McLain Family Band, Ed Mikitt. Red Clay Ramblers,
[undocumented]
Skoglund's Five and Dime Sons of Knute
It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon this last week. Ice is starting to melt on the lake, it's getting all dark and mushy. Out there in the middle of the lake is the automobile- the old jalopy- which the Sons of Knute put out on the ice every winter for their annual contest to see who can guess the hour and the day that the car will go through the ice- at a dollar a guess.
I suppose to our friends out in California, that seems like a pretty odd thing- putting a car out on the ice. A bunch of ice sharps sitting on the side of the lake making bets as to when it's going to go down. Doesn’t seem awfully exciting. But they’ve done it every year, the Sons of Knute have, and the money aside from what to pay out in prizes goes to a good cause. They bought some band uniforms last year. And this year they intend to buy a new bench, which will replace the old plank bench alongside the Five and Dime which broke here this last June when too many guys sat on it, but they're going to buy a new one where the old fellas sit on the summer afternoons and sometimes make bets about cars coming down Main Street, whether they'll go straight or turn left or turn right.
I tell you the odds favor the car going straight if you ever get in on one of those, but every so often we have a hunch on a long shot. I'd say about 16 to one on a left hand turn- ‘bout the same on a right hand turn because the right hand turn would take you into the dead end street there, but anyway...
There is kind of a mood of improvement in Lake Wobegon here these days that people are getting ready for the Spring house cleaning, which generally comes about the time the ice goes out or goes down actually. People getting ready for that, which in like Wobegon is no quick operation, I'll tell you, Spring house cleaning it is a major outburst of cleaning- a kind of peroxism of cleaning there among many people. You know when you have your storm windows on since November and the whole house is insulated and locked up tight. Especially if you have a smoker in the house. Along about March, even the smoker begins to notice it.
May wake up in the middle of the night and say “I smell smoke, don't I?” Well, he ought to- he put it there. And what with dog smells and cooking smells and fuel, oil smells and just the normal exhaust that all of us give off by about the end of March, you start to feel as if you're living in some sort of a tomb- and it's time to resurrect and get moving on it.
Even the Sons of Knute have their annual Spring house cleaning ritual. Though I must say they spend more time in the ceremonial part of it than in the actual cleaning of it the lodge itself. The Grand Oya Opry comes into the Throne Room there and issues the ritual called Cleansing and calls out
“Oh ya, now is the time for all you guys to help make this place spiffy.”
And they all sit there- all the old guys sit down and say “Oh ya. Oh ya” and then there's little parading around- they do some turns and there's some saluting and there's some secret phrases and they have the ritual tuning of the ancient TV set. And they do some turns around and that, and then they all sit down in the big sofa chairs- the ancient and honorable sofa chairs there- and they have the ritual toasts with the amber essence of the blessed hops. And that goes on for a while and then generally they skip over the cleaning part and they go on to the ritual nap. By which time I tell you wouldn't want to see some of those old guys climb up on a stepladder and try and take a storm window out of the frame. It might jump at him.
Something about Lake Wobegon has not produced anybody who is really great in the 100 yard dash. Been no great wide receivers come out of Lakw Wobegon. Lot of good nose guards. And some pretty wide fullbacks, but nobody with a lot of speed afoot except for Mrs Krebsbach. I'll tell you.
When she decides that it's time for Spring house cleaning, she goes too it. She's up at 6:00 o'clock in the morning. She's got Wally out of bed. She's got him down making pancakes. She gets those kids down for breakfast. A bunch of slow movers every one of them all, six of them. And Wally is no speed demon himself. They're done with that breakfast and they get started on it. And I'll tell you with her Spring House cleaning is no halfway measure. Everything comes out of that house that can be carried out of it to be aired out. And the storms are taken down and the screens are put up and the windows are left open so the wind blows through and they go to work at it. I tell you she is on them from the time they start until the moment they're finished and does not let them rest. You see little teams of Krebsbach children hauling sofas and chairs and carpets and mattresses out of the front door of that house- spreading them out on the front lawn and she's after them every minute- like sheep- sheep with a dog on their tail- she's just after them and goes off and grabs the ones who are trying to sneak away. And the kid who was sent down to the basement for the carpet beater, who spends half an hour down there trying to visualize where it might be. You know she gets him on his feet. I'll tell you she is after them- and when she puts those carpets up on the clothesline out in back and lays into them with a carpet beater- People come out to watch that, it's awesome.
110 pounds that woman is- but she goes into those carpets. When she lays into a carpet, I’ll tell ya, she's not just beating a carpet, she's going after all sorts of squalor and corruption in the world. She's going after all sorts of indolence and sloth and apathy and corruption. Everything that's lifeless and that's just as a big dead weight on the world- she goes into it. I tell ya, after she beats those carpets those kids move fast.
Comes about 2:00 o'clock and they're all done. All the furniture moved back in. And the home smells so sweet and the curtains all been washed, the walls been washed, the floor has been wet mopped and waxed. And it's so sweet. Kids are exhausted, Wally’s is exhausted, but she's not done yet. About 3:00 o'clock is when her piano students arrive. One every half hour. With the Chopin and the Bach and the old McDonald and she's sitting there in the corner, knitting and correcting them all the time and telling them
“Start over John. Start over on that. Count. Count when you play that piece of music. That's music you're playing. It's not a bunch of notes, it's music. It's supposed to be happy so don't play it slow.”
And she's on them. Amazing woman. Amazing woman. And when we get done with this show here tonight we're going to renovate this theater. This theater is a mess, people. I want this section of people over here to come backstage after the show we got junk back there has been back there for 30 years.
I want the center section here to go work on these seats. Here you feel under those seats you feel gum under there. And I don't care if you put it there or not, we're going to get that cleaned off. And these people over here on the right going to take the lobby and you people up in the balcony- you do the balcony and then we're going to move you up to the second balcony up there, which has not been cleaned since 1933.
And when it's all done, we're going to get to work on that ceiling up there and patch some of those holes up there, and there's lights to be replaced. There's work to be done here. And if we all pitch in we'll get it done. And nobody sneak out those side exits.
Well, that's the news in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Where all the women are strong, and all the men are good looking. and all the children are above average.
1981.03.22 Star Tribune