Fantastic Firefighting

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 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 Norwegian rural township volunteer fire
company composed mainly of Norwegians over the age of 65. To
everyone's amazement, the little run-down fire engine, operated by
these Norwegians, passed all the newer sleek 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 Norse 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 he walked
over to personally thank each of the brave, though elderly, Norse fire
fighters.

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
ve do is fix da brakes on dat truck."