Butch Thompson Trio, John Kerner, MMMarimba. Kate MacKenzie, Stoney Lonesome,
Hindustan (Butch Thompson Trio ) Out in the cold again (Butch Thompson Trio ) Don't go away nobody (Butch Thompson Trio ) I want a little girl (Butch Thompson Trio ) Ice cream (Butch Thompson Trio ) Love grows old ( John Kerner ) John Henry ( John Kerner ) The fox went out ( John Kerner ) A bunch of roses (MMMarimba ) Swedish surrender (MMMarimba ) Little Willie ( Kate MacKenzie ) Ninety and nine ( Kate MacKenzie ) Muleskinner blues (Stoney Lonesome ) Rock hearts (Stoney Lonesome ) Take me back to Georgia (Stoney Lonesome )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Cat book club) Bunsen, Clarence Bunsen, Duane Bunsen, Wally Butch Thompson Music Corporation Chatterbox Cafe Fearmonger's Shop Krebsbach, Carl Malmberg Marimbas Monback Trash Haulers Pastor Ingqvist Powdermilk Biscuits Sidetrack Tap Tolerude, Elaine Universal Pictures Story of Ernest Tubb Whippets Wine Council of Minnesota (Soy Bean wine )
My, it's been a quiet week in Lake Webegon, and kind of a quiet show here for the last few seconds too – got kind of engrossed in the music there.
The tomato harvest has continued in Lake Wobegon. The Tolerude girl who went on to the regional competition for Minnesota Pork Queen did not win- much to her relief- and so returned home just as plain old Elaine Tolerude- which she'd rather be. The Whippets, did not play last Sunday- it being the anniversary of the death of Wally Old Hard Hands Bunsen when all parks in the Old Sod Chanty Leaugue are quiet in his memory. The whippets have only three weeks left in their 1982 season.
They have been trying to get some sort of postseason play- some sort of playoffs going in the old Sod Shanty league so that even a last place team could stand a chance of being champion. It was voted down at the last meeting 7 to 1 so... Baseball season coming to an end up there.
The Luther Leaguers got back on the bus from Bible camp here on Thursday- demonstrating that rather dramatic change of behavior that Bible camp often brings about in them.
Pastor Ingvuist who helps run that camp up near Deerwood in northern Minnesota looks on it as a time of testing for himself- a time when his faith is stretched almost to the breaking point- to see children who've had the advantage of a godly upbringing get together in a bunch and suddenly turn into nincompoops and dim bulbs is a discouraging sight. All of a sudden loud laughter at 2 - 3 o'clock in the morning. String beans and big gobs of jello flying across the dining hall. The frog in the pulpit. That's every year they do that - every year- they never learn, they never learn.
And finally, on the last day of Bible camp during morning Bible reading- discussing Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy- two boys burst into a fit of giggling, including one of his own- right there in front of him! And you know how it is when you're someplace where you know you're not supposed to laugh, you hold it in as long as you can. And when it does come out it doesn't, just kind of leak out- it explodes it just- laughter just bursts out of you. It's like, in fact it’s a lot like a sneeze sometimes. Stuff comes out of your nose and you just go to pieces and fall on the floor and you look like a fool.
He gave them a stare until they were absolutely still, and I mean still. He's got a gaze, and his repertoire- Pastor Inkvuist does- that could make ice cubes out of thin air. He put aside the Epistle to Timothy and he spoke off the cuff for about 20 minutes about the sinfulness and worthlessness and other unregenerate nature of humankind. Until every kid in that room was slipping down in their seat, kind of perched on the small of their back- eyes on the floor, and their faces burning. And then they got on the bus and came home.
And I'll tell you what a difference. Children who might ordinarily been hanging around, leaning around, down in the corner by the Sidetrack Tap, daring each other to stick a potato up Gary and Leroy’s tailpipe were now at home being cheerful around their parents. They were volunteering for things that their parents had given up even asking them to do. They were being obedient before they were even asked to.
Clarence Bunson, whose son Duane, was one of the gigglers said “Duane come home.” On Thursday, he went right, got the lawn mower out, mowed the lawn, raked, picked sweet corn, came in, set the table, did dishes after supper and when he was done with dishes, he came out on the porch and sat down next to me. And said it had been a long time since we had talked.
And he said, “what were you like when you were my age dad?”
And I said “you're getting close, son. You're getting real close.”
Pastor Inkvuist came back and had to pay a pastoral call here on Friday to Mr Tollefson- old Mr. Burt, who living in that big old house there by the Krebsbachs- alone for the last four years. His elm tree been sick for a while. He was treating it last year with coffee grounds and prune pits and it seemed to improve for a while. But this year it put out no leaves. And Carl Krebsbach, his neighbor, reminded him a few times that the Krepsbachs have small children, and this tree might not remain standing, and that it was time for that lovely tree- what was left of it to come down. The tree that had shaded his front porch where he and Eloise had sat, morning, noon, and night- drank so many cups of coffee, watched the passing scene on the street. His old tree had to come down.
And Pastor Ingquist came to sit with him before they did it. Sat there and held his hand- old man’s hands- skin like parchment. And Mr. Tollefson said to him, with tears in his eyes “I just wish I had gone first. I just wish I had gone first.”
His cool place. His shade. His shady porch now about to become a desert. Pastor Inqvist tried to think of what to say. He'd never done counseling for a person who was grieving for a tree. But he thought of the 23rd Psalm, which has suggestions of cool places. And so he said that, and then he took Mr. Tollefson by the hand and he nodded to Carl Krebsbach and the others. Led the old man in as Carl started up his chainsaw.
It was sad story, but you think about it, you know, It would take a happy man to be able to grieve for a tree. An unhappy person have a whole lot of other things to worry about. It’d just be one of a thousand things to an unhappy person. For a lot of people the death of a tree would go pretty much unnoticed in their life. And more things other people think about than trees.
This last week was the anniversary of the death of Wally Old Hard Hands Bunsen, the greatest ballplayer who ever came through Lake Wobegon who died 25 years ago this week in 1957. I remember it. I was 15 years old at the time- 25 years ago. Wally was 25. And he had started playing for the Whippets when he was 15. He never used the glove, he just said it got in his way. He used his bare hands, which was how he got his nickname- and was a beautiful ballplayer to watch. Had wings on his feet. Arms like whips and when he ran and when it caught the ball and when he threw and when it came to the plate it was all so easy and so natural for him. There was never any anxiety, he was just out there laughing. It was all a game. Was like God had given him a great talent and there was no problem to use it.
And when he was 19, a scout for the Chicago Cubs saw him and the next spring he went south for spring training. Came north with the team. Spent 24 hours in Chicago, looked around, and then came back home north to Lake Wobegon.
People ever after looked at Wally Old Hard Hands Bunson and they said “that Wally Bunsen he could have been great, you know he, he had a chance to go over the Cubs”. He turned it down for some reason. Now other people would say “ah, he wasn't anything great. If you were great, he would have been in the major leagues. He wouldn't be around here”. But Wally just kept on playing ball, just laughing and playing beautiful ball thinking that you could be great in Lake Wobegon, you didn't have to leave home. You could even be a Whippet and still be great.
Right up until that day in August in 1957 when he swung at a high inside fastball and fouled the pitch off his own head and died shortly thereafter. And life just stopped in Lake Wobegon. People just laid down and cried. I remember the call my mother answered at home, the long silence and her saying “Oh no” and I know something terrible had happened.
For weeks people went around asking how could God allow this to happen? The most beautiful and the best to go so suddenly. Well, might as well ask- better off asking. Why does God make us so happy that when we grieve it hurts so much? Why does God send us so much sunshine that we notice it when it even turns cloudy? Why does God arrange it so that people come into this world through an act that is so wonderful and so much fun.
You were born to be happy, were born out of happiness. Your parents were naked at the time they were in bed when you started your life. When you started your life, they were lying there. So pleased with each other.
Saying “oh Fred. Oh Mildred.”
They've been going around for days with clothes on. Trying to be serious, responsible, trying to impress people- going to work. But you weren't born at work. You didn't come out of a committee meeting. You came out as a result of two people trying to make each other happy. You were conceived in happiness. Dedicated to the proposition that someday you'd go and do the same yourself.
Think on it. Think I'm born to be happy. And that’s happiness. I hope the Luther Leaguers' recognize that. Happiness is not laughing out loud in prayer meeting 'cause somebody next to you whispered a booger joke. That's not happiness. That's nervousness. Happiness is when you realize that what God intended for us was a life of such love and happiness. That when a tree dies or a sparrow falls we feel pain.
Not that life is without danger, it's full of danger and we're all adventurers. I think about the cousin of the Dieners who was up visiting from the city here this last week. Went out swimming in the lake and as he was floating there at the beach was suddenly bitten hard twice in his behind and jumped up and ran into the beach with two big crappies still holding onto him with their teeth. They fell off in the water. He refused to show the bites to authorities. But when he got back to the Dianers, his uncle looked at the bites and he said those were crappie bites- he'd seen crappie bites- had marks of crappie teeth on him.
Gary and Leroy were down at the beach in no time as the report of killer crappies spread through town. People who were in the water got out even faster than that. Gary and Leroy posted a sign at the beach. Said “Danger fish in area. No floating. Move arms and legs to avoid attack.”
And soon Gary and Leroy were cruising the scene of the attack in Leroy’s bass boat- standing up, aiming their 22 rifles down towards the murky waters, watching for suspicious ripples or bubbles. Or the flash of teeth- a dorsal fin. As Mr Deaner and the bow dangled in the water, the boy’s swimming trunks as bait.
They shot a few times- Leroy thought he winged one- he couldn't be sure. The search was called off at dusk to the disappointment of all the spectators onshore who said they'd be glad to go home and get their cars and aim the headlights down there- maybe try and shine those crappies into shallow water. And who suggested that just dangling the swim trunks in the water wasn't bait enough- Leroy oughta put the swim trunks on and dangle that in the water. That might bring them in.
Leroy said, “well”, he said “if it was you got bit you wouldn't be laughing now wouldja?” And I guess you wouldn't. But if an attack by crappies is the worst thing that happens to you all week, I would suggest that you're leading a happy life.
That's the news from Lake Wobegon Minnesota, where all the women are strong and all the men are good looking. All the children are above average.
Cloudy weather but nobody has brought rain wear for an outdoor broadcast.
1982.08.09 Lafayette Journal / Audio of the News available as a digital download.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto