Bowhand, Butch Thompson Trio, Garrison Keillor, Tom Lieberman, Red Maddock, Claudia Schmidt. Vern Sutton,
Irish polkas (Bowhand ) Crazy Man Michael (Bowhand ) The hare in the Corn (Bowhand ) Dennis Murphy (Bowhand ) Irish reels (Bowhand ) Jubilee (Butch Thompson Trio ) Cool of the evening (Butch Thompson Trio ) Georgia on my mind (Butch Thompson Trio ) Ragtime violin ( Vern Sutton ) Ragtime Arabian Nights ( Vern Sutton ) Happy New Year darling ( Vern Sutton ) A rendezvous ( Claudia Schmidt ) Don't run away dear ( Claudia Schmidt ) Solar power ( Claudia Schmidt ) That's what the waltz is for ( Claudia Schmidt ) Knock, knock ( Tom Lieberman ) Lazy bones ( Red Maddock ) There once was a Union cat ( Garrison Keillor ) Hang down your head old tom cat ( Garrison Keillor )
Ajua! Hot Sauce Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Conversation cats) Chatterbox Cafe Clouds of Joy Bubble Bath Krebsbach, Wally Minnesota Brand Hats and Caps Powdermilk Biscuits Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Sidetrack Tap
Well, sir it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. There were a couple of New Year's Eve parties there on Thursday night, but all of them petered out about 10 o'clock 10:30. People just fell asleep. It's hard to break the habit of bedtime, you know, especially when you get older. Some of them had to be awakened to go home. All got home about ten 10:30 at night, even the Sidetrack Tap closed up about 11:00 o'clock.
I think I was 16 years old before I stayed up until midnight. I know it just occurred to me as something that a person ought to do once to find out what it would be like. I picked a night and I had to work at it a little bit to do it, but I stayed up and there it was midnight and it was wonderful. It was exciting. The only problem was there wasn't anybody around to tell how wonderful it was. They were all in bed.
Of course I do it more often now. Once, twice, once every other month or so. Get absorbed in something, stay up. Look at the clock. There it is midnight. Not such a big deal anymore.
Some of the old guys in Lake Wobegon claimed to stay up all night fishing out in fish houses out on the ice out in lake but fishing, fishing the way it's been in Lake Wobegon everybody knows they go out there and go to sleep is what they do. Hardly a sport on that lake anymore. It's more like a form of meditation. But they're a wonderful invention those fish houses I tell you they've gotten many a marraige through a long winter. Everybody needs to go off and be by themselves sometimes, even the happiest people need to go off and lead a secret life, even if it's just a life looking at a fish hole. It's something that you have to yourself. Some of the old guys come home after supper and look out the kitchen window and say “wind seems to be out of the north. I'll bet the Sonny's are running tonight.” Well, she knows that the wind is usually out of the north in the winter time and it doesn't make any difference 'cause the sunfish are under a foot and a half of ice. Wind doesn't affect them a lot. Not that sunfish run either.
But off he goes, off he goes, takes his bedroll and goes out to thf ish house. Spend the night out there. If you don't know what a fish house is, it's just a little shack about 8 by 12 has two, three, or four holes in the floor in the corners, usually has a wooden platform, a bunk sleeping platform on one end, sometimes two of them, one above the other. And when the ice gets thick enough in December, Art gets his tractor out and he hauls out the fish houses out on the lake. They sit out there about in the middle and the old boys go out there when they want to be by themselves. Drop a line in the water through the hole in the ice, cut through the hole in the floor. Put little wood in the wood stove. Unroll the bedroll, and go to bed. It’s a wonderful thing.
Some of them take a bottle of whiskey out there. The ones that go in for that. Have a bottle of whiskey, maybe invite a few pals from other fish houses to come over and have a bump with them. They don't drink at home, they wouldn't they wouldn't have a bottle in their home. It wouldn't be right to drink in front of your children in broad daylight. Supposed to do your drinking in the dark with your pals out of a bottle. You hand one of those old guys a highball glass with ice and whiskey in it and I mean he would be strange to him he wouldn't know what to do with it. Might as well hand him an avocado or something. Let him go out there and sit and have a bump of whiskey and tell some lies out in the fish house. Everybody needs to have that little privacy, little privation, little loneliness. Come home in the morning, cold and stiff and happy.
There are a lot of secret lives even in a town that small. Some of the secrets are very well known, but there's still there’s still secrets. It's a well known secret in that town that a number of the Norwegian bachelor farmers are members of the Communist Party. Been known for so long by so many people, it's hardly worth commenting on. They just are.
And others have other secrets too. It's what makes them people is to have something that you don't choose to show to other people. There was a story about a Norwegian bachelor farmer who lay dying in his shack. He's running a powerful high fever. And he was delirious. But even in his delirium, he knew that he was dying. And he knew that one thing he did not want was to have strangers come into his house after he was gone and looked through his stuff. Paw over his stuff. He'd been to auctions. He knew what that was like, he didn't want it for himself. And so he reached over, and he knocked the kerosene lantern on the floor. That house was like dry kindling. It went up, it almost exploded.
Somehow he got out. He was inspired to rescue himself. Found himself standing out in the snow. I t was cold out. It brought his fever down in a hurry. The neighbor boys got over there in about 5 minutes, but it was almost all gone. They found him standing there in his nightshirt watching his house burn. He said “boys it's a good thing it didn't happen when I was asleep.” They took up a collection in town. They helped him build another shack sitting just a few feet to the east where the basement of the old one was. That was seven years ago. He looks better than he ever did. He's got good color in his face. Old old man seemed to have done him some good. Now, those things that he doesn't want other people to know about. They're just all in his head where he can take care of em.
It reminds me of Wally Krebsbach, who re-did his living room here this last week. Not with fire, he used the normal tools, but it was a big thing for him to take out the wall between the dining room and the living room and put an arch in there and it was something that he and Myrtle had discussed for years. But discussing it, you know is one thing and actually taking a sledgehammer to it is something quite different. You start to think maybe that wall is there for a reason. But he took the sledgehammer to it, and he knocked a hole through it, and he took it out. He also found in the wall the dead cat that had been there for a few months. That was the reason that the Krebsbachs had not been getting the full use of the dining room now for a while. It was good to get that out of there. That was a little secret they were glad to find. You have a smell like that in your house you know you just sort of automatically start accusing each other of it first.
Well that was a big thing for Wally. Take out that wall 'cause any sort of change is hard for him. It's always done things the same way. For 30 years he said the exact same blessing before every meal. Same words, same punctuation even. Three times a day. 30 years. You could walk up to one of those Krebsbach kids on the street and say the first sentence of that blessing. They'd start to salivate. Same blessing. He even mispronounces Calvary the cross of Calvary, as “across a cavalry”. He's done that for 30 years. I don't think they could change that. Puts his tools in the same place in the toolbox. Puts his shirt on firsdt every morning without fail. When he had his brother in law in to hang a new screen door for him and the brother in law put the hinges on the left instead of the right, Wally had scraped knuckles for about two years after that.
He was happy about it, knocked that wall right down and he saw that it could be done. The house didn't collapse around him. The family was not broken up by it. It was an improvement. He was excited. He was thrilled by it. Been talking about putting a greenhouse in the upstairs bedroom now. I think he may do it. He looks better than he's looked in years. He's got good color in his face.
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. Every single one of them.
Hoagy Carmichael died at age 82. Why shy people are shy
Baltimore Sun Dec 30 1981 Santa Cruz Sentinel Dec 27 1981
Audio of the News available on CD.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto