Ever since I was five, Dad and I have been going to sports events together, mostly hockey and soccer games.
My earliest memories: the smell of the arena, a young boy selling popcorn by yelling “pooooooooooooop cooooooooooorneeeeeeeeeeee”, goalies looking weird, wooden benches, ads being projected onto the ice during intermissions, a huge cloud of cigarette smoke hovering close to the ceiling that was supported by thick cables, and a friend of Dad’s buying, and eating, ten sausages.
Ten.
“Quick, quick,” Wife yelled, opening the front door for me. I grabbed my iPod off the kitchen counter and ran outside.
“Go get ‘em,” I heard her shout behind me, but by then, I was already a good 30 meters outside the house, running towards the garage, adjusting my black leather bag that kept hitting me in the rear end. Our car was parked outside the garage complex, where eight families kept their cars mostly second cars, parked. Most of the tiny garages were used as storage space and so filled with junk that the cars were always outside.
Ours, too.
I jumped inside – I had already parked it so that I could just get in and drive – and made a quick left, then another quick left, then a quick U-turn and then an even quicker parallel parking trick, to claim the only empty spot on the street – right outside our house.
I saw Wife standing by the window, giving me a thumbs-up. I smiled back, and flashed the famous Churchillian victory sign. When I got back in, we high-fived each other.
People, people. People, people, people. Tsk, tsk. Two years ago, I was given a big budget and a lot of time to come up with the new, improved ristopakarinen.com. So, I spent four months in Italy, eating and drinking well, four months in India, hitchhiking through the country in a very Gandhi kind of way, and four months in Indonesia, eating and drinking well, and just as I touched down at the Arlanda airport on my way home, I came up with The Idea:
I would build one site, Home, for all of Mr. Pakarinen’s writing and blogging, links to his books, his projects, and such, another site, Puckarinen, dedicated for his hockey-related writing, and a third subsite, Risto Twist-o, for his “funny” fake news clippings.
Home would be home, the centerpiece, and the rest would follow naturally from there. I rolled up my sleeves, created three folders, and three RSS feeds, made a cup of coffee, and sent Mr. Pakarinen an email, asking him to test the new concept.
He liked it, a lot. We rolled it out the same day, and have never looked back.
But now, I realize that some of the readers of Home might also like what’s on Puckarinen, but don’t find their way there. And wise verses. And to post everything on both sites would “totally undermine the whole purpose of having the separate sites,” as Mr. Pakarinen told me.
In other words, I’m just here to remind you to check out the links under “Ristart” in the navigation, or click here to see the latest by Puckarinen.
By the way, I wrote a book, “Eat, Sleep, Drink” during my travels, and I hope it will be turned into a major motion picture some day.
Nine years ago, after I had recovered from the initial shock of the nine-eleven attack, I sent an email to a New Yorker friend, to see that he was OK. Below is his reply.
Walking back from Tallinn, Estonia downtown to the ferry that would take me back to Helsinki, I stopped at a … shopping place. Too shabby to be called a mall, but enough of a building not to be called a square, it was simply a place where entrepreneurial Estonias sell everything under the sun.
Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of old Finnish pop in the car. So much so that the other day, I heard Son and Daughter sing one 1975 song in their rooms. This song, to be exact. And I can’t say I don’t like it, because I do. I remember exactly how funny I thought that song was myself, back in, well, 1975, when I was the same age Son is now.
Sir,
Sir? May I help you? Do I know you? Oh, oh, you weren’t really looking at me, you were just staring at our game? I understand, it is fascinating to see how two formerly athletic guys still can throw and catch a ball, isn’t it?
Somebody sent me a message on Facebook this morning.
Hi, Risto,
I read somewhere that you own a book about Valeri Kharlamov. I’d like to buy it, if you’re willing to sell it. You can name your price…
Hockey greetings,
MPS. You are the hockey writer, right?”
All my life I’ve been waiting to get discovered. It may be because I’m lazy by nature, although I think that since I’d simply like to be discovered for what I’ve done – instead of just playing the lottery – I think I’m not a complete slacker.
I’ve always wanted to get head hunted for a job. I think it’d be nice if some movie director saw me order a caffe latte and asked me to audition for a role in his movie. I would have even auditioned for the part of Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies.
