Bob Gibson, Third Generation.
[undocumented]
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon- it may have been noisy and rambunctious elsewhere, but it has been very quiet in Lake Wobegon this past week where people feel, because it is the third week of January, that this is the dead of winter, and even if it may be warm and getting up into the 40s in the afternoons and the sun be shining, it is still the dead of winter. And make no mistake about it, it is time to get serious.
A lot of people hanging onto the boat up in Lake Wobegon and getting a good tight grip on themselves, knowing that if they were to relax and to let up, just because it's a little bit warm- unnaturally warm- that God had sent us a cold wave that’d snap ‘em off like tomatoes on a vine- just take em away like that. Get to enjoying this too much winter is going to last until the 4th of July. you know that.
Winter is time to be humble. Winter is prayer meeting time in Lake Wobegon and to walk carefully and to watch where you walk and not get carried away or get too enthusiastic or to get too far away from home base- in Lake Wobegon- because things have happened to people who do. People have gotten all dressed up- dressed warmly- at least they thought they were dressed warmly when they were in the house and they got into their cars and it went off into a ditch and then all of a sudden there they were, and it was getting colder and colder and what could they do- they started out walking and it was a long way to walk and the wind started blowing and the snow started coming down and there they were helped was not much on, and if they'd had sense, of course, what they should have done, according to experts who read about it later- that's who experts are, you know, as people who read about it later. According to experts, what they should have done was to dug a hole down in the snow and tunnel down in there to get away from the wind. But nobody is going to do that. We don't go lie down in the snow when it's cold like that. That goes against your nature. You press on you. You walk until you’re exhausted and then we all know what happens to you then I don't even want to talk about it.
There have been cases in Lake Wobegon that people can still remember, some of them, not too many, years ago where people have just gone out from the house out to the barn or out to the shed and it seemed sunny as they looked out the window of the house, but they opened the door and they took a few steps out into the yard and looked around and then they took a few more steps and then they started to make a run for the barn but a Blizzard came. And there they were. They couldn't see anything- they couldn't see their hand in front of their face- there been stories about people who have walked in circles, walked in circles within just a few yards of home. The Halverson boy here about 10 years ago, the Halverson boy went out to the barn like that, and he walked in circles around the house, not knowing where he was. He must have walked out there for hours in a blizzard walking round and round. He was only 20 y ards away from home. Until he was just about ready to drop. When all of a sudden, the furnace and the house caught fire and the whole house burned up and so then he could see where he was. And the family got out of the house and they ll went out to the barn and they were all right. That's true. They went out there and there were there 15 Holsteins out in the barn- 18 Holsteins out in the barn. And I'll tell you, they discovered that night spending the night out in the barn how much heat Holsteins can give off. I tell you, that's all they wanted that night was just warmth, didn't care, they didn't have a radio or television set, didn't care, they didn't have warm beds to sleep in. Just warmth was all they wanted and they got it from the holstein's. And ever after that, whenever a cow quit givingg milk, of the Halvorsons, they never slaughtered another cow. All those cows who, since they got too old they were put on pension- they were put out to pasture on Social Security.
Yes, Sir. Pays to be humble at this time of year. I just passed that on as a cautionary note to you from the people in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women are strong and all the men are good looking and all the children are above average. Every one of them.
1981.01.24 Louisville Courier