Scott Alarik, Bosom Buddies String Band. Butch Thompson Trio, Katie Laur Bluegrass Band, Queen City Brass,
[undocumented]
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Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Whippets lost today, by the way, to the Freeport Flyers. The score was 13 to 2. Whippets left their bats out in the rain here last night, so they're all pretty well warped, the bats, that is. Everything thrown at them was sort of a curved ball, if you know what I mean. So they lost. They play again next Sunday, I believe, at the Wally Old Hard Hands Bunsen Memorial Park. Other than that, a small bit of excitement, and there was not much excitement to that.
It has been one of those kind of sleepy weeks in Lake Wobegon, sort of week where you look up and it's Monday and you go to the fridge and get yourself a glass of nectar and a chicken wing and come sit down and it's Friday already. People doing a lot of sitting out on porches. Time passes quickly when you do that, especially if you fall asleep. People who come up to visit Lake Wobegon from the cities during a week like this last week oftentimes cut their visits short. because it makes them jumpy. They get real nervous. They go out and sit on a porch and they get right back up again and they start pacing around. They can't relax because there's nothing there to relax them. They're not cut out for that sort of meditative life of Lake Wobegon on a week in July.
Sort of like the Lundberg family in Lake Wobegon, Lake Wobegon's famous Lundberg family. Going back generations, the most restless sleepers you ever saw—those Lundbergs. They're placid enough during the day. All of them big-boned Norwegian, sort of phlegmatic people can sit out on a porch with the best of them—those Lundbergs. But the minute they go to bed at night, they start to thrash around and holler and sometimes get up and walk, especially on these warm summer nights. Except for Betty. She was an Olson, of course, before she became a Lundberg. And the Olsons were quieter sleepers. She's the sort of person you sort of imagine, lies down in bed and arranges herself and folds her hands over her and sleeps eight hours and wakes up without a wrinkle. in the same position. And how she can do that sleeping next to Carl who swims in his sleep is something I never understood. It's like he's in heavy seas over there next to her, treading water and hollering for help and waving to rescue planes overhead. Wakes up in the morning with sheets wrapped around him tight as can be. She's lying there, Betty just lying there, hands folded, looking up at the ceiling, except, of course, she's asleep.
Something about these warm summer nights, warm nights, and I think maybe have something to do with the moon, brings Lundbergs out at night, especially the three older boys, all big, hefty fellas, apt to take off during the night and go out and walk and they're strong, they go climb over people's fences in their sleep. You might hear them out and back, walking up and down in your vegetable patch, mumbling to themselves, treading the tomatoes into the ground. In a town like Lake Wobegon, of course, where people don't lock their doors, in fact, most people don't even remember where their keys are, you hear crashing sounds downstairs, that's probably a Lundberg, you got a Lundberg down there. thundering around in your living room. Best go down and get rid of him. They sometimes take off in twos or threes. Gary and Leroy, the constables, think nothing. Sitting out in the patrol car, seeing about two, three Lundbergs come walking down the street in their skivvies. Two, three, four o'clock in the morning. Sometimes humming to themselves. Hymns, usually. Abide with me or Jesus Savior pilot me over life's tempestuous sea. And he has pretty well so far. Talking to themselves, yelling out. Sometimes they'll pick twigs and pick branches and grass and weeds and carry them around with them in their arms.
Worst of it is when you wake up a Lundberg, a sleepwalking Lundberg, you've got to work at it. You've got to shake them hard. and you've got to yell at them. And usually they're angry when they do wake up and they start shaking you and yelling at you. And they say, what's the matter? What you doing? Get your hands off me. And you say, Ralph, you're downtown in your shorts and it's three o'clock in the morning. Ralph says, well, get your hands off me, let me go and I'll go home. There's been talk about locking up the Lundbergs. Nobody's done it. I don't know what they think of when they wake up in the morning, find grass stains on their pajamas, tomato stains on their feet, little bundle of twigs and grass on the pillow next to them. What do they think they've been? I do know that people in Lake Wobegon feel it's something they just have to live with.
Because if you were to go and try and do something about it, you would get into the area of what it is that makes the Lundbergs walk all over town in their sleep. And that's something people would rather not know about. Let them be. It's only a couple months in the summer. Well, that's about all the news, except for the Chamber of Commerce, who had been busy this last week getting ready for toast and jelly days, which is coming up next weekend. Like Wobegon, six candidates for toast queen are all set. Their dresses are being sewn now from patterns. The municipal band is rehearsing for the toast and jelly parade, which will be next Saturday.
And the Christian mothers will have a couple of hot toast booths on town, your choice crabapple raspberry. And there'll be games, there'll be a toaster raffle and a toast pond. And if you want to try your hand at flipping the toast, I don't know if you've ever tried that at home, but it's a little game.
You see who can flip the toast up in the air and have it land jelly side up the most times out of 20 tries. The record in town is 13 if you care to go up against that. Anyway, the Chamber of Commerce thinks it will attract a lot of visitors to Lake Wobegon. I'm not sure about that. I think it'd attract more people if they'd have Lundberg days in Lake Wobegon. Lundberg nights have a parade of Lundbergs down the main street. I'd pay see that. That's the news from Lake Wobegon where all the women are strong and all the men are good looking and all the children are above average.
Fort Lauderdale News Jul 23 1981
1981.07.25 Wisconsin State Journal / 1981.07.25 Missoulian / 1981.07.22 Cincinnati Enquirer: "Queen City Brass, Katie Laur" (do not show up in first 2 references)