Greg Brown, Rob Brown, Butch Thompson Trio, Guy Van Duser, Garrison Keillor, Dave Moore, Peter Ostroushko, Robin and Linda Williams. Bill Staines,
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It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown. There was a story going around this week that Wally and Evelyn were going to sell the Sidetrack Tap. Move out to California. Be close to their grandchildren- not sure if it was true or not.
Wally said “yeah”, he said “Evelyn's getting kind of old to be running the place. It's awfully hard on her, “ he said ”she's no spring chicken, you know.”
And Evelyn said, she said “if it were up to me, she said I'd stay with it, but Wally is getting kind of old to be standing all day on his feet like that. You know, it's not good for him, he hadn’t been feeling well lately.”
So it was quite a shock. It's a big responsibility running the Sidetrack Tap - the only tavern in town. Kind of like running a group home for the lost and the maudlin. Old guys come in there, sit and marinate in brandy for a while. They get emotional. Old Mr Burgie sitting in there the other night after he heard the news, he said, he said, “Wally” said “I want to tell you something” he said. “You're a good guy. You know that Wally, no, I really mean it you really are a great guy. No, really, I mean it.”
How many times has he heard that? You run that place. Wally says the bar isn't to put the glasses on it, it's a barricade to protect the bartender. And the customers all otherwise they'd be coming back there and draping their arms around you. And they still do it.
Says “hey Wally, come on, come on over here. I want to tell you something. It's a secret come here.” Wally leans down- a big arm drapes over. “You're a good guy. You know that, well, you're really a good guy.”
So the regulars were shocked when they heard it might be sold and went down to the scene to have a toot here on Thursday night.
They said “it's not right Wally, you can't do this to us. Sell it out from under us.”
He said, “look at you. Anybody wanna buy this place come in take one look at you guys, deal it’d be off.”
Well, they could see he was right. Who'd want to spend his evenings with a bunch of drunks? So they had a bunch more.
Pastor Inkquist said he thought it might be a good thing for the town if the Sidetrack Tap closed up. But then he had few second thoughts about it. Thought, what if Wally's clientele came to him instead? Bunch of old guys coming down to the church, draping their arms around the minister. Theoretically, he ought to want them to I suppose. But you can hardly blame him if you knew them. It's one of the hardest parts of the Gospels to understand. The fact that Christ hung out so much with publicans and sinners instead of joining a church and getting active in the building committee. Being with the right people.
So it would be hard to imagine Lake Wobegon without Sidetrack Tap. Though I imagine life would go on in some form or other. People would survive it somehow I assume.
It's like when the grain elevator blew up 50 years ago. They thought that was the end of the world in Lake Wobegon. And it sounded like the end of the world to me. It was amazing. There were no logical reason why they all survived it. Huge chunks of that grain elevator that dropped all over town 50 years ago. Photographs of men, women and children standing around big chunks. Looking at them, pointing at them for the camera. And the looks on their faces. They were thinking, you know, by rights we ought to be dead, really. Hardly any reason for us all still to be alive. It is a miracle.
And one group picture of everybody in town standing before the ruins of the old grain elevator. All of the adults looking stunned and serious. And there were some boys who were so excited that they stood on the left hand side and then they ran around to the right and got in the picture twice. Five boys who made themselves into twins. Something you used to be able to do with group photographs. Took the Historical Society a long time to figure that one out.
The grain elevator that I remember though is the one that they built on the site of the one that blew up 50 years ago. And it was a magnificent concrete structure that was the highest point in our town. It was always in our attention don’t you know, even if you weren't looking at you're always aware that it was there- the grain elevator. It was immense, and when I was a little kid we used to look up at it and way up at the very top, there was a tiny window right under the peak of the elevator. And we used to imagine what it would look like if we were up there looking down at ourselves down below, looking up at us in the window.
Be like going to heaven. Looking down, seeing the whole town. We didn't find out what it would look like from up there until the day before my 14th birthday that I remember. A bunch of us went to the elevator after dark and we found that it was unlocked. Which wasn't unusual. A lot of stuff was unlocked in town. People didn't go around with these big chains of keys like they do now. But I guess we assumed that any place that we wanted to get into so badly must be locked to us, but we tried the door. And it opened. And we went in.
It was dark in there. And it was stuffy. Kind of hot. And it smelled of grain, of course. And my friend Jim though it was dark, managed to find the motor that powered the winch that took the elevator up to the top which was a big grain bucket. And I climbed into it. It was shallow, I remember. Sort of like a big wheelbarrow. And I hung onto the sides. And he pulled the lever and the motor whined and I rose up through black darkness. And suddenly started to feel cold. Because It was hard to tell how far down the floor was in the dark, but I knew it was way down there. Especially when I came up to the window, I knew it was a long way down out the window. When the bucket stopped with a thump.
I could see out the window, the lights that I knew were Lake Wobegon. But not very well because the window was all dusty with grain dust. And so I reached out to wipe off the dust and to brace myself against the wall. But the wall wasn't where it should have been. And I tipped, and I started to fall. Until I found that I was holding onto the bar with my other hand. So the bucket rocked forward. And then it rocked back and the sound came out of my mouth that I've never heard since. It made my teeth hurt. And they heard that down below. And he pulled the lever to put her in reverse, but released the break instead. And it fell 150 feet in about the two seconds that it took him to jam the break on again.
And the bucket stopped. BAM! And I felt like my bones were broken. And then he eased it down to the floor and I crawled out. And he was crying. And he put his arms around me, and they carried me outside. And I was sick for a while. And then we all went to his house. And we lay there on the grass and looked up at the stars and talked about stuff. Like where people go when they die which I was an authority on having almost went.
And I said, “if you love God, you go to heaven.” And I meant it 'cause I never loved him so much as I did right there. And his world never looked so beautiful to me as it did that night. Even the air. The way the air smelled, I've never smelled air before. Just always breathed it. Never tasted air before. Just to draw breath, sweet as ice cream, breathed air of tone. It was wonderful.
It was hard on Jim my friend. Beacuase that night and years afterward he never really felt forgiven, even though I tried to forgive him every way I could. And we were never such good friends again, but it was wonderful the next day to turn 14. Having come so close to not turning 14. And to sit there at the table. and look at all the faces around the table. And the roast ham. And a sweet corn and a potato salad. It felt amazing to be alive. And I almost said so. But I just asked them to pass the sweet corn instead.
Our family always was known for its great reserve in times of crisis and it was too great a miracle to explain anyway.
That's the news from Lake Wobegon- that's chilling to remember that- my, my heart is beating. Where all the, the uhh... where all the what? The women are strong, the men are good looking and children are above average.
1983.07.10 Star Tribune / rebroadcast on July 11, 1987