Roy Blount Jr, Butch Thompson Trio, Cal Hand, Hot Rize, Garrison Keillor, Peter Ostroushko, Claudia Schmidt, Becky Reimer Thompson. Ernest Tubb,
Back home in Indiana (Butch Thompson Trio ) Limehouse blues (Butch Thompson Trio ) Satisfied Mind ( Claudia Schmidt ) Nellie Kane (Hot Rize ) Radio Boogie (Hot Rize ) Working on a Building (Hot Rize ) Shady Grove (Hot Rize ) Dig a Little Deeper ( Becky Reimer Thompson ) Sweet Dreams ( Becky Reimer Thompson ) Lovesick Blues ( Becky Reimer Thompson ) Sixteen years old in Lincoln ( Peter Ostroushko ) Maggie and Dave ( Garrison Keillor ) Martha Capps is 32 ( Garrison Keillor ) I can always telephone ( Roy Blount Jr ) Thanks a lot ( Ernest Tubb ) Another story another time ( Ernest Tubb ) He's in the Jailhouse Now ( Ernest Tubb ) Waltz Across Texas ( Ernest Tubb ) I'm Walking the Floor Over You ( Ernest Tubb )
Ajua! Hot Sauce Bertha's Kitty Boutique Chatterbox Cafe Krebsbach, Carl Miss Falconer Norwegian Bachelor Farmers Powdermilk Biscuits Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Sidetrack Tap
Well sir, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. It’s kind of warm one day this last week- got up to 40. Had people talking about how Spring couldn't be far away. Then it snowed that night- the next day was cold and windy. It's a dismal month- the month of March- come down to the end of it here. I think the truth can be told. It's been a brutal winter and March is the worst part of it in Minnesota. Just enough pleasant days in the month of March to get your hopes up. And then it makes all the other 25 of them seem much more dismal. Those of you who don't drink and have always been curious what a hangover is like- it's kind of like the month of March in Lake Wobegon... anyway.
Even for those Norwegian bachelor farmers, winter is getting kind of stale. They live out there west of town in their little farm houses or shacks, depending on how you look at it- without much entertainment. Live there alone, not much to do during the winter except read old catalogs and listen to the radio. Sit out there, play solitaire, throw tin cans out the back door, try and hit the trash pile. That's about all they have for fun- when they come down to the month of March it started to get kind of thin for them.
Though if you drove out that way this last week, you would have seen one of the first signs of spring. The bachelor farmers bed sheets all hung out to dry on the bushes that bind their back doors. Even Barney had his sheets hung out to dry. They're kind of surprising sheets that he has. They’re sheets that Mrs Krebsbach bought a couple of years ago in the cities. They’re Hawaiian sheets with big swatches of bright tropical colors on them. But Carl Krebsbach couldn't get to sleep in them, so she gave him to the church and Barney picked him up there at a church used sale for a quarter.
They're not the sort of sheets you'd associate with him. I mean, if you saw him walking down the street and we're thinking about that, you know. Trying to guess what kind of bed sheets he had. You'd never guess Hawaiian for Barney. See, his real name is Einer- Barney is his nickname. Nicknamed him Barney on account of the way he smells most of the time. Which a lot of people make fun of in Lkae Wobegon, but I don't care to make fun of him anymore.
I think that there are basically 2 sorts of personal odors. There's fresh, and there’s stale. There's a lot of different kinds of fresh. But you have to prefer fresh. And Barney’s is nothing but fresh. I'll tell you. It's not really a barn smell. It comes from his hobby which is trapping skunks. Traps skunks and skins them and takes their skins and makes them into coats and jackets. That's his hobby during the winter. A lot of the Norwegian bachelor farmers have bought jackets and coats from him. I guess they're pretty warm.
So it was good to see the bedsheets hung out to dry. And now a week from tomorrow, the high school choir will give their spring concert. Miss Falconer has been drilling them. And they may just blossom. You never know. And then sometime after that those Norwegian bachelor farmers will be hitching up the big Belgian horses- their teams of Big Black Belgians hooking them up to the plows, and heading out across the dry stubble. Drop the plow. Pull the lever, drop the plow and off goes the team leading the way. The man riding behind. Ploughshare bite into the dirt. And the sideboard turns it over and up comes the smell of sweet black dirt. Looking forward to it. Love that smell. I wouldn't mind smelling like that myself.
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.
GK read a book on how to do stand-up comedy but decides to do it his way. Roy Blount talks about Public Radio, about the singing impaired, and about dogs versus cats. Poem about the practical joker's birthday.
1982.03.26 Star Tribune: Two live shows with same cast- March 26 and 27 / Audio of the News available as a digital download.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto