One dark night outside a small town in Minnesota, a
fire started inside a local chemical plant and in the
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 to the
fire chief and said, "All of our secret
formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant.
They must be saved.
I will give $50,000 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. As the firemen arrived,
the president shouted out that the offer was now
$100,000 to the fire department who could bring out
the company's secret files.

From the distance, a lone siren was heard as another
fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby Ashby,
Minnesota township volunteer fire company, composed
mainly of Norwegian bachelor farmers.

To everyone's amazement, the little run-down fire
engine, operated by these Norwegians passed all the
sleek new engines parked outside the plant and drove
straight into the middle of the inferno!

Outside, the other firemen watched as the Norwegian
old timers jumped off and began to fight the fire with
a performance and effort never seen before.
Within a short time, the Norske old timers had
extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas.

The grateful chemical company president joyfully
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, elderly Norskes.

The local TV news reporters rushed in after capturing
the event on film asking, "What are you going to do
with all that money?"

"Vell," said Ole Larsen, the 70-year-old fire chief,
"da furst thing vee do is fix da brakes on dat foocking
truck!"