The Norwegian Fire Truck

[Patrick]

Subject: FW: Norwegian Fire Truck

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
One dark night outside a small town in Minnesota, a fire started inside the local chemical plant and in a blink of an eye it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments for miles around.
 
When the volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fire chief and said, "All our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved. I will give $50,000 to the fire department that brings them out intact."
 
But the roaring flames held the firefighters off.
 
Soon more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate. As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now $100,000 to the fire department who could bring out the company's secret files.
 
From the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby Norwegian rural township volunteer fire company composed mainly of Norwegians over the age of 65. To everyone's amazement, that little run-down fire engine roared right past all the newer sleek engines that were parked outside the plant.
 
Without even slowing down it drove straight into the middle of the inferno. Outside, the other firemen watched as the Norwegian old timers jumped off right in the middle of the fire fought it back on all sides.  It was a performance and effort never seen before.
 
Within a short time, the Norske old timers had extinguished the fire and had saved the secret formulas. The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000, and walked over to personally thank each of the brave fire fighters.
 
The local TV news reporter rushed in to capture the event on film, asking their chief, "What are you going to do with all that money?"
 
"Vell," said Ole Larsen, the 70-year-old fire chief, "Da first thing ve gonna do is fix da brakes on dat focking truck!
 
 
 

[BobB]

Yup, that is an old one.  A lot of these go around here in Minnesota, for sure.  PCness doesn't apply to Norwegians.
 

[czuch]

UFF-DA,,,,, Thats a good one.

[Patrick]

I guess we could re-write it for any ethic group.  A good accent is the only thing necessary I guess.

[John Schmidt]

That got a good giggle from my 82 yr. old retired school teacher cousin. Although she was married for many years, now widowed for nearly as many and is the epitomy of the aged spinster.....but in appearance only. She lives in Austin, MN and has an underlying sense of humor totally unexpected. Although a very Spirit driven gal, she will still give out with a good belly laugh when amused. After I sent this to her, she was still giggling when she called me about five minutes later. Said it reminded her of decades ago when a similar situation nearly happened in a small Iowa town. Except in that case the one thing that stopped the old truck was the only fire hydrant in the area. It also was a volunteer fireman brigade, and the fire was on an old bldg. slated for destruction so was used for training purposes and was set afire. Picture the truck coming around the corner and slowing a bit, the local volunteers hopping off with hoses in hand and heading for the hydrant, only to be beat there by the truck itself. In the end, they just let the old bldg. burn down. A town council meeting the next week decided it was time to look for a newer fire truck, since it took them nearly 15 minutes to get the old one started the day of the accident. I don't know the nationality of the town population, but seems they may have been somehow related to the Norwegians. 

[Patrick]

I can understand the story. I've done a lot of brake work on local fire equipment. The fellas keep the trucks so clean and washed so often, but, they tend to forget to take them out drive them and dry them out. The brakes tended to rust up and argue when that pedal is pushed.

[Tailgate Tommy]

I'm Norwegian and can attest to fire trucks with brake issues - I put one on it's top once!