Finland -- Jaakko Auersalo

JAAAAAKKKOOO. I can just hear it now. They liked to say his name and draw it out. After the camp we corresponded for a long time, but now more than 10 years have passed since I have heard from him. I counted 22 letters and post cards over the first 10 years. I hope we can correspond again. He and I talked about music a lot. I wonder if he was a fan of Lordi, who won this year's Eurovision song contest. He loved Hard Rock for a long time and sent me a cassette of Finish music. I still have it. He and I also talked a lot about films. He had some kind of student pass and was able to see a movie almost every day.

Jaakko is very tall. He had a long shaped face, long arms and legs and at that time long blonde hair. In the picture he sent me 10 years ago, it was cut short but you can still see that he is the same old trouble making Jaakko. He liked to stir things up. He drank a lot of vodka at the pizzeria in town. He was a lot of fun and I loved to write to him. I hope that I can find him again. Here are some pictures of him. The last that I heard, he was living in Helsinki with his girlfriend who is a kindergarten teacher.

I am really stupid. I have kept all the letters that campo members sent me over the years. I found some key info in them to help me track down some of the lost members. I forgot I had the box until I was frustrated that I could not find any info about some people on the internet. Then I remembered the box of letters. I sorted them last night and started to re-read them. Mika, I have 23 from you..before email. 22 from Jaakko...some very long letters. 16 from Lars. And Rolf, my dear, you take the cake with 25! I am so impressed with you all. I had the easy part of writing in English. But you all wrote letters, sometimes long ones in English. I am amazed at you all. My husband thinks I am crazy to keep these letters and to take them with me every time I move. Those letters have crossed the ocean 4 times now and also crossed the USA. So now I will re-read these letters before writing a post.