New Prairie Ramblers, Claudia Schmidt.
[undocumented]
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon this last week. Not much news in the Lake Wobegon Herald Star at all on Thursday. Just a reminder that the remainder of your 1980 property taxes are due at Mayor Clint Bunsen's by midnight October 31st. Though he would prefer it come in well before midnight, say by oh 9:30 at the latest. And he would also prefer it if you not send your check along with the trick and treaters that night. A lot of the checks last year, October 31st, had quite a bit of melted licorice and chocolate on them and had to be sent down to the bank in baggies.
Also, the old trick of forgetting to sign your check will not work this year because Bob down at Bob's Bank has agreed to honor them- signature or not- so you can forget about that. It's the bank where they know people. They know what you intended to pay your money out for. It doesn't matter if you sign it or not. And the person who sent their tax down in nickels last year is asked to show a little restraint this year.
There was not much news in the paper, and so Harold Star on his front page printed a lot of auction notices. It's the season for it in Lake Wobegon and the real news there in the number of old timers who are giving up farming after all these years and selling everything off lock, stock and barrel and moving to town. A lot of them hate to do it. It's hard to pry them away from what they've known all their lives but there's something about this time of year when it gets a little chillier, and the first snowfalls, that makes them loosen their grip a little bit and they schedule an auction. There are about six of them here this next week and more after that. If you do go to auctions out in Lake Wobegon you should remember that the word antique may mean any one of a number of things, including broken. You should remember that if Colonel Inqvist is the auctioneer, you must indicate not making a bid by standing perfectly still with your eyes on your feet and holding your breath.
A lot of people have bought a lot of stuff they didn't care for at his auctions, just by adjusting their cap or taking the wax out of their ears so you have to be careful about that and you also have to remember that nothing is ever auctioned off singly at Lake Wobegon auctions- everything is paired with something else, so that if you say are auctioning... are bidding on a nice bureau dresser it probably will come along with a coffee can filled with old nuts and bolts and screws and nails and spare parts. Or a double bed with the brass bedstead to be a coffee can with that one too with nuts and bolts and spare parts in it. They usually have about 100 or 150 coffee cans at most of these farm auctions and you may as well plan on coming away with one or two.
There’s something sad about auctions- going to them- seeing people's lives and their home and all their accumulations of a lifetime, all spread out there on the grass for everybody to look at and poke at and examine and lift up and shake. And it is sad in a way. Especially some people whom you thought of as being real well off appear not to have been once all their possessions are dumped out in broad daylight.
But it's exhilarating too, and sometimes the effect is awfully good on people getting rid of their possessions- we accumulate an awful lot in a short lifetime. It's kind of like fall house cleaning in a way. It's exciting to go and mount an attack on your attic and on your closets. And to go at things courageously- at bags and boxes that are full of junk and trash. And with no remorse. And without sitting and reading over everything to take big handfuls of stuff and chuck it. One right after the other, throwing away even the stuff that might come in handy sometime, or that somebody might be interested in 50 years from now- throwing it out. All of it. All of it.
You keep accumulating stuff- and your life becomes a museum and you become like a full time curator. Have your own checkered past there come times when a person is supposed to throw the ballast overboard, lighten ship and go on from there. And not look back.
I think about Mr Turnblad who sold everything at auction last fall at the age of 73 at the time and who five years before that had begun building a 45 foot oceangoing yacht up there in Lake Wobegon. He started building it in his pole barn and he's still working on it. Expects to have it done next spring. When it gets done, it's too big for the doors. They'll have to dismantle the whole barn over it and this boat will emerge from its cocoon and go forth. W here he's not sure. He's never seen the ocean before. Except in the National Geographic. But there it sits and he works on it and it's a beautiful boat. Made of wood- a wood hull- with all this, each strip of wood steamed and bent to fit around the ribs. Slowly putting it together and the little cabin hoisting the mass no, he hasn't hoisted the mast yet. He'll do that when they dismantled the pole barn. And there it's sites- hundreds of miles away from any body of water big enough to sail it on. How he'll get there, goodness knows. His children have tried to discourage him from doing this, saying dad, you don't know how to sail. You've never sailed before. You don't know how to swim. They're afraid he won't come back. Well he doesn't intend to.
Next spring he is intent on making this voyage to see what he's never seen before and only imagined from looking at color pictures in a magazine. And if he can find a truck, he'll be on the road up to Lake Superior and from there on out to the great unknown world. You don't get to make voyages like that in your lifetime. If you become too attached to coffee cans with nuts and bolts and screws and odd parts in it. You have to get rid of those first and then you can strike out. I'm looking forward to it. I want to- I want to say goodbye to him.
In Lake Wobegon, Minnesota- that's the news. Lake Wobegon, Minnesota where all the women are strong and all the men are good looking and all the children are well above average. Every single one of em.
Country Today Oct 15 1980 Muscatine Journal Oct 16 1980
1980.10.18 Sacamento Bee / Audio of the News available as a digital download.