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 over to the fire chief.
'All our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant.
They must be saved. I will give $100,000 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.
In 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 well 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 and,
without even slowing down, 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 and fought it back on all sides. It was a performance and effort
never seen before. Within a short time, the Norse old timers had extinguished the fire and 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 Oleson, the 80-year-old fire chief,
'Da first ting ve gonna do is fix da brakes on dat focking truck!