Lögberg-Heimskringla - 17.02.1995, Blaðsíða 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 17. febrúar 1995 • 3
By Tom Oleson
h a t
I am
about
to say may
______________ come as a rude
surprise to
many readers of this newspaper,
but since it is the policy here at
Lögberg-Heimskríngla to give
you nothing but the truth as we
see it, I am going to give it to
you straight: Not everyone who
knows me considers me to be a
ray of sunshine in their other-
wise dreary lives.
If truth be told, in fact, there
are some people who know me
well, including, I regret to say,
close friends and family, who
regard me as being a bit of a
See you at the party!
W
dark cloud who can single-
handedly rain out the most fes-
tive occasion.
This misapprehension is
both widespread and of long-
stranding. When I was a kid,
one of my only two female
cousins used to call me "Stick-
in-the-Mud” and my sisters
called me worse. My wife,
whose job it is to enjoy me,
finds the working conditions
too hard and likes to compare
me to a character from the L’il
Abner cartoon who was
named something like Joe
Blfstplk and walked around
with a little cloud over his head
carrying catastrophe with him
wherever he went. Add to this
Icelanders have responded quickly to the
need of those who suffered great losses in
the avalanche in Súöavík, lceland. A fund
has been established to raise money to
help these people to get started again.
For those of lceiandic descent who have enquired and oth-
ers who might want to contribute, the name of the fund is
“Sýnum Samhug” (Showing Sympathy). Their phone num-
ber is 011-354-800-5050 and their bank account number
in Súöavík is 1117-26-800. (Alæady collected $700,000. Cdn.)
Krístjansson receives Young
Entrepreneur 4 ward, c<,»™«™1
restaurant before landing a
sales job with a telecommuni-
cations company and found
“I was pretty good at it”. He
aspired to a partnership in
the company, but after his
resignation over philosophi-
cal differences, the company
fell on hard times and finally
closed its doors.
Within hours Kristjan
decided to pick up where the
other company left off. He
put up his own savings,
arranged bridge financing,
found new premises for the
company and had a replace-
ment firm — Progressive
Communications Inc. — up
and running within two days.
“The biggest concern for us
was the 230 clients we
recruited, who would be left
hanging by the closure”, says
Kristjan. “We had our profes-
sional reputation on the line.”
He then hired his five co-
workers who agreed to
work the first two
months without pay.
Kristjan and company
called all the former
clients to offer their
services. Additional
funds finally came
from the bank after
four unsuccessful
applications.
Established in 1992,
ProComm today ser-
vices more than 700
accounts, the largest
client base of any pri-
vate telephone compa-
ny in Manitoba. Hard work,
keeping abreast of technology
and an emphasis on service
has helped sales increase
almost two-fold over the last
fiscal year. ProComm now
employs twelve people and is
looking to hire three more
sales people.
Kristjan is married to
Duneda who works as the
ProComm accounting manag-
er and the couple have ten-
month-old twins, Kaelyn and
Stefan. He says his family
responsibilities are strong
motivation as he continues to
develop his company. The
next moves are to gain a
stronger foothold in the rural
market and to explore mar-
keting opportunities outside
of Manitoba. “There are no
secrets to succeeding in busi-
ness”, he says, “it’s just a case
of doing what’s right.”
GI
Join . . .
Icelandic
Canadian
Frón
Send membership fee of
$30.00 individual • $20.00 associate
(includes membership in the Scandinavian Centre)
to: lcelandic Canadian Frón
764 Erin St., Winnipeg, MB R3G 2W4
Telephone: 774-8047
the fact that when we were
courting she would refer to me
in conversation with her friends
as “the dull fish” and you have a
pretty damning indictment that
may account for the fact that I
am hardly ever invited to par-
ties.
How, then, you might well
ask, dare I say that this view of
me is a misapprehension. Well,
for one thing it is not true that I
do not have a sense of humor. I
know a joke. It is an old family
joke that has been handed
through generation after genera-
tion of Olesons, but because it
has a naughty word in it — not
really naughty, of course, but
naughty nevertheless — I can’t
tell it here because I don’t want
to offend any readers whom I
haven’t offended already so you
will just have to take my word
for it. For another, I am of
Icelandic descent and Ice-
landers are hardly ever boring
or gloomy or argumentative —
no dark clouds we, so by the
simple process of elimination I
become a veritable ray of sun-
shine in your otherwise dreaiy
world.
If you still doubt this consid-
er the fact that the Icelandic
Canadian Frón in Winnipeg has
decided to hold its Þorrablót on
February 25 to coincide with
my birthday. I find this particu-
larly touching because in my
family we don’t really celebrate
my birthday because if we did
my wife would have to buy me
a present — so it is nice to see
that someone has remémbered.
The organizers — probably out
of concern that making a big
foofarah out of my birthday
would embarrass me (it would
not) — have not actually come
right out directly and publicly
linked the two events, but I can
think of no other plausible
explanation for this sort of
serendipity except for the fact
that Februaiy 25 is a Saturday
that happens to fall in the old
month of Þorri and that sort of
coincidence kind of stretches
credulity.
There is also precedent for
linking the celebration of Þorri
with another momentous event
that falls in the early part of the
year. If you have read the front
page of this issue, you will have
noticed that the Toronto chap-
ter of the Icelandic National
League has decided to delay its
Þorrablót — the 35th anniver-
sary celebration of Þorri by the
Toronto club — until May so
that delegates to the INL’s con-
vention can enjoy the festivities
with them.
That will give the delegates
something extra and special for
them to look forward to in
Toronto. It is also something
remarkably appropriate. A
Þorrablót is not only an occa-
sion for good times and merry-
making; it also stands as a sym-
bol of the determination of the
Icelandic community in North
America to preserve the culture
and traditions that our ances-
tors brought from Iceland with
them.
It also provides us with a
thought here at Lögberg-
.. .juat teuUttden,...
onations are still being accepted for a recently estab-
lished Memorial Fund, to recognize the contributions of
Steingrímur Kristján Hall and Sgiridur Anna Hördal. S.K.
was the most prominent composer of Music among lcelandic
people on the North American continent, and his wife Sigridur
was the best known lcelandic soprano soloist.
Tax-deductible donations are being accepted for this fund,
solely designated to cover the cost of constructing a Memorial
Headstone at the resting place of this musical duo at
Brookside Cemetary in Winnipeg.
Please send your donatlon to:
Hall Memorial Fund
c/o Lögberg-Heimskringla (The lcelandic Weekiy)
699 Carter Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3M 2C3
(Please make cheques or money orders
payable to First Lutheran Church)
A headstone unveiling ceremony is tentatively
scheduled for early July of this year.
Heimskríngla (Yes, we do have
them occasionally). It is a
thought for a project, an ambi-
tious project and one that will
be difficult to realize, but a
worthwhile one for all that. In
Icelandic communities all over
North America, Þorrablóts will
be held this year. Wouldn’t it be
grand if every one of them,
from eveiy comer of the conti-
nent wherever they occur,
could be recorded in words and
pictures on the pages of L-H?
To accomplish that, we need
to hear from you. Wherever you
are, from New York to San
Francisco, from the Atlantic
provinces to British Columbia,
if you know of a Þorrablót tak-
ing place, dragoon someone
into taking a few pictures and
writing a story about it, or do it
yourself, and send it to us. We
want to hear how you and
everyone else celebrated Þorri
this year, even those Þorrablóts
that are not directly connected
to my birthday. (No gifts,
please!)
Donations to Lögberg-Heimskringla Inc.
John Dalsted,
Cavalier, ND, U.S.A ..$10.00
Christie Dalman,
Wynyard, SK ..$12.55
Thelma G. Finnbogason,
Winnipeg, MB ..$10.10
1 Jcnnie & Gcorgc Drummond,
Scarborough, 0N V <JL„- ..$12.55 1 ■ Sy rt yy S
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Lúterska
Kirkja
Pastor Ingthor I. Isfeld
1030 a.m. The Service
followed by Sunday School
& Coffee hour.
First Lutheran Church
580 Victor St.,
Winnipeg,
R3G 1R2
MB
Ph. 772-7444

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