Beym Turhan, Butch Thompson Trio. Crystor Magnussen & Bertel Eng, Lieberman Fogel & Bay, Lilebjorn Nielson & Steinner Ofstahl, Lost World String Band, Claudia Schmidt,
I Want To Be Happy (Butch Thompson Trio ) Brown Bottom Bess (Butch Thompson Trio ) In The Gloaming (Butch Thompson Trio ) Deep Creek Blues (Butch Thompson Trio ) Dance Do Not Weep (Lilebjorn Nielson & Steinner Ofstahl ) Farmer Goes To America (Lilebjorn Nielson & Steinner Ofstahl ) Love in the Gas Station (Lilebjorn Nielson & Steinner Ofstahl ) Most Anything For You (Lost World String Band ) Twins Come to Mr and Mrs Mickey Mouse (Lost World String Band ) And That Ain't All (Lieberman Fogel & Bay ) Love Potion No 9 (Lieberman Fogel & Bay ) Going to Kansas City (Lieberman Fogel & Bay ) Poison Ivy (Lieberman Fogel & Bay ) Down in the Boondocks (Lieberman Fogel & Bay ) To Make a House a Home ( Claudia Schmidt ) Please Send Me Someone to Love ( Claudia Schmidt ) I Have No Gold or Silver (Crystor Magnussen & Bertel Eng ) The Beauty of the Rose (Crystor Magnussen & Bertel Eng ) Too Old To Dance (Crystor Magnussen & Bertel Eng )
Avon Bards Bertha's Kitty Boutique Bob's Bank Chatterbox Cafe Powdermilk Biscuits Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Whippets
Just to remind you if you just tuned in.. the Lake Wobegon Whippets beat the Avon Bards this afternoon by a score of 8 to 7. On a inside the park home run by Rollie- which scored three runs ahead of him, got four runs on that out to the right field wall there where the ball got stuck between a couple of boards and the fence. An assist on that goes to Arnie, the scoreboard keeper who planted his feet against the boards and managed to hold the ball in there pretty tight until the boys were all safe at home.
It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, I imagine it’s a quiet night there tonight. People sitting out on their front porches all up and down the street there. Those little old houses and old porches- screened in porches where those dark black screens. Never could see in. Those old screens you could see out, but you can't see them from the street. Used to walk down the street about this time of day. And on into the evening we're just walking around town, listening to people talking from their houses. Hear murmurs of voices from inside the porch about 25 feet from the sidewalk. Tinkle of ice cubes in the pitchers, poured nectar for each other. People sitting in there on a summer night talking. Ever so often you'd hear a loud voice that you could make out the words. Walking down the street and hear somebody say “Oh he was awful mean to her. Oh, he was a Rascal.” And you kind of stop and pause and wish that she'd say what he did to her that made him such a rascal, but... all the best parts were whispered. “Oh she told him if he so much as ever looked at her again, she was a gonna.” Well gonna what? I never did find out what she was going to do to him.
I don't know why you couldn't see in, I guess partly was the ivy that was growing up on those screens, but it was something about the screens to. Couldn't see the people back in there. Just hear their voices. I sorta thought of those little houses as little radios as I walked along and I wished I could sit there on the walk and just enjoy the whole show. And I also wished that I had a volume knob so that I could turn it up just a little bit. Walk through town- get free entertainment. Just listening to people live out their lives.
Sometimes there’d be a little music come from a house. Piano student practicing in there. I remember a tune I used to hear on summer nights that went “la da dado do do”. Then usually stopped there and then he'd go back from start again from the beginning, play it over and over again. I never knew if that was To a Wild Rose by Edward MacDowell or Memories of You by Eubie Blake. I saw it listed on piano recital programs as To a Wild Rose, but they never played it exactly like that, or exactly the same way twice. But it was a lovely tune. To walk down Elm St. and this piano tune would follow you and would sort of fade as you got farther away and then come to the next episode in the next house and you'd hear voice from up from upstairs bedroom. Somebody saying “mother, mother! I can't find it.” She'd shout out from the kitchen, “yes. You can find it, just look for it.”
Love that line. You can't find it, just look for it. No, I can't. It's not up here, not here. Well, find something else then. Find something else to wear. Oh, mother. I don't want to go to her dumb party anyway. Well, you're going to go, so find something I can't find anything. Look for it.
That would go on for a while. He'd walk a little farther along and hear some more. Hear some sort of scuffling noise from inside a house. And somebody say “I can't stand it. I can't stand it anymore. You never loved me. You never loved me.
I'd stop. And say “yes, go on what the? What can't you stand?”
But then they were quiet all of a sudden. It got real quiet. I guess if somebody yelled out I can't stand it anymore in your house you might get real quiet too.
Then I walk a little farther along. Lord, I love to eavesdrop on people. Thing I most wanted was to be invisible so I wouldn't even exist, so I could just walk right into those front porches and just catch the whole show. I still enjoy that. My favorite restaurants are the ones in which the tables are all crowded in close together, so you sit down at your table and your back is part of somebody else's table and there's six people sitting there behind you and you can hear every word they say. And they seem to be some kind of a family, but you're not sure. And you try and figure out the relationships. Without looking at them. Who's the mom and the dad and which ones are the kids and which ones are the in laws? Listen as they talk to each other, that's radio entertainment. That's radio dinner theater. I don't apologize for eavesdropping on people.
When you eavesdrop up in Lake Wobegon or, I think any other place. You find out a lot about people when they don't know that you're listening. And you find out that a lot of things we consider odd in people are not. But there's no such thing as normal. That we’re all odd. In our own strange ways were all odd. It's reassuring to know that. Especially if you are the sort of odd person who likes to go around listening to people.
You also find out in Lake Wobegon that the women are strong. The men, I think, though I couldn't see him in there, sounded good looking and the children for sure the children, are all above average. That’s the news from Lake Wobegon.
GK and two friends have quit smoking. Claudia Schmidt takes the train to Seattle.
This half hour brought you by Powdermilk Biscuits in the Big Blue box. Powdermilk Biscuits made of whole wheat to give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. My, we have a lot of shy persons with us every time we do a broadcast. Even at these outdoor broadcasts I can see them there crouching over behind the trees averting their eyes. Some people out here on this day wearing long overcoats, overcoats up over their heads.
I want to wish a happy birthday to one of them Wayne, who had a birthday three weeks ago. Listen to those people clap for him- is he embarrassed by that? all those loud people sitting around him clapping? His birthday was three weeks ago. He listened to our broadcast three weeks ago, hoping he'd hear us, wish him a happy birthday but we didn't. But being a shy person he's used to being disappointed.
And so am I. Story of my life. Things just never turn out the way you expect them to, especially if you were shy and you were too shy to ask for them. That always is a point against you. I remember that I was brought up to believe that dancing was wrong, I’ll just mentioned one example to you. I was brought up to believe that dancing was wrong, that it was wrong for men and women to dance together on a floor together that it would bring out carnal desires and lasciviousness an animal lust.
So naturally when I snuck off to my first dance I had high hopes. But right there on the Anoka Junior High School gymnasium floor for the price of student admission I was going to see something I had never seen before in my life. Well I watched for a long time, I watched for a long time with just my classmates out there trotting around on each other’s feet. Everybody but me was dancing. Finally I figured out they didn't know about lasciviousness, and so it didn't have that effect on it. I was the only one you see, and there I'd be, I'd be the only animal out on the floor.
Oh Lord. Disappointment. Go to college and you hope to become brilliant- people marry and they hope to become happy. And it doesn't always work out that way. But I tell you, you can make the best of it even if you cannot produce absolute animal lust and lasciviousness and carnal desire, at least we can make friendships ever so often. And if college doesn't make you brilliant, well, at least you know that you're not. There's an advantage. And if whatever doesn't make you happy, enjoy your sadness. Savor it. Be as sad as you can. Get all the way down, down in the depths and have a good time doing it and then come back up. And if you need a little strength to do that, I recommend those Powdermilk Biscuits. Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious. Give me some of that biscuit piano there.
Audio of the News available as a digital download.