“In Little Finland with Vickie”
 by Timothy Hume Behrendt
 
 It wasn’t on the map,
 As the land of Finns,
 But I lived there
 Without Finn kins.
 
 They were all around me,
 Short and small,
 Blond, blue eyed,
 Big and tall.
 
 I learned Finn words,
 From the young of age,
 Best not repeated,
 On a decent page.
 
 But more than that,
 I can share with you,
 I grew up with them,
 And loved them true.
 
 Some more than others,
 Like Vickie dear,
 Her last name, Kinnunen,
 She had no peer!
 
 She tickled my heart,
 And obsessed my mind,
 Till my school work done,
 Was hard to find.
 
 From first grade to sixth grade,
 She held my devotion,
 She was my love,
 My fondest emotion.
 
 I met her years later,
 And reminisced with her,
 How we went together,
 How she made me purr.
 
 She responded abruptly:
 “I went with you?
 For all those years?
 I never knew!”
 
 Never mind, it’s over now.
 I had my romance,
 That bloomed somehow,
 In little Finland with Vickie dear,
 In my childhood days,
 That I remember clear.

Contributed by Katrina Mackey