Gilligan's Island of Mystery!: The Professor and Mary Ann

Southwestern Oregon Valley State University hired me to teach 18th Century Norwegian Erotica contingent on a successful defense of my dissertation: Codpieces and Cod Fisheries: Intersections of Maritime Commerce and Desire in Pre-Napoleonic Norway. A niche topic, I admit, but it was either that or Fjordplay: Geographic Determinism and Romantic Expression in the Works of Lars Bjørnsen (1747–1791). I decided Lars Bjørnsen had been analyzed to death.

The three hour charter in Hawaii was a treat to myself for a successful defense. Some time to relax and recharge before heading back for a new semester at SOVSU, home of the Mighty Moss athletics. Hawaii proved to be the paradise advertised. I found it a welcome change from the grayness and Sasquatches of the Pacific Northwest. Did you know a homeowner's policy in Oregon doesn't cover Sasquatch vandalism? One of the many reasons why I was so disillusioned. That and a career teaching Norwegian erotic literature wasn't nearly as glamorous as I'd imagined.

That's why I've convinced myself there are worse places to be than foraging for palm branches and bamboo on a deserted island with a cute Midwestern brunette named Mary Ann. While I am careful to maintain a respectful boundary, I'm still reminded of a verse from the aforementioned Lars Bjørnsen:

O lovely Marta, keeper of the turnips,

Permit me to admire thy root cellar.

For though the winter winds may howl,

Thy latch remains uncommonly sturdy.

"What are you talking about?" Mary Ann asks me. "Keeper of the turnips?"

"Oh," I stammer. "Was I saying that out loud? Sorry. It's just an obscure poem."

"I know who Lars Bjørnsen is," she says and, to paraphrase another poem of his, my heart starts thumping like a tax collector's mule.

"You... You know... ?"

"My high school had a Scandinavian literature club. We read some of his work." She says this as casually as someone who mentions they had a latte and bagel for breakfast. Well, mostly his middle period. I always thought people made too much of The Fisherman's Daughter of Vestvik. Personally, I prefer his later stuff."

"His later stuff?" I ask. What are the odds I would be stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a farmgirl who knows Bjørnsen's later period?

She collects a few pieces of bamboo, cradling them in her arms close to her chest. In the celebrated words of Bjørnsen's The Widow of Lillehammer, her eyes shone "like moonlight reflected upon a fjord that had recently received favorable herring forecasts."

"Don't get me wrong," she says. "The herring phase is important. But it's awfully derivative of Anders Gundersen."

"Derivative of Gundersen?" I ask, a bold assertion on her part.

"Sure. Gundersen practically invented the whole "fish as unfulfilled longing" movement. Bjørnsen just made it more accessible. A little less philosophical. A little more... fishy."

"Pun aside," I counter, "it's a bit of reach of to - "

She cuts me off. "Of course, neither of them could touch Ingrid Halvorsdatter. Her emotional range was extraordinary. Bjørnsen writes about yearning. Halvorsdatter makes you feel yearning. That's a big difference."

I stand in slack-jawed awe. "Mary Ann, are you telling me you've read Halvorsdatter in the original Dano-Norwegian?"

"Of course," she says. "It's the only way. The English translations lose most of the jokes. OW! DAMN! OW!

She drops her bamboo sticks and falls to the sand, clutching her right foot. She winces in visible pain and a trickle of blood spills from her big toe.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I stubbed my toe on something in the brush."

I walk tentatively over to where she's pointing because I'm not about to stub my toe. My pain tolerance is far too low for that. I pick up a bamboo stick and poke at the brush. The sound of the stick hitting something wooden startles me. It's clear whatever it is has some heft to it. Thick and sturdy. I push back some of the brush and find a wooden crate roughly five feet across, five feet wide, and five feet deep. Stenciled across the sides in black ink is strange symbol and the word RATIONS. I then notice it is attached to a large parachute.

"What is it, Professor?" Mary Ann asks, hobbling toward me.

"It appears to be a crate of rations that has been dropped from a passing plane."

"I never heard plane go over," she says. "Did you?"

"No." I shake my head.

"Professor?" she asks, looking to the sky. "Hvor er vi?"

"What?" I ask. "What is that?"

"It's Norwegian for 'Where are we?'" she says.

"Oh."

"How do you not know that?"