Uncle Paden's Snippit of History

Celebrating Columbus Day is surely something that has to do with banking. Maybe Chris actually landed in the Cayman's and established the first off-shore tax free banking system. We surely don't celebrate Columbus Day for his discovery of North America. We all know that had been accomplished a few hundred years earlier by, ahem, my Nordic ancestors..

Some archaeologists acknowledge the Vikings exploration and mapping of the northeastern coast of our great continent. It's the historians I have a problem with...

According to most historians the exploration of the western hemisphere was something that occurred with great pomp and circumstance. You know, Europe's version of a ticker-tape parade. I had a history book as a schoolboy that showed Magellan at the feet of the Queen, with all the Court's members looking on as she blessed (and bankrolled) his travels. At least in the case of the Vikings, I'm here to tell you it didn't happen that way.

Put yourself back in the twelfth century, on the shore of a cold rocky fjord.

Life was hard and brutish. And in the winter, it was cold. Most folks lived in small huts to literally keep the wolf from the door. A small smoky enclosure with only spartan comforts. I'm sure winter wasn't pleasant.

That cute little blonde, Brunhilda, you talked into moving in with you turned into your nemesis. Her and those rosey-cheeked brats made napping in the winter impossible..and she was always onto you to re-thatch the roof and get her a bigger
pot to use. Like I said, life was brutish.

Soooo..this poor Viking takes a chilly walk on the beach and runs into his next door neighbor. He's out walking for the same reasons. The hut's too small and smoky...the old lady is griping..the kids are sreamin'....

Then they spy a log that the tide is taking out. Sven and Lars quietly watch as the tide takes it over the horizon...to someplace warmer and greener. Anyplace that has to be better than this cold-ass rocky godforsaken spot.

Exploration was born.

The Viking eventually got good at lashing logs together so they could disappear over the horizon also. They convinced their wives that sea travel wasn't for them. They took their swords and goat-skin bags of mead and sailed away to find the New World. I guess now is when I say "the rest is history".

Don't believe the history books. Life doesn't happen with pomp and circumstance. Life... just happens with the struggles and desires that are buried within mankind. Even to this day.

Happy Columbus Day.