Näsi Juha, Salme, Ella, Altti and Anni
Darlings visited us several times in Tampere
I met with John for the first time in the fall 1978 at the University
of Vaasa where I was working as an interim professor. Soon we became friends
at the family level.
The Darlings, sometimes the whole family, visited us several times during
the 1980s in Tampere where we both were working at he Department of Business,
the University of Tampere. The school year 1987-88 took place in Starkville.
The whole family of the Näsis moved for a year into the Deep South.
The year at MSU with the Darlings and at the Department of Management and
in Salme's case the School of Accounting were something one can not forget.And
after one school year the southern drawl was a natural English dialect
of our three children.
Since that we have often visited and stopped by, sometimes in Shreveport,
sometimes in Pittsburg. And so have John and Melva come again and again
to Tampere and nowadays also to Jyväskylä, where we both, at
the University of Jyväskylä, have professorship positions.
Teaching, scholar exchange, student exchange, university level co-operation
and many other professional and official things have been an essential
part of this connection and friendship. But also enjoying sauna, hiking,
rowing, fish netting, mushroom picking, going again to sauna, Christmas
tree decorating,picnicking, and enjoying sauna,as well as just chatting
in a friendly atmosphere, fighting moose flies in the woods,and almost
hitting a moose by Salme's car and going to sauna represent a small part
of a list of our joint adventures.
The life of the Näsi family would have been very different without
the help and support of John and Melva Darling. Our sincere thanks!
Juha, Salme, Ella, Altti and Anni Näsi
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