To Have a Liking for a Viking

If you go back far enough in my family (about a thousand years) the roots of both sides are Viking. The Scots, the Belgians, the Swedes. Only the Mohawks and French (maybe) aren't, and that's through single great-great-grandparents. Everyone else came from the land of the ice and snow where the midnight suns and the hot springs flow. So I consider myself a Viking, at heart. Yeah, I'm a Highlander and a Swede and certainly got some of the Mohawk looks, but my personality is Viking. I run headfirst into and at everything. In healthier days I was pretty damn physical. I got into fights a lot growing up, especially for a girl. My forte in fighting was to pick people up and throw them. I'm often illogical, but that's for a good reason I won't tell you about. If that isn't Viking, I dunno. I'm much more peaceful these days. My Dad made an effort to expose me to Scandinavian ways. We went to the 17th of May parades, ate the terrible foods, laughed at Bergman movies with the few other Scandi-Americans who were raised to appreciate the humor in absolute bleakness. I don't think other ethnicities on the east coast even know there is a Scandi culture present. There are no national holidays for us, no citywide parades. We just go about our business and have bake sales. There's a lot of Viking history to be gotten online. Some wonderful and some complete bullshit. I love history and usually know enough to sort it out. But the bullshit gets a lot of traffic. And some of the bullshit links Vikings to Nazis. I hate Nazis. I pretty much hate anyone who categorically seeks to oppress and kill off people. Where the Neonazis get off besmirching my heritage with their filth puzzles me. Since when did the gods of my forebears, thousands of years old, wear the uniform of that 20th century maniac? How dare they coopt my gods to their hatred? That's blasphemy. My gods aren't even too concerned with humans. They have their own gigs going on. So just to go on record, I'm a Viking, and I will pick up and throw any Nazis in my path.