Red Clay Ramblers, Claudia Schmidt.
[undocumented]
This half hour brought you by your friends in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota and it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. The town council met here this past Tuesday and for those of you who were unable to attend, took up a couple of hot topics in town. Actually, it hasn't been that quiet a week.Took up the issue of dogs who have been getting into people garbage and also took up the question of the old warming house down at the skating rink. Two hot issues in town. I'll tell you that town council really has to make the tough decisions. Kind of simple, I think by comparison, being in the US Senate where you get to make decisions miles away from the scene. The town council has to be right there on the spot where their vote affects people most directly.
The dogs have been a big problem getting into people's garbage. In the end, the town council voted to issue warnings to the owners which did not please the people whose garbage had been gotten into. They thought you might as well give warnings to the dogs. But in Lake Wobegon, they're not about to take strict measures against dogs- it's kind of a dog town there. You buy a dog and you don't treat a dog like a piece of property and chain it up, you know. You buy the dog and the dog sort of hangs around with you some and but also joins a fraternal lodge of other dogs. And they go off and do things. Like getting into people's garbage. Kind of an initiation ceremony for dogs. Which doesn't please a lot of people who see their garbage strewn across their backyard when they get up in the morning. I guess one of the things about garbage is that you want to put it away and not have all the neighbors see what you got out there.
But the town council figured that maybe in that sense dogs are kind of like journalists. And if you're so sensitive about what you put in that garbage can maybe you'd better change your ways a little bit.
The warming house is another delicate issue. The warming house by the skating rink is an old old building. It's been there for over 50 years. It's an old wood building and the plank floors are all chewed up by skates and the benches and the walls have all been carved into by people. Old wood stove there that smokes and undoubtedly someday the whole thing is just going to go up in smoke and some people have wanted to replace it with a new one, a sort of a concrete block building with metal benches and kind of a carpeted floor. And one of their reasons I think are the inscriptions that are on the benches and on the walls.
You have to understand that skating, figure skating, in Lake Wobegon is kind of a romantic activity as well as being recreational. Not that there's any contradiction between the two, but it's something that people do together when they are courting and when they're young, they invite each other to go down and take a turn around the rank and a lot of people have gone down there with somebody else, and gone skating with em. You know, once you learn how to skate in duo with somebody with holding hands and with your hands crossed and you master the steps and learn how to go around the rink more or less gracefully- seems like a fairly simple thing after that to get married, you know.
So a lot of people have who've gone skating together, but not always to the first person that they went skating with, if you get my drift. You know? And there on the walls and on the benches of the warming house, all sorts of names linked romantically with a knife in the wood. Names of people who are not married to each other now.
Talking about jealousy, basically I think. It's a problem all of us have to face this problem. We all want to think that the person we love never cared for anybody before we came along. That the beloved was lonely and bereft- spent the evenings sitting alone with her nose pressed against the window. And then we came along and brought sunshine into their life. We all know that it's not exactly true. And you go down to the warming house and you see that it's not true. In fact, your beloved may have liked a whole lot of people before you came along. Some of them thought that your beloved was their beloved. And that they were the one and only and the first ones to come along.
Well the town council decided they couldn't afford a new one, just couldn't afford it and I think that was the best decision. Can't afford it. Life is too short. Can't afford that kind of jealousy. Besides, if you think about it, you know if your beloved had waited all those years, lonely and bereft, waiting for you to come along. By the time you came along, your beloved might have lost all interest in skating.
Anyway, that’s how I look at it and that's the news from Lake Wobegon. Where at Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, tomorrow Sunday school be at 9:45 and the worship service at 10:30. Pastor Ingvist will be speaking on the topic of Forgiveness, How Far Can We Go? At Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, mass will be at 10:00 and 11:00 tomorrow, and Father Emil will be celebrating and speaking on the topic of Go Right Home, Don't Stop on the Way.
That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women are strong and all the men are good looking and all the children are above average, yes sir.
1981.02.14 La Crosse Tribune / 1981.02.08 Star Tribune