oh yeah? Vat’d dey call dat nickle dey made a few years back vit a picture of dis ‘ere animal on it, eh?’ Sven hollered back, turning his camera off and stuffing inside his light jacket, its strap around his neck. “Dey called it a Buffalo nickle! Not a bison nickle!”
“Vat do they call North Dakota State University’s football team, Sven? Da Bisons--not da buffaloes!” Ula retorted from a treetop trail high above Sven, making two horns with his pointer fingers alongside either side of his head and expressing an angry look.
“Only because dey didn’t vant to be confused vit da Bufflo Bills!” Sven wheezed loudly, on an uphill part of the winding trail that had yucca plants growing in profusion on one side and the tops of pine trees descending on the other. "And vat do you call dose little spicy chicken ving t’ings ve get at the Fickle Pickle in Vannaska?? Buffalo vings! Not bison vings, you daft Irishman! You are crazy! ‘oever ‘eard of such a t’ing? Somebody from Massachusetts?”
A softball-sized rock tumbling down the hillside ricocheted against a tree trunk and narrowly missed Sven’s head. “Now you’re tryin’ to kill me Ula Josephson! You know I’m right!” Sven yelled skyward, pausing to catch his breath while looking uphill for more projectiles or a possible avalanche. “Vat do dey call da mall in Jamestown, Nort’ Dakota, eh?? Da Buffalo Mall!! Not da Bison Mall!! You fool! Vat’d da immigrants gather on da Plains to use as firewood? Buffalo chips! Not bison chips! No self-respecting immigrant kid vud’ve told an old timer ‘e vas out collectin’ bison chips for da fire,” Sven continued, talking to himself as he continued up the path toward the parking lot.
“And vat about dem black Union soldiers stationed at Fort Robinson in the 1870s? Vat’d dey call dem? Buffalo soldiers!!--not bison soldiers...”
Stumbling into the parking lot with the thought of a Guinness Extra Stout in a big frosty mug in his head, Sven spied Ula sitting in his car on the passenger seat checking out his GPS routing. Brochures about Fort Niobrara, the falls and the refuge laid on the seat beside him; he even had time for a nap before Sven had caught up to him, “You made it, I see,” Ula said casually, never casting a look at the sweaty Sven who had inhaled a good dose of Albuterol upon his arrival. The Guinness would have to wait until later.
“Yah and vit no ‘elp from you. You missed me vit all your boulders you kicked toward me, “ Sven exhaled, standing outside the open driver’s door of the car, and looking back at the trailhead he just came up. “I didn’t kick any boulders down on you, Sven!’ Ula said, getting out of the car. “‘Maybe dere vas a bison on our side of da river you didn’t see. Dey can’t be da most graceful of critters.”
“BISON??” shreiked Sven, looking down into the car thinking Ula was there, but he wasn’t. “DEY ARE CALLED BUFFALO, NOT BISON YOU DOPE! QUIT BEING SO T’ICK-’EADED!”
Ula, who had had some time to think about his answer by then, took a deep breath of cool Nebraska air and said with one semi-closed eye, his lefthand pointer finger poised vertically beside his freckled cheek as if to make his point clear, cleared his voice and began. “Sven, my friend, my dearest friend in dis whole parkin’ lot ‘ere at Fort Niobrara, I vant you to t’ink back to 1976.”
“Vat in da samhell does dat ‘ave to do vit da buffalo/bison question, Ula? Don’t be t’inkin’ you can ‘oodvink me dat dese aren’t buffalo because I know fool vell dey are buffalo and ‘ave been buffalo all my life--and yours--and even before dat! Yust ask da people of Buffalo, Nort’ Dakota oose town originated in 1880--and seventy-nine years before dat vas Buffalo, New York! Dey sure in ‘ell didn’t call dem bison den!”
“Vell, you’re vont to change my subject, but if you vant to argue some more, Guyson vat about da two towns in Sout’ Dakota named Bison, plus da vun in Oklahoma and da vun in Kansas! Da vun in Kansas originated in 1886!” Ula countered soundly, obviously fresh from the internet connection on his cellphone.
“You can’t believe all dem people in Kansas, Ula. It vas probably really 1986,” Sven said confidently, assured in the fact because he has family there.
“Vich it probably vas, after da national name change of towns vit populations under 1000, and all manner of t’ings called ‘buffalo’ prior to 1976. Dis fact brings me back to vat I vas tryin’ to explain to you, Sven, before you go off and make a bigger fool of yourself dan you ‘ave already,” Ula sighed, continuing from back inside the car again. “Back in 1976, as you will recall . . .”
“I don’t vant to recall 1976, Ula, it vasn’t a very good year for me for reasons I von’t explain,” Sven lamented, his voice trailing off.
“Vell, anyway t’ink beyond da personal and recall da national referendum dat decided vunce and for all dat ve Americans of all stripes, colors and political infirmities vud call da animal formerly-called buffalo, ‘bison’” Ula said, in even monotone as though he was explaining healthcare regulations to a bunch of senior citizens
“NO VAY!’
shouted Sven, out of the car and in it, jumping back and forth until he
was as winded as when he climbed the trail from the river’s edge. “DERE’S NO VAY DEY VUD’VE CHANGED CALLIN’ DEM BUFFALO!’”
“You ‘aven’t forgotten ‘bout da Nation’s ‘bison-tennial’ celebration ‘ave you?”
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| “You ‘aven’t forgotten ‘bout da Nation’s ‘bison-tennial’ celebration ‘ave you?” |
Comments
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Take a guess at what this sentence means - "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." It really has a proper meaning. And it's part of a whole group of one-word sentences.
The sentence (Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.) has been the talk of grammarians since 1972. According to William Rapaport, its creator and a professor at the University of Buffalo, it means, "So, buffalo who live in Buffalo (e.g., at the Buffalo Zoo, which does, indeed, have buffalo), and who are buffaloed (in a way unique to Buffalo) by other buffalo from Buffalo, themselves buffalo (in the way unique to Buffalo) still other buffalo from Buffalo."
The sentence relies on a few tricks. The first is that "buffalo" is a verb as well as a noun and the name of a place. To buffalo someone is to confuse or fluster a person. There's also a missing "that." Under normal circumstances, we can sometimes drop a "that" from a sentence, as long as the nouns still make the meaning clear. For example, "things I knock down don't get back up," and "things that I knock down don't get back up," are equally clear. All-buffalo sentences muddle it up a bit.
And, the buffalo raced past Crusty's fell, too.
Introduction to Sven Guyson and Ula Josephson for readers unfamiliar with these two old friends from Palmville Township, Minnesota, originating in the late 20th century; specifically in a Duluth cemetery near Albert Woolson's grave. This explains their origins and use of the broken brogue dialect they use in jest. Hence:
ReplyDelete"Their eyes adjusted to the darkness as they walked side-by-side along the asphalt path that cross-sectioned the vast cemetery into neat and orderly areas of green grass, and old spruce, pine, and maple trees that in the daylight generously spread before their eyes in appreciable beauty. They found the place was even more interesting in the dark...
Turning a corner, indicated by one of the men with a sweep of his arm, the two friends walked on to their destination below the spreading crowns of tall, old maple trees whose hollow trunks made warm and safe burrows for the hundreds of gray squirrels, who scurried between the tombs and crosses throughout the day, burying their booty of nuts, seeds, and cones they stored away to survive yet another harsh winter in Duluth.
Down the path and just beyond one of the old maple trees was a 3 piece tombstone bench, made of two vertical slabs of gray marble for legs, over which a red marble headstone was placed horizontally as a bench seat, with the name of the deceased engraved around its outer edge, that beckoned the two night walkers to sit and rest awhile there.
Hard and cold as the bench was in the cool July night air, sitting on it was a welcome relief after walking two blocks up the seemingly near-vertical streets of the wooded residential neighborhood whose upper plateaus, from curb to street light, were enshrouded by dense fog rolling uphill from Lake Superior.
“PUUSSHTT!“PUUSSHTT!” irreverently broke the silence of the hilltop cemetery as the two friends each opened a can of beer and took a sip from it.
“Ah, dat tastes good!... Very good, “ said one of the men as he pushed up the bill of his cap with the index finger of his free hand, then tipped his head toward the other man and asked, in a humorous and exaggerated Scandinavian brogue, “ Yah, shud ve go and pay our ‘spects to Albert den, eh Sven? T’ink ve vud find dat ol’ dam Yankee in da dark?”
“It’s entirely possible den dere, Ula,” the other man replied in not quite as good of a fake brogue. Somehow Sven tended to sound a bit more Irish in his phony accent, than Scandahoovian, even though he was of Swedish & Norwegian heritage on his mother’s side and Scot-Irish on his father’s.
Ula was 100% Irish and always more punctual, more articulate, more grammatically
correct than Sven, who had had long ago accepted his inferiority. Ula was also linguistically gifted, a confessed biblio-maniac, and, a maker of great homemade pizza, abilities all of which Sven sorrily lacked.
And so begins their tale throughout this blogpost and Wannaskawriter :https://palmvilletownshipmn.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteSven has some good qualities too. He always admits when he's wrong.
Once he reads the following except, he'll never call a bison a buffalo again -
According to the book, The American Buffalo in Transition, by J. Albert Rorabacher, the confusion between the two animals began when European explorers first encountered bison. In the seventeenth century, French explorers in North America referred to this strange new species as “les boeufs”, meaning oxen or beeves. The English, who arrived later, changed the pronunciation to “la buff”. As time went on, the name for this majestic animal continued changing from “buffle” to “buffler” to “buffillo,” until voilà, someone settled on buffalo. It stuck. So you know all those stories about buffalo roaming the Wild West? Yeah, those were bison.