Rasmus B. Anderson

Happy Sequence Day. I don’t know whether anyone else calls it that, but what do you call a day when month, day, and year are in sequence (ten-eleven-twelve)? This doesn’t work if you’re in Europe, of course, where they practice a far more logical dating system that proceeds from smaller to larger – day, month, year. I’d defend the American system with blustering chauvinism and outrage, except that I can’t actually think of an argument for it.

I won’t be posting again until Monday, Lord willing. Tomorrow I’m on the road to Norway, Michigan for the Leif Eriksson festival again, riding along with Ragnar and his wife. Early departure. No doubt I will not sleep tonight.

There’s a weird criss-cross sort of thing going on with this event. Leif Eriksson Day is actually Oct. 9, but we’re celebrating it on the weekend of the 12th, which is actually Columbus Day. Rasmus B. Anderson and his co-conspirators, who invented the Leif celebration, purposely located it a few days before the 12th to steal a march on the Italians. But they celebrated on Monday.

I heard a lecture on Anderson during the Chicago Vinland seminar a couple years back. A Norwegian-American author, educator, and diplomat, he worked tirelessly to raise consciousness of Leif Eriksson, and spearheaded the effort to get Oct. 9 made a national holiday, which only happened long after his death.

Oddly for a Norwegian-American (cough, cough), Anderson had some difficulty getting along with other people, eventually getting himself shunned by pretty much all his hyphenated countrymen. So he transferred his enthusiasm to Iceland, which worked even better for the Leif Eriksson stuff, because Leif was actually born there. Probably.

Leif Eriksson Day is an odd festival in any case. The weakness of the argument for Leif’s importance, historically, was always his relative unimportance. Leif came and went almost without leaving a trace. Columbus came and completely redecorated the place.

But nowadays Leif enthusiasts make that into a virtue! “Look at us! We’re not like those other Europeans! We don’t do anything! It’s as if we were never here!”

Anyway, have a good weekend.