Butch Thompson Trio. Touchstone,
[undocumented]
Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. There were some screams that came from the Haglund House, however, on Tuesday night. Turned out to be on account of a large bat which was swooping around in Mrs Hagglund living room. She hit the deck, managed to crawl to the phone and call Gary and Leroy. Before they got there, her big cat, Hilmer, who was named after her late husband, was sitting up on the highboy studying this bat’s flight back and forth across the living room and with one great leap- probably the greatest leap that big old cat has made, and with one big swipe of its right paw, he brought that creature down and lay him out stunned on the throw rug where the cat took a closer look and decided that was about as far as his responsibilities went.
Ugly things. Gary and Leroy arrived and scooped it up in a dustpan. Threw it outdoors and sort of took their time doing it because they had had never been in the Hagland house before, you see. So of course then they wanted to make sure there weren't any more bats upstairs. They make a tour and check for potential bats. Took them a long time to do it.
They noticed that even though Mrs Hagland lives by herself. There were five beds upstairs in the bedrooms, each of them freshly made, and the- and the bedspread pulled down as if somebody was about to climb in. There were big cardboard box is full of seashells in one of the closets. And a stuffed owl in another. And the kitchen table was set for two. And the radio was on in the kitchen, and they listened to it, and for the life of them they couldn't figure out which station it was.
Well, they're not the first people in Lake Wobegon to take an intense interest in other people's business. You expect me to tell more about Mrs Hagland. I don't know anymore. All I know is that they spent a good 45 minutes in her house looking for everything but bats.
A lot of nosy people in that town. I think about Mrs. Magandanz who was out in her backyard, the football coach’s wife, snapping beans. Mrs Dahl came out in her backyard and leaned over across the lilac bushes and she said “I sure would appreciate it if you'd spend less time staring out your windows at us.”
And then she went back inside before Mrs. Magandanz could reply so Mrs. Magandanz had to run back into her house and call Mrs. Dahl on the phone and it rang a few times and she said “well” she said, “how would you know that I was staring at you if you weren't staring at us?”
Mrs Dah said “The fact that I might look over in your direction occasionally doesn't mean that I take the slightest interest. Likewise, I'm sure Mrs. Magandanz” and slammed the phone on the hook. But nonetheless, they are still neighbors and still sort of friends, and when Mrs. Dahl came down with the flu here the other day Mrs. Magandanz brought her over some soup for her lunch. She had noticed Mrs Dahl getting out of bed and see she seemed kind of sick when she saw her- she thought she'd drop in on him.
I remember when old Mr. Anderson moved to town from the farm this last April. All of his neighbors took a strong interest in him and in the fact that every morning and every evening he would go out back to the garage. He'd be in there about 2 minutes and then he'd come back to the house. Same time morning and evening, they almost set their clocks by him and watch him and wonder what he was doing. They thought maybe it keeps a bottle out there. Somebody thought they heard him playing a trumpet out there. They thought maybe he goes out there to smoke. Months went by and it just started to get on their nerves. This mystery, which of course was their mystery. It was no mystery to him. It was a mystery they had created. And they had to know what he was doing- going out to the garage. Couple minutes in the morning couple minutes in the evening.
Finally somebody thought good Lord, he's got an outhouse out there. He had one on the farm. Now he's dug one in his garage. And they called Maror Clint Bunsen and so he had to go and make up some feeble excuse for looking into this old man’s garage, which he found with just an ordinary garage. There was a work bench there and his lawnmower and rakes and some old cans of lacquer on the bench and big glass jars full of bolts and screws and nails.
The only thing that really caught his eye was an old calendar that was nailed to the wall of the garage and on it was a picture of a beautiful young woman in a bathing suit holding a wrench. A calendar put out by a hardware company. A calendar from 1943. And this young girl with long brown hair was smiling and looking out into July of 1943 as if she would never grow old as if she would always be the same. And Clint remarked on it, he said, that's a nice calendar you've got. Mr. Anderson said, yes said, I've had that since 1943.
Clint said “oh”.
The old man said “I used to keep it out in the barn. The missus wouldn't let me have it in the house.”
“Well”, Clint said “yeah, I guess so. Probably. It is a nice picture though.”
The old man said, “yeah”, he said, “you know, It looks like her the summer before we got married. Of course she didn't run around like that- dressed like that. But it looks so much like her, I swear that it's her”, he said, “I come out here and I look at it twice a day and I'd swear that's her before we got married in that picture.”
He said “we didn't take pictures back then. We just never thought of it. I've got no pictures of her before we got married. Except that one right there.”
Well, Clint could see that Mr Anderson, an old man, they had seven children, all of them grown up, moved away- farmed almost 50 years on the same place. For him that was not a long time ago. Mr Anderson told him a story about when they were first married- him and this girl on the calendar. They had an argument and he ran out of the house and he ran as fast as he could down, across the meadow and then he started walking, and he walked slowly through the corn, and it came up to his property line, and he stopped there. And he looked at it. And then he turned around and he walked back and she was running up the meadow to him.
Well, Clint had to go home, get supper. He had no sooner sat down to his supper than he got a call from the neighbor of the Anderson's who had asked him to stop by. Well Clint never wanted to be mayor of Lake Wobegon in the first place, it's a thankless job and this little errand was not one that he was real pleased or proud about.
And he just said. “It wasn't what you thought, and it was none of my business. God knows. And if you want to know what's in there, you go, ask him” and put the phone down on the hook. He had other things to think about.
Including his wife Irene. Who spent most of this last week babysitting an immense tomato out in her garden. A tomato that she saw weeks ago had the potential to become a kind of all time champion tomato in Lake Wobegon. And in a town that takes its tomato growing seriously, that goes in for competitive gardening in a big way- a champion tomato is a big thing, and especially for Irene, who has always had a reputation as someone who killed plants just by looking at him.
Because her cucumbers were always little tiny, shriveled up cucumbers, and she never could grow marigolds. Everybody else’s marigolds had come up like troops of soldiers, and Irene's marigolds had come up a little ways and then they'd kind of stagger and they'd fall down on their knees and all collapse against each other.
People come by and look at and make sarcastic remarks. Like “gee... marigolds don't look too good there. Boy, my I just can't keep mine down. My marigolds are like weeds.”
“That's funny” people would say “Irene Bunson- person with a black thumb.”
So here she had this tomato. The trouble was that it was growing towards the top of the plant. Now she had staked up the plant, but this immense tomato was putting such tension on the plant that she thought it was going to topple over. She tried to weigh it with a little scale and it came out- she thought it came out around 20 ounces, which would make it an all time champion tomato.
Her brother in law, Clarence, claimed to have a 2 pounder about five years ago, but he ate it before an objective jury could be brought in, so nobody believes in that tomato. But here was a 20 ounce tomato in front of her. Well, she checked it twice a day and when it seemed as if it was just about to lose its moorings, she put in a couple more steaks and she got some mosquito netting and she made a little hammock for it so it could sit in it. And so it could grow. And she'd come out and she would wipe the dust off it and she would water it every day.
And it was when she was watering it here this last week that one of the steaks came loose and the champ fell, and the champ hit the deck. And the champ split in the dirt. She just started bawling and she ran into the house as fast as she could go. Her sister, Arlene, who lives Kitty Corner from her - she was looking out her window and she saw Irene run in the house and she came over to see what was the matter and she comforted her. And then they went out and they got the champ up. And they scooped some of the Champs insides back into it. And they carried it into the house, and they set it on the counter. And she went to work, getting the insides back in and she took masking tape and she managed to get around on the splits. And then she took a little basting syringe and she put some of the champ’s fluids back into it that it had lost in the fall and they put it in a plastic bag and they took it down to Ralphs Pretty Good Grocery.
And Arlene said, this is Irene's tomato. Ralph took a look at it, he said “boy, It looks like it blew up, didn't it?”
Arlene said “it's had a fall. But that's between you and us.” she said “weigh it.”
He put it on the on the meat scale there on the counter. It came out to be 16 ounces. And adding 4 ounces for what that tomato had been through that came to 20 ounces. That was a 20 ounce tomato. And that's what Ralph has been telling people all week. People come up to the meat counter they ask for some wieners, a pound of ground, or whatever. Ralph says, “say you all have seen the tomato that Irene Bunson brought in here this last week. 20 ounces- weighed it right here.”
People said “who? You sure that wasn't a squash?”
Ralph looked at them over his glasses- gave him his Lutheran Deacon stare. “20 ounces”, he said.
They said “what she do with it? Where is it?”
He said “She squashed it for seeds you want to buy some?”
Some people did. And so we make a little progress. Little by little, this woman's reputation is being rescued. And maybe next year there won't be so many jokes about Irene Bunson- people looking out their windows and saying “look at that her lilacs don't even bloom.”
Those are old lilacs. Clint is going to dig them out this week. And As for Marigold, she's not going to plant marigolds next year- she's going to plant tulips. Arlene knows about tulips you can get from a nursery in North Dakota that will grow anywhere under any conditions- you can't harm them no matter what you do to them. They're a cross between the Mojave Tulip and the Arctic. Your Tundra Tulip. It was just a tomato that made the difference, but what a tomato 20 ounces 20 ounces...
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 well above average.
1982.08.27 Charlotte Observer / Audio of the News available on CD.