Break out the fish pudding!

They say everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I can only assume that in this particular instance "They" are "People who are looking for an excuse to justify drinking until they can't see straight."
As I headed out for a bike ride early Saturday afternoon (on a green bike, no less) I saw lots of people being Irish. By 1 p.m. they were already heading into bars or into tents set up specially for the occasion. Presumably they'd set aside a lot of time that afternoon for exploring their Irish heritage. Hopefully they'd arranged rides home with a somewhat less Irish friend.
When I attended college in New Orleans we had weeks at a time when everyone was Irish. They were called "Mardi Gras." Or sometimes "Thursday."
I don't think I've ever been Irish on St. Patrick's Day, though. Most years on March 17 I'm the same thing I am every other day of the year: Norwegian enough to know how to eat lefse the right way, but with enough other nationalities mixed in I've never thought to myself, "You know what I'd like? A nice piece of whitefish soaked in lye sure would hit the spot. Get me some lutefisk!"
I realize there are plenty of people who enjoy lutefisk now and again but I also suspect these people are the reason there are Ole and Lena jokes. And not even the funny Ole and Lena jokes.
(I'm kidding, of course. There are no funny Ole and Lena jokes.)
Norway is the only country where I've actually met distant relatives. This was during my junior year of high school, when I spent 10 months living in Sweden. My aunt, the genealogist in the family, came to visit and we went to find our kin in northern Norway. We met some relatives I'd never seen before and will probably never see again. And we got a tour of an old family homestead from some people who were in no way related to us. They picked us up from the library where my aunt was doing research (the librarian had called them) and fed us lefse and some kind of soup that was pretty much just milk and macaroni (I have no idea why people think Norwegians eat bland food). They would have let us spend the night, I think, if we didn't already have a hotel room.
In other parts of the country this story might have ended with my aunt and me chopped up in somebody's basment, but I think our biggest danger was that they might make us put Saint Lucia candle-wreaths on our heads.
I like being Norwegian. In Minnesota, it's practially a requirement. The only problem is, we don't get enough respect. When people think Norway they don't think famous people. They think fjords and white food and possibly Haggar the Horrible.
There are a lot of noteworthy Norwegians, though. There are explorers like Roald Amundson, the first person to reach the South Pole. Vilhelm Bjerknes, the father of modern meterology, is Norwegian. At least, there's a 75 percent chance he is. Norway has famous cyclists like Thor Hushovd and ski jumpers like Espen Bredesen. There are even famous Norwegian beach volleyball players. Which brings up the surprising realization there are beaches in Norway.
Norway has lots of famous entertainers, although two of the 20 people in the Film and Comedy category on Wikipedia's list of famous Norwegians are porn stars. That's 20 percent! Apparently the Norwegian film industry is really trashy.
Norway also boasts the band Mayhem, which so far as I can tell is like a cross between Kiss and the creepiest person you've ever met. They feature songs with names like Voice of a Tortured Skull and Necrolust. Those long winter nights can really mess with a person.
I think it's clear we Norwegians have a lot to offer. There's more to us than cross country skiing and fjords. Keep that in mind a couple of months from now. Because they say everyone's Norwegian on Syttende Mai.