Sean Blackburn, Roy Blount Jr, Philip Brunelle, Hot Mud Family, Dakota Dave Hull, Lisa Null, Vern Sutton.
Food Songs ( Roy Blount Jr ) Beaumont rag ( Dakota Dave Hull , Sean Blackburn ) Hillbilly Swing ( Dakota Dave Hull , Sean Blackburn ) Mississippi Barge Song ( Lisa Null ) My Labrador Rose ( Lisa Null ) When I Get Home (Hot Mud Family ) Dust Eaten' Cowboys at the Back of the Herd (Hot Mud Family )
[undocumented]
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It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Today was pretty quiet as well. I mentioned today is Memorial Day. The Memorial Day services at both the cemeteries, at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility out behind the church, and the Lutherans all go up the hill to the Rock Park Cemetery, which was picked out as a cemetery over a hundred years ago on account of the wonderful view that you can get of the town from up there. Though in the view of the people who have had to dig graves over the year, they would just as rather they had picked some place without so many rocks in the ground. I know Bud, the town handyman who digs all the graves these days, would just as soon it were someplace else, maybe down in the swamp or something. He had a grave he had to dig here this last fall, right after a frost, and he dug down about three feet, and he came upon a rock that was about the size of a small house. And there was no way around it. But, you know, Mrs. Bergy had to be buried there. She had to be put in next to Mr. Bergy. That was where she had to go, rock or no rock. He tried to smash it, but it wouldn't be smashed. And he went at it with a pickaxe, and it wouldn't be picked. And he just wished they'd put her someplace else. Finally did the only thing he could think of to do. He got himself a load of dynamite and put it down under that thing as far as he could stick it. Well, when people in town heard that explosion, they all went about two feet in the air. And when they realized where this charge had been set off, up there in the cemetery, they went about two feet higher. Because half the people in Lake Wobegon have an ancestor who's buried up there on the hill, whom they assume has gone on to their well-earned rest. And the thought that Bud was setting off TNT a few feet away from Grandpa and Grandma did make people's gorges rise. And they went on him with both feet, I'll tell you. Gravediggers are not sentimental about death. It's just hard work to them. And I know that Bud, when he mows the grass over Mrs. Bergy, always has a few words for her, too, every time he goes by. Oh, yeah, he says to her. Oh, yeah, no, it didn't make any difference to you where you were, but no, you had to go be buried right there where the rock was. Could have buried you off in a ditch. You don't know what difference it'd make. So, what was I talking about? Memorial Day. They had the service up there today. It was very nice. The ladies' choir sang, and the rifle guard marched in with the flag. The Sons of Knut all came down the drive. The grand Oya forgot the command to tell them to stop, and while he was trying to think of it, they went a few paces too far so that the rifle salute wound up being fired almost directly over the heads of the ladies' choir, who thought for a moment they were being executed for America the Beautiful. One of the sixth graders got up and recited the Gettysburg Address, or I should say read it off a piece of paper. He was going to recite it, but he got nervous beforehand. It's a lot of pressure to put on a child. You have to do that in a cemetery around a lot of people. And then Pastor Inkfest's girl played taps on the trumpet. She'd gone over the crest of the hill a little bit, which is a lot of pressure to put on a child, too. Probably no other trumpet piece that people know so well and listen to so closely as taps. And she got it almost right. Just a little blatt at the beginning. And then everybody went around and looked at the stones there in the graveyard and looked at all the gravestones of children who died in those epidemics of 60 and 70 years ago and a lot of veterans, some of whom died in battle, some of whom are buried there and others buried half a world away, and just a stone there with their names on. And that was Memorial Day. It's good to go up there. Once a yearis about enough, but it's good to go up there and remember them if we can, and also as a lesson to ourselves that life goes on. And also as a lesson to ourselves, that life goes on. I like to think of somebody standing over what's left of me someday and looking down there and saying, he's sunk a little bit here. I ought to fill him in a little bit here. A couple of wheelbarrows load ought to do it, and then re-sod him there. Maybe use a little turf builder on him. And it may sound insensitive, but you know, the people that we imagine are up there on the hill, they really aren't. They're not there at all. Some of them has gone into those big trees that are growing up next to them. Some of them have gone up into those trees. And the rest of them is long gone, long ways away. It's what they teach down in the churches on Sunday, and it's also true up on the hill. And 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. Every single one of them.
A plane flies overhead while Garrison is reading greetings, at about 14:00. Later, church bells ring in the background (Garrison attributes them to Central Presbyterian), leading to some commentary from Lisa Null.
1981.05.30 La Crosse Tribune / 1981.05.24 Springfield Leader: "New Prairie Ramblers"? / 1981.05.29 Star Tribune / 1981.05.29 Winona Daily News First hour only
Archival contributors: psychoadept (based on tape of ~1/2 show), Ken Kuhl