A doctor once told my mom that the silly happy face/frowny face pain charts are surprisingly accurate. He asks, "How much pain are you in?" and if your mouth is grimacing a bit, a quick look at the chart shows that you are at a six. Surprisingly accurate, except for one group of people. Scandinavians are always at pain level zero .
My dad isn't Scandinavian per se. Genetically he's about half Norwegian and culturally he's two generations removed from the motherland. But spiritually, he's skiing across mountains with Harald Fairhair, scaling 1,000 foot fjords and farming infertile ground. He's fighting Iceland and Sweden and England. He's eating lutefisk and lefse (two foods that I--three generations removed from the motherland--find barely palatable after they are drowned in melted butter) and not only is he eating them, he's eating them while celebrating.
Scandinavians don't feel pain. And even if they did, they would delight in it.
I think I was ten years old when I hiked Angel's Landing in Zion's National Park. In 100 degree temperatures. Without water. Why? Because water is for wusses. Do you think Magnus Erickson drank water when he united the Norwegian and Swedish thrones? No. He munched on lefse. I was seventeen when my father taught me how to handle difficult hills while running. You run up them faster. Because clearly, that's how the Vikings pillaged and plundered their way through Northern France. Quickly.
Once my dad decided to put on his running shoes and run up Millcreek Canyon. From his house to the top of Millcreek Canyon is about 10 miles. Once he got to the top of the canyon he decided he was feeling pretty good, so he'd run to Dog Lake, another 3.1 miles up the mountain. He felt pretty good there, so he decided to run over the mountain to Big Cottonwood Canyon, 2.5 more miles. Once he got to the canyon down there, he wasn't feeling so good, maybe due to the fact that he hadn't drank any water during the last 15.6 miles of exercise. But there was really only one way to get home, so he ran down the canyon, another 9.1 miles. When he reached the 7-11 at the base of the canyon, after 24.7 miles over a mountain with no water, he decided he'd better call mom. In the meantime, though, he was really thirsty.
Do Norwegians ask convenience store attendants for drinks of water? No, but they are allowed to live off the land, so when the 7-11 guy cleared out the ice from the slurpee machine by throwing it onto the pavement, Dad slurped it off the concrete.
About two weeks before Christmas Dad was feeling really winded. In fact, climbing stairs was difficult. Did he admit this problem? Obviously, no. But after three weeks of little breathing and a pain in his leg, mom forced him to the hospital. He had blood clots all through him. The radiologist reported "On the pulmonary tree, every branch is infused with embolisms."
They released him from the hospital. Next day he ran a temperature of 103. The next day it was 104. Do Vikings go to the hospital over a little fever? No, they send their wife to the store for another thermometer, because it is more likely the atmosphere has changed and the mercury is reacting a bit to the new pressure. After the second thermometer also read 104, Dad grudgingly went back to the ER.
You'll be happy to know he slept for the last 48 hours. Even a Viking needs a little down time.
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