Greetings from Minnesota
 

I'm pleased to be in contact with you FinnShark folks. From what I've been reading on your site, I think Finland would be a good place for me to happily spend my next life. You all seem to be greatly enjoying those 'glass chariots. As it happens, my father's parents emigrated from Karijoki and Isojoki to Minnesota, USA in the early 1900's. I grew up on Minnesota's Iron Range (iron mines) and many of my school mates were also of Finnish descent. I still have relatives in Finland, mostly in the Tampere area.

I've had some contact with a few FinnShark members already and look forward to more in the future. As a young man I owned a few Corvettes but a great deal of time has passed since then. Now we have a C5 convertible in the family and it's wonderful to be back. This July we'll be attending a Corvette rally in Colorado called Vettes on the Rockies. Let me know if any of you might be around these parts.

Best regards,

Roger Haro (mnpoika)

Welcome to FinnShark.com! :thumrigh:

Welcome to our forum. I believe that originally your last name had some dots over a and o, like "Härö" ?

Actually Cocco, there is another guy here in the Twin Cities area with my same name, and he is also of Finnish descent. However, he and I are not related. As I understand it, his name was was always spelled Haro, but with the dots over the "a" as you suggested. Perhaps it was my grandfather who changed our name from the original Iso-Haaro which never had any dots over any letters. So, I believe the other Roger Haro's last name is pronounced (English pronounciation) HAY-ro, while I pronounce mine as HAW-ro. Does that make any sense?

Thank you for putting up with English-speakers such as myself. I so wish I could speak Finnish. Unfortunately, my father was the baby in the family and they no longer spoke Finnish at home when he was growing up. However, I do have two friends here who spoke only Finnish when they first started school. One of them gets along very well when visiting Finland, while the other has unfortunately never been there.

Hi Roger,

Visited in Colorado august 1989.Then it was 16th annual Vettes on the Rockies.Place was in Breckenridge. Me and my friend stayed in Beaver Run
Resort where I still have bill that reads we came from Helsinki,Poland!!
Yellow manufacturer ZR-1,king of the hill was taken a place too..There was
small accident too when vette conway startet from parking area.Anyway
nice memorys from the mountain.

Regards,Ratblock.

Warm welcome to Finnshark.com. I'll make sure to drop you an email next summer when I'll be touring around your area again! :bball:

Welcome to Finnshark mnpoika! Greetings from Montreal Canada, I've been here for few months, but heading back to Europe soon. I haven't made roadtrips that far west from here.

Let us know if you ever coming to Finland! I'm sure we can make something for you to see there! :cool:

Welcome to pages mnpoika!
Mnpoika? Does it mean mammanpoika? :D
Maybe you first want to see generally our activities during the years, then go to "galleria". There is lot of photos and at the end of the title page also videos.
You send me very interesting photos from your racing days, and I am sure these people are very happy to see them also!
Welcome Roger!:thumrigh:
Are you familiar with these?

Thank you all for the warm welcome. I'll try to respond to all right here.

- Ratblock - you stayed exactly where we will be staying Breckenridge. We'll think of you in July. What a small world it is sometimes.

- Groovyjay - I look forward to hearing from you regarding your travels here next summer. What are your plans so far?

- FinnShark Montreal - I do hope to visit Finland once more before I'm too old. It's been twelve years since our last visit and that's really too long. Of course, right now there is that thing about the economy and the exchange rate.

- V-P - Yes those are familiar photos, especially the one of your Minnesota relatives gathered around the stone monument. Unfortunately my two little Finnish-English dictionaries don't get me to the word mammanpoika. The closest word is mammutti. However, the explanation of my handle is quite easy: MN is the official postal abbreviation for Minnesota, so mnpoika it is. Does that appear strange in Finnish? Please feel free to share any photos I have sent.

Best regards,

-Roger-

Mammanpoika is mummys boy in English. But I think "mammanpoika" means something like coward, sissy or chicken. At least me and my friends have been used word mammari (mammanpoika) if somebody for example didn't jump down from the roof where everybody else jumped.

After you said MN = Minnesota, your nickname looks very sensible.