John Berquist, Saul Brodie, Greg Brown, Butch Thompson Trio, Kate MacKenzie, Claudia Schmidt, Stoney Lonesome. Janet Westerlin-Carlsen,
Brown Bess (Butch Thompson Trio ) Deep Creek Blues (Butch Thompson Trio ) She's more to be pitied (Stoney Lonesome , Kate MacKenzie ) It's too late to walk the floor (Stoney Lonesome , Kate MacKenzie ) Katy dear (Stoney Lonesome , Kate MacKenzie ) Never shine sun ( Greg Brown ) Bathtub blues ( Greg Brown ) Walking the beans ( Greg Brown ) At the smorgasbord ( Janet Westerlin-Carlsen , John Berquist ) Travelling through Wisconsin ( Claudia Schmidt ) Rich in Milwaukee ( Claudia Schmidt ) Away by the water ( Saul Brodie ) It takes a worried man ( Saul Brodie )
American Association of Arts Administrators Butch Thompson Music Corporation First Friendship and Loan Powdermilk Biscuits
Well sir, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. It's been rather warm all week and rather dry as well, so that the grass is brown where there is no shade and whenever a car comes down the county road why a big cloud of dust boils up behind. The dog days of summer- what we called them.
And it was about this time in the summer when we used to clip our old dog Buster, who would always be lying underneath the porch, down where the dirt was cool and damp. One of us’d have to go in under there and haul him out by his front legs. And we'd clip him. He was a long haired dog- we'd spend some time at it with shears. Because we never couldn't quite get it even all the way around so we'd keep clipping him until we had him cut right down to the stubble pretty much. Kind of a dog heinie. Which he seemed to enjoy. We'd run the hose over him to wash off the hair and then he'd go lie out in the sun for a while. And get a little tan I guess.
Which was something that people did not do in Lake Wobegon when I was young- Lie out in the sun. You worked in the sun when you laid down, you laid in the shade, you see. You didn't need any more sun when you were done working in the sun. We didn't have air conditioners then either. Because, well, for many reasons, but for one thing, if you work in the sun, the shade is cool enough for you. You don't need it to be any cooler. When you work in the sun that you really can appreciate a good breeze, you see. Air conditioners would only be appreciated by people who spend most of their day where it is relatively cool and start to feel hot there you see, so they'd have to make it cold in order to feel cool. If you get my drift.
The Inkvuist’s had an air conditioner, but they were rich and Mrs Inqvuist was in poor health. Though I must say she's been in poor health for about 40 years now. And finally it was about 20 years ago that Father Emil got himself one, but he had terrible hay fever and got all puffed up during the summer and would go around with a hanky in one hand, more or less, all the time, and would have to spend a couple weeks up at the North Shore to get some relief and after a couple weeks up there by himself with all that scenery, he got bored and came back and eventually got an air conditioner. Put it in the rectory. Spent about two weeks up close to it and never felt better.
It was when Mrs Diener got an air conditioner that people started to talk. There was nothing wrong with her. Who did she think she was? She said that she got it for her daughter because her daughter would break into a heat rash, but her daughter only came to visit for a couple weeks in the summer and she always came in June. So what did she need it for? Mrs Diener said “well”, she said “as long as I've got to have it, I might as well get the use of it”, so would run it all summer next door to us where we sat on the porch listening to that thing humming away. And I decided that an air conditioner was something I'd dearly love to have.
If only there was some way that I could connect air conditioning to health or to education, you see, so as to convince my mother. If only I could persuade her that it would prevent something or would make me a better student she might buy it. But this was summer school was out. And she believed that air conditioners caused colds. So we never got one. I'd ask for one. I'd complain about the heat. The more I listened to Mrs Diener's air conditioner, the hotter I felt. And my mother would say. “Make the best of it.” She'd say “life is what you make it”, which was always her answer to any complaints of unhappiness.
Life is what you make it. Make the best of it.
Well, I felt that seemed to point towards getting an air conditioner. Miss Diener had made the best of it. My mother said “go outside, do something, take your mind off it”, which was her second answer to unhappiness. But you see, I'd been outside all morning in the garden picking vegetables. I was not about to go outside again. If I did, I knew darn well what I'd find to do out there. More tomatoes.
This is the time of year when the gardens start coming on hard and fast in Lake Wobegon. And when gardeners start to feel that vegetables are taking over their lives. That they started something out back of the house that they're not in control of anymore, are they? They planted a glacier out back there- It's moving in on them. They're tomatoes moving in. Get up one morning your whole kitchen full of tomatoes lying around on counters. Some of them have crept down onto the floor, then making their way upstairs.
Reach for your toothbrush. You might pick up an eggplant or something. Be right there- how'd that get there? Pick up a newspaper there’d be 3 zucchini underneath it. Went under there for the shade or to read the comics. Catch a couple zzz’s. Cauliflower creeping around the house- you can hear them late at night. You hear rustling outside your door. That's cauliflower, it's moving in on you. Check your bed for kohlrabi before you go to sleep. Vegetables all over the place. Dreams of vegetables, watermelon vines coming at you with their little spiny fingers. Those watermelons that you planted last year. 12 hills- Why did we plant 12 hills of watermelons? What did we do? And why did we pick the Big Bertha's? The big 40 pounders? I guess we were worried we wouldn't have enough. We wanted to have extra so we could give some away to the relatives. But the relatives all have extra.
So there you are, canning it as fast as it comes in. It's a shame to waste good food, but after you've eaten nothing but good food for weeks and there's more good food sitting on the counter and you realize that there's a lot more good food where that came from and you're never going to get on top of the good food situation. You start to wonder.
It's the time of year when people take vegetables around to their neighbors houses late at night. Put it on the steps. Back in April, you'd kill for a tomato- you would. Well, tomato, I mean not those, not those little tomatoes that they strip mine down in Texas. But real tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. Not styrofoam with tomato flavoring but real tomatoes. Back in April you imagine how good they taste and so you go out and you put in 40 tomato plants. My mother would put in 40 tomato plants. And we ate tomatoes. Morning, Noon, night and for years thereafter- stewed tomatoes was my mother soul food.
I remember going out on a morning in early August with my brother and sister to pick tomatoes. The kitchen was full of tomatoes, but we're going to pick some more anyway. Supposed to pick em- can't waste him pick him, bring him in, let em sit there. Maybe they'll climb into the jars themselves.
I had been picking tomatoes for a week. I went outside- there they were. Full- the plants were full of red tomatoes. They were also full of green tomatoes, which would become red shortly. This would be my life picking tomatoes. Well, the three of us, my brother, sister and I got lined up on the row of tomatoes and started picking them.
I picked a big tomato and I stood up and I threw it as hard as I could against a crabapple tree, where it made a wonderful splatty sound. Picked up another one. Biggest one I could find and I threw it again. I took out 3-4 crabapples with each one- sort of killing two foods with one tomato.
Then I threw one at my brother. A little hard green. He threw one back at me, we ducked down by the row there of the plants- we were heaving tomatoes back and forth at us. My sister, who was a good person looked at us and said “You're going to get in trouble.”
And then she went back to work. She bent over and started picking. What a target. There she was, bent over. I picked up the biggest tomato I could find. One so big had been lying on the ground for weeks, gotten all brown underneath. Worms in it. It was real juicy. It's hard to pick it up without getting it all over yourself, you know?
I picked it up and I took aim and I went into my windup and just at the moment that I was about to throw it, my mother called me from the kitchen window in a sharp voice. And I had to decide what to do. I think I made the right decision. Because the sound of that tomato hitting right on target is a sound that a person doesn't get to hear often in their lives. Beautiful, sort of a flat watery, squishy sound. As it came in right on the mark and my sister let out a “huuuuuuu!” And yelled at me.
Oh it was a beautiful sound like a fat man taking a belly flop- just a full luscious sound. She took off after me. My sister did. She was inspired. I never saw her run so fast. I could usually outrun her, but she had wings. I ran as fast as I could towards the house, yelling “mother mother, mother”, but she was faster than I was and she grabbed hold of me and she was just about to pound me into the ground when my mother spoke to her sharply from the kitchen window.
And my sister, who is a good person and obedient let go of me. Hoping, I suppose that my mother would come out and brain me. Finish the job. But my mother just said “that will be enough of that. Go back, get busy.” My poor sister. She was so angry. Because she knew that the pleasure of obedience is nothing compared to the pleasure of throwing a rotten tomato and hitting your sister right in the butt. Nothing like it. Poor thing.
Later that day, she got hold of me and she pinched me, but that was nothing. I just laughed at her. I was calling her Tomato Butt by then. She said “that's a dirty word. You'll be punished for that God will punish you for that. You better not say that again.”
I didn't need to say it again. It was so much fun the first time. I looked her in the eye and I said “don't take it so bad”, I said. “Make the best of it. Life is what you make it.”
And then I took off. I outran her that time because I was ready.
That's the news I think from Lake Wobegon Minnesota where all the women are strong, and fast, the men are good looking and all the children are above average.
Shy people get along. John Berquist and Janet Westerlin-Carlsen play Ole and Lena. The Whippets lost a close game. Hoeing soy beans
Audio of the News available as a digital download.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto