AppleJack, Butch Thompson Trio, Dissipated Eight, Garrison Keillor, Margaret MacArthur. Kate MacKenzie, Peter Ostroushko, Stoney Lonesome,
Turn Your Radio On ( Garrison Keillor ) Hello stranger ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie ) Song of the Exiles ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie ) Give me the roses while I live ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie ) Let's see that land (Stoney Lonesome , Kate MacKenzie ) Will there ever be another? (Stoney Lonesome , Kate MacKenzie ) Feeling high and rolling along (Stoney Lonesome , Kate MacKenzie ) Where the wild flowers grow (Stoney Lonesome , Kate MacKenzie ) Margie (Butch Thompson Trio ) Elite Syncopations (Butch Thompson Trio ) Thanks for the hot dish (Butch Thompson Trio ) Somewhere in the heart of Vermont ( Peter Ostroushko ) Blue Skirt Waltz ( Peter Ostroushko ) Dr. Jones' paring bee ( Margaret MacArthur ) Hills of Dover ( Margaret MacArthur ) After dark (Dissipated Eight ) Mr. Painter's cane (Dissipated Eight ) Petronella (AppleJack ) Shelly's reel (AppleJack ) Joey's hornpipe (AppleJack )
Ajua! Hot Sauce Bertha's Kitty Boutique Chatterbox Cafe Clouds of Joy Bubble Bath Fritz Electronics Home Defense Hardware Local Phone Company Powdermilk Biscuits Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Sidetrack Tap
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown, I think it is, has been, I don't know, a long way from there. Maybe things have picked up a lot since I left. It's happened before. Been to parties like that before. Been to parties that were boring, people standing around talking about public radios.
Got tired, left, went down the walk, put my hand on the car door, opened it, then somebody cranked up the stereo, heard whooping in there, saw bodies fly by the windows.
So you see, when we are observers and look at other people, we have to take into account that we may have an effect on them and it may not always be for the best. Especially if we try to be formidable. You know, as God knows we all do try. Be bigger and be better and smarter.
To stand over people and cast this long terrible shadow of our perfect selves down on them. We ought to take into account it might not have a good effect on them. You take that into account when you stand over some little child. looks up at you and can't even remember his own name. That child's not dumb.
That child's been struck dumb. That child will recover as soon as you leave. So maybe they've been quiet for my benefit back there. I don't know. I do know that I don't care to be formidable on the stage anymore. God knows I've written sentences in my life. I could come out here and read them to you.
And you'd just be almost in pain with admiration. And feel like you'd flunked English. I'd rather come out and sing, as a matter of fact. Nobody's formidable, you know, when they sing. When people sing, they take their hearts in their hands and they offer them to other people.
Whether you'd care to accept it or not, I don't know. The first singer I remember, of course, was my mother. Though I don't remember hearing when she first sang to me, she repeated the songs. She had a certain repertoire as other babies came along. And I remember being small
And seeing her in a rocking chair with a big fat baby on her lap belching and going to sleep. And she'd say, you remember this song I used to sing this to you? Put you to sleep at night. She'd sing me all of her lullabies that she'd done for all of her children.
Including the one that goes, joy is flowing like a river since the comforter has come.
He abides with us forever, makes the loving heart his home. Blessed quietness, holy quietness, what assurance to my soul.
On the stormy sea he speaks peace to me, how the billows cease to roam. And then years later, I sang that same song to my kid. It was the last one I'd sing him before he went to sleep. And I made up a new chorus.
And I sang, Blessed quietness, holy quietness, hope you sleep the whole night through. Now your mom and dad will go up to bed, maybe make some more like you. A song that I remember of hers, though, was a song that she sang to us every night, and she came out as it got dark.
She'd stand out on the back steps, and she'd look up towards the hill, towards the woods, where we had the logs lined up, propped up on each other for cannons, and we were all up there in the woods.
And she'd sing her evening song, which went, David, Judea, Robert, Jackie, Rachel.
And we hear it up there. We're all tormenting each other. And if we wait a little while, we'd get to hear her singing again in a slightly higher key. It was a lovely song.
It was full of sadness, having to stop what we were doing, come down home, but also glad there was a home there and somebody to call us into it and meatloaf on the table for supper. It was a town that was full of choirs, like Wobbegun was and still is.
The municipal choir, then the Catholic, and then the Lutheran. Our family was neither Catholic nor Lutheran. We belonged to a little church called the Brethren, which was the true church. Was the church that sought to live according to the absolute, pure, literal interpretation of Scripture. And as a result, it was a very tiny church.
And it tended to get smaller as the years went by. Because every few years there would be a sharp disagreement between people over the absolute, pure, literal interpretation of Scripture. And so half of us would split off and go someplace else.
And at the time of which I'm speaking, there were eight of us in the congregation gathered in my Aunt Eleanor's living room. They're just across the alley and over two houses from the Lutheran Church. They would sit there. We had no minister.
We waited for the Holy Spirit to come down and let us know what we were supposed to do. Oh, probably we had let down the Holy Spirit so many times in the past it was not anxious to inform us because we'd sit in long periods of silence.
And then we'd hear from over at the Lutheran Church those Lutherans that strike up a hymn, a powerful hymn, I wonder how it would sound if you sang it. It goes, Praise God from whom all blessings flow. They sang it louder than that. And then from just down the block at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility.
We could hear Father Emil's voice rising and falling in the Latin mass. Those mysterious Catholics down there. And then their choir would sing. And they'd sing. What if you could sing this?
Song to, song to, song to Gloria. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures. Song to, song to...
And we sat there in the middle of them between both two warring congregations in this great battle of sanctity going on around us. I could imagine these beautiful choirs marching forward in the sanctuary. And their beautiful golden robes with crowns on their head. The music was so beautiful. And I wished I could march with one of them.
It was spring. The windows were open and we could hear the music. Spring finally come to Lake Wobegon and I remember a Monday morning waking up. It was time to go to school. I heard my mother do her morning song from down the bottom of the stairs. And we'd sing back to her.
I can't find my socks She won't get out of the bathroom Make him stop doing what he's doing to me And we'd go down and we would hope to talk my mother into letting us eat cold cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal which she believed was the vital substance of life
And we hoped that we could talk her into letting us wear our spring jackets to school. Because it was warm. It was the first warm day of spring. We'd had our windows open that night. And we hoped we wouldn't have to go bundled up in our winter jackets with our scarves around our necks and our mittens on.
The only children in school to have to do this. Weeks after other people had started wearing their light windbreakers. We pleaded with her and she gave in. And we raced out the door as she sang, you'll be sorry.
You'll catch a cold. Don't blame me if you die from pneumonia.
And we'd race on to school down under the great boulevards with the outstretched limbs of elms overhead. And from all around us there was music. Suddenly it seemed as if our grim little town had come to life. Thousands of birds singing out there in the weeds and up in the trees and from the telephone wires.
Little songs coming out like little bits of glass reflecting in the light like sunlight reflecting off water. Just dazzling little notes of songs. coming from all over town as the children all came up from down the lower town, Ole Town as we called it, where the poor people lived.
And it came down from the hill up above the school and down the street and we all marched in on up to school in our little duets and our little trios and choruses of children. And we'd sing our marching songs on the way. We'd sing Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.
We are torturing the teachers. We are breaking all the rules.
We went into his office and we tickled the principal and truth goes marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Teacher hit me with a ruler. I bopped her on a bean with a rotten tangerine. She ain't gonna teach no more. Bum, bum, bum, bum.
On top of old Smokey, all covered with sand, I hit my old teacher with a red rubber band. I shot her with glory. I shot her with pride. How could I miss her? She's 40 feet wide.
We'd sail on up to school as if we were going to take it over and on into Mrs. Oberg's class.
We'd go and we'd say out loud at the tops of our voices, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
And then with the windows in school open for the first time all year, we would sing, and we'd sing so loud that we could look out the window and see Father Emo way down there by the church turn and look at us as he went out on his morning constitutional. We would sing, all beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain America, America, God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
We'd sing all four verses louder and louder. including verses I can't remember now. And it was a song that went with the season, America the beautiful. What a beautiful country.
And even though our town was not beautiful, and even though we were not beautiful, not at that age, and I was not beautiful, and we couldn't sing that beautifully, someday in some alabaster city, God would put His grace on us and He would make us beautiful.
Even living in Lake Wobegon in that mud month of early May with still the slivers of ice out in the woods and the souvenirs of dogs on the front lawn and everything brown and gray and dark and dull. Lord, it would be beautiful someday.
Well, then she would have us take out a sheet of paper and we numbered it from 1 to 15. And then all of a sudden I remembered why I had been dreading this day in school for days and days and days.
And it wasn't that test that we were about to take because that was current events and that was my good subject. It was the fact that this was a Monday and Monday was choir day. And Monday was the day that we would have to sit down in the lunchroom after lunch and Miss Falconer would come.
And she was going to drill us once again in three songs she had been drilling us in since the previous February for the all-district choral concert. Three songs that we had sung the Monday before this and which sounded worse than they did when we first sang them in February.
She was a beautiful woman, Miss Falconer, who directed our choir. She was like a duchess in that town. She wore a tailored suit, and she wore spike heels and a white blouse with ruffles at the neck. And she wore eyeglasses with precious gems set into the bows which hung from her neck at the end of a chain of valuable pearls. And she was so lovely that when she looked at me, she looked like a lady in a magazine. And I couldn't look her in the eye. I had to look down at my feet. And she would say, look at me.
She'd say, how do you expect to sing in time to the rhythm if you don't look at me? Well, rhythm wasn't our problem in the tenor section. We did drag a little bit, but our problem was getting the notes.
Each of us tried to sing a little slower than the boy next to him in hopes of getting the correct note from our neighbors. And we tried to sing a little softer than our neighbor so we could get the right note from him too. And as a result, we sounded like wind in the rigging.
Kind of a faint, low murmuring sound. And she'd rap on her music stand and she'd say, Tenors, this is not that hard. But it was hard. She had picked for us three songs by foreign composers with one name. There was Serenade by Descansi. There was O Tall Papaya Tree by Del Monte.
And there was a Madrigal, April is in My Mistress Face by Morley, an Italian composer. April is in my mistress's face and July in her eyes hath place. Within her bosom lies September and in her heart a cold December.
When I sang the line, within her bosom was September, I couldn't help but imagine Miss Falconer in her underwear with dry leaves falling down and lodging between her breasts and there were few of us tenors who were able to sing that line without snorting because Bill Swenson who sat next to me had once sang the line within her bosom lies Bill Swenson And you don't forget a line like that once you've heard it.
Mrs. Oberg said, well, maybe it would be better if they sang Red River Valley. But Miss Falconer glared at her. And she said, I'm not going to baby them, she said. They have to learn that music is work like anything else, and you have to work to achieve something.
And you can't go around singing cowboy songs the rest of your life. And she brought a recording of the Vienna Boys Choir singing My Mistress's Face. And we listened to it over and over. and we began to hate them with a passion, singing it in their pure little flutey voices.
And so it's another Monday, and suddenly I'm sitting next to Jerry Swedeen once again in the lunchroom, and Miss Falconer raps on her music stand, and she says tenors. I want to hear you sing your part so that I know that you have it one by one.
She starts with Russell at the end and he sings it pretty well. He takes piano, he has an advantage. And then there's Bill Pedersen. And I look over at the altos and sopranos. And they're all smirking at us. And they're all singing. And then it's time for Jerry Swedeen. And he stands up and gets through.
April is in my mistress's face. And then she looks at me. And I say, I don't feel very well. She said, sing, sing, stand up and sing. I really don't feel very well. She said, if you're well enough to be in school, you're well enough to sing. Stand up. I really didn't feel well.
We had just eaten lunch. It was a kind of a yellowish gravy that was on a white bread. It was called Chicken a la King and it was served with string beans. and with a green lime jello that had Kraft salad dressing on top and crushed almonds.
And I was afraid that if I stood up and sang that this entire lunch... But I stood up and I sang.
April is in my mistress' face and July within her eyes hath place. Within her lies September and in her heart a cold December.
And I could hear the girls going, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I went home in humiliation and went to my bedroom and lay down on the bed wondering why God had made my life so miserable. What I wanted to be was a singer. I wanted to be a singer.
I wanted to be like Elvis or be like Ezio Pinza or be like George Beverly Shea and stand up on a stage with light coming down all over me and sing to people in this marvelous voice that would tell people that life isn't miserable. It's full of marvelous possibilities.
a voice that would teach people that life is surprising and it's amazing, full of impossible beauty. But instead God had given me this voice that sounded like ducks. It sounded like wood scraping on metal. A voice that when I did sing told people to watch out.
I did what I always did in that situation to make myself feel better. I put on a record and I pretended that I was the singer and I stood and moved my mouth to the words.
It was a record I had gotten from my Uncle George who went to the University of Minnesota and had made something of himself there and sent me a souvenir record of the University of Minnesota chorus and baritone Roy Schuessler singing our state song, Minnesota Hail to Thee.
And I put it on my turntable and stood there facing my bedroom dresser and pretended that I was in Memorial Stadium at the University of Minnesota for Memorial Day and that 60,000 people had come from around the state to honor our war dead and also to see me, Roy Schuessler, sing our state song with the University of Minnesota chorus.
The mayors of all the cities were there. Boy Scouts, 50,000 Boy Scouts in formation on the football field, moving their American flags back and forth in time to the music. And I stood up and put the needle down on the record, and I began to sing as Roy Schuessler sang in his magnificent voice.
I pretended that it was mine.
Minnesota, hail to thee. Hail to thee, our state so dear.
And I sang and I sang. And as I sang, and I held out my arms to the crowd, my mother walked into the room, walked across in front of me with a load of laundry in her arms, walked between me and the crowd of 60,000 people in Memorial Stadium, put the socks into the top drawer and walked out without saying anything after dinner that night we did the dishes and I asked her I said do I have a good voice and she said what she always said she said yes you have a nice enough voice which is what she said when we asked her if we were good looking. She said, you're good enough looking. And she said as she washed the dishes, she said, sing this song with me. I love to hear you sing, she said. Sing it with me.
Tell me why the ivy twines Tell me why the stars do shine Tell me why the sky's so blue And I will tell you Just why I love you Because God made The stars to shine Because God made The ivy torn. Because God made the sky so blue. Because God made you that white. Love you.
That's the news from Lake Wobegon where all the women are strong. All the men are good looking. And all the children are better.
GK describes his early writing days. Take the best thing that comes along. Flew into Burlington on Air Minnesota. Answer your phone promptly. Poem by Margaret Haskins Durber about bringing up children.
1984-06-16 1989-05-13
Brattleboro Reformer Mar 17 1983 Brattleboro Reformer May 12 1983 Brattleboro Reformer May 5 1983 Burlington Free Press May 6 1983 Burlington Free Press May 7 1983 La Crosse Tribune Aug 20 1983 Transcript Mar 22 1983
Photos by Stu Perry and Steve Worden. 1983.08.20 Las Crosse Tribune": First PHC show to use a portable satellite uplink. / Berto: rebroadcast on May 13, 1989. / See May 7-8 reference notes as well- confusing-unclear data on the 3 Vermont shows.