Jon says: Yesterday we focused on the Norwegian 'Icebreaker,' but to put things in a little better perspective, I'd like to quote Ivan Doag in his book "Sea Runners."
"It is told that at
a Scandinavian free-for-all, Danes willbe the ones dancing and laughing,
Norwegians endeavoring to start a fight, Finns[passing bottles, and Swedes
standing along the wall waitingto be
introduced."
Dave says: When I was a bartender/bouncer in San Francisco, I had to “bounce” more
Norwegians than any other ethnic group. Most of them were Norwegian sailors,
and some were not easy to bounce! One guy was 6’5” and weighed about 240. I
was behind the bar when he and several of his buddies rushed the owner (A 5’10”
165 pound effete European), his buddy, and my buddy/fellow employee who was checking ID
and serving as the bouncer of the day. I jumped over the bar, rushed out the
door to come to the aid of my boss and buddy, and found myself right in the
middle of the lot of them. The big guy was waiting for me and popped me in the
mouth with a left-jab (A damned good one too, I might add). Anyway, I all of a
sudden found myself in a knock-down, drag-out fight with this behemoth; lucky
for me, he had long, blond (of course!) hair which I was able to grab with my
right hand [Dave is left-handed] and was then able to pull him around in circles while smashing the
side of his head with left hooks, eventually – when that tactic was showing no
signs of slowing him down – I shifted to rabbit punches to the back of his neck
in a futile effort to kill the son-of-a-bitch. Finally, after I had hit him
with well in excess of twenty-five punches, he seemed to be weakening so I let
go of his hair and pulled back my right hand to give him what I figured would be
the coup de graze. Much to my surprise and chagrin, he used that opportunity to
throw an upper cut which, according to my buddies, sent me up into the air and
backwards about 10 feet. I woke up with my face in the pavement with the one
burning thought and desire to get up and keep myself from being killed (My
buddies later told me that I went down and, nearly literally, bounced back up
instantaneously; I was actually knocked unconscious for what was only a split
second, but the concussion which I became aware of shortly thereafter suggested
to me that I was knocked out if only briefly). Anyway, I got up and assumed my
boxers fighting pose which shocked him, evidently, because not only did he look
surprised but he actually backed away a couple of yards. Lucky for me, he
didn’t realize it but I was pretty much paralyzed and probably unable to even
defend myself since I felt like I was made out of jelly at that moment. Also,
and extremely lucky for me, a beat cop walked around the corner a half a block
away, saw what was going on and raced up to us, shouting at us to knock I off,
something I was more than glad to do. I have never ever, before or since, been
so glad to see an angry cop. The final outcome was the cop yelling at me for
getting into a street fight and sending the Norwegians on their way. No one
else ever knew that I had been unconscious for awhile as I just brushed it off
like nothing had happened.
I later learned that it was all a set up, and the Norwegians had come into
the place with the big guy to get even with me for having bounced one of them
out of the place a few weeks and a voyage before and they wanted to get even.
They were certainly even, but they never realized it. Sea-faring Norwegians'
favorite sport is evidently street-fighting with bouncers around the planet, at
least in those day. Funny thing was that none of them ever gave me any lip or
caused any trouble after that; I don’t know whether it was from respect that I
had taken the guys best shot with no apparent ill effect, outwardly anyway, or
that they were afraid that next time he would kill me!
They need not have worried for if they had bum-rushed my effete Euro boss out
the door at a later time, I just would have let them have him!
Dave
Sue adds:
Sue adds:
But you can’t underestimate a “Euro-effete.” When Eric was a store manager
for Starbucks, the staff were
struggling to get a jar open. Eric puffed up t his full 6’3”, at least 260# at
the time, and said “Let a real man do it.” He couldn’t get the bottle open.
His “Euro-effete” employee stepped up and said, “Let a real wimp do it,” and the
guy popped the bottle open. SueS
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