Butch Thompson Trio, Chicago Rhythm Band, Mike Craver, Dale Warland Singers, Garrison Keillor. Peter Ostroushko, Robin and Linda Williams, Nancy Spencer,
Hello Lola (Chicago Rhythm Band ) Matinee Idol ( Mike Craver ) Three guys ( Mike Craver ) Spoony land ( Mike Craver ) The rose of Sharon (Dale Warland Singers ) The Bird (Dale Warland Singers ) Chester (Dale Warland Singers ) Sing to the Lord (Dale Warland Singers ) I love you a thousand ways (Robin and Linda Williams ) Cuckoo Bird (Robin and Linda Williams ) Poor cats in the woods ( Garrison Keillor ) Danny Boy ( Nancy Spencer ) Oo Oo Oo ( Nancy Spencer ) Tennessee waltz ( Nancy Spencer ) When The Saints go Marching In ( Nancy Spencer )
Berge, Bob Berge, Curtis Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Cat hair restorer) Bunsen, Clarence Butch Thompson Band Desks Chatterbox Cafe Humphrey, Hubert Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Skoglund's Five and Dime World Hotel of St. Paul
Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, though it may not last for long time. Election Day is now three days away. Dorothy, down to Chatterbox Café put up a little sign there on the blackboard right underneath the choice of desserts. She wrote “no politics” and she means it. She's tired of it. You're not going to hear anymore of it. She said” those old guys can go down to the Sidetrack Tap and get pie faced down there- they can solve the world's problems down there on the other end of the street- I've heard about enough.”
So that's where they go. There are not many people in the undecided column in Lake Wobegon- being undecided is regarded as a sign of liberal tendencies in that town- you're supposed to our principles and stick to em- and pick out a candidate and believe in the candidate and stand up for that candidate and sneer at his puny little pinheaded opponent. And all the opponents pals who want to sidle up to the public trough and you're supposed to do battle with your opponents followers so it gets to where Wally has to step out from behind the bar and in between some of the news commentators there at the Sidetrack Tap. Though as they get older of course, why they tend to wait for Wally to come out and stand between them before they get too rambunctious, Mr. Tolerude and Mr Diener were going at it hear the other day in Lake Waban across the Lutherans tend to be Republicans- the Catholics, Democrats. So they had something to talk about right there. They got going at it pretty hard- Wally had to come out, stand in between these old geezers.
Mister Tolerud stood up and he took a good hold of Wally with one hand and then he reached over his shoulder to get at Mr Deaner he said, “let go of me.” He said “let go of me. Let me at him. You're so dumb”, he said “you deserve to be a Democrat.”
Mr Diener said, “look at ya”, he said “you're drunk, you're disgusting and you're ugly and you believe in Reaganomics? What's next for you?” Couple of old guys kind of leaning on each other after a few whiskeys.
I tell you I don't know where they get their excitement. I kind of lost a lot of mine as far as politics goes a while back. I think television took a lot of the passion and the mystery out of politics. I don't know that it's true, but television’s been blamed for so many things what's one more? Stick that on it too. I think about passion in politics. I think about the late Hubert Humphrey and not the Hubert Humphrey on television who was quite different but the Hubert Humphrey back in Minnesota doing what he loved to do, which was to be out on the stump- out on the hustings and pressing the flesh- talking to people.
About 30 years ago it was a picnic- It was out in a grove of trees about 20 miles from home. He would have been in his first term in the Senate. And the Farmers Union was having a picnic -It was in July. They put up a pine platform there under the oak trees and about 1000 people sat eating hotdogs on the blankets, waiting for the festivities to begin. Farmers- most of them dressed up even though it was hot and those were wool suits. Dressed up because you know, people in town look down on farmers, even the soda jerk at the drugstore sees a farmer walk down the street- he thinks farmer. Dumb. So farmers like to go formal in public. And there they were, sitting eating hot dogs in their suits. Waiting for the great man to come off down the road or glancing off to be the first to catch sight of his car and some of the boys walked off down the gravel for ways to be the first to see him and then all of a sudden he came and the car was in the clearing and he got out and he was in amongst people and touching them- squeezing them- admiring babies talking to people- and then up on the platform with a bunting draped on the front of it- and he took off his jacket, which was a cue to the rest of them to take off theirs. And he launched into it.
And it was an old public address system operated off the battery of a truck with three big horn speakers up on the roof. And after about 5 minutes it went dead. But he just put the microphone aside and he stood up and he put a hand on the rail and he looked at him and soon he was in full voice. You could hear just the wind and the trees and a far off tractor cultivating and the voice of Humphrey sailing out over these people. Everybody was so quiet they'd never seen him- heard him before. Except on the radio. His voice had that rising and falling cadence as it goes on... rhythmic pattern denouncing evil and injustice and intolerance, stupidity. Sailing on. And when he got into full cry, he'd hit a note- a musical note- at the end of his sentence which his voice would rise up and sing and be full of anger and full of love and full of sweetness. And people just sat and feasted on it.
After a while, big beads of sweat glistening on his face and a big dark patch of sweat on the back of his shirt. He's like a runner, a long distance runner he was. He’d go a long time. And later people’d make fun of him for it, and he'd make fun of himself for it. But these farmers had come a long way to see him and waited a long time, and they expected more than just a hello and a how do you do- they wanted to see a performance and he gave it to em and on and on he went. And I tell you, it was a speech that made the bells ring and the organs play and the flags flew. And if that man had spread his arms and levitated 12 feet off the ground, nobody would've blinked.
And then all of a sudden he was done. He was over standing by the car and people lining up to shake his hand just to look at him. He stood there, drenched in sweat. And your dad made you get in line. You didn't want to what your dad said it’d be something that you remember and be able to tell your children about. And finally you got up to him and you put your hand up. You reached up and put your hand in his. You didn't dare look at him. You looked down at the ground. And when he said hi, how you doing?
You just said “….ahhhh...”
I was telling Clarence Bunson about this the other day. Telling him that it had been a long time since I had met a politician and said “….ahhhh...” and that television had taken all the passion and the mystery out of it you know.
And Clarence said “No”, he said “There comes a time in your life when people your own age and younger start taking over the world. And that's when the music stops and you start worrying. “
It's like when you look at your father one day and your father looks old and kind of fragile. And doesn't look so all knowing or all powerful as he used to. And you think to yourself well, maybe he never was. Maybe he never was. Maybe I've always had to kind of look out for myself and didn't realize it.
There was a father who got in that situation here this last week at the Bergie household, when the bedroom ceiling fell and almost wiped out the two of them, Bob and the missus. Bob has been experimenting with acorn squash and he stored a batch of them up in the attic. Thinking that they would stay longer up there than down in the basement where it's damp so he had a test group that he put up in the attic. And a control group that was down in the basement. But then he figured, well, if it's going to work if it's going to work, why not put all of them up there so he did. And it was dark and he was unable to examine the attic floor, which in his case he does not have. Just the sheetrock fastened with little sheetrock tacks.
And of course, there was no warning here on Tuesday night. No little squeaking or groaning sounds just all let loose at once, and of course, just one end came loose so as to direct the avalanche of squash down towards their bed- It was like a truck hit them. The missus woke up and sat up in bed with squash falling all around her. And Bob had already gone, he'd leaped up out- he's down in the kitchen already. And in a state of shock, I guess he put a couple pieces of bread in the toaster. Didn't know what he was doing or why, but it made him feel better so. When the toast popped away, he threw it out and came upstairs. Saw that most of the squash was OK. Threw one out the window without noticing that the storm was still shut. And then noticed his son Curtis standing there, watching them.
His wife was in the bathroom. She was brushing her teeth and weeping. Bob gave Curtis a fatherly look and he said, “you know, if anybody ever mentions this to me, I’ll know who told him, do you hear me?”
And Curtis said “yes, I hear you”.
So it’s still a secret up there. I imagine other people might have heard it, but you don't inquire about loud crashes, in somebody else is home. It usually indicates the mistake in judgment. And they might not want the world to know about it.
Old Mr Weiss here not too many months ago stood up on his kitchen table to replace a light bulb. Not noticing that it was a drop leaf table. On his way down, he made a grab for his wife salt shaker collection on a couple of shells, brought that down with him. Minutes later his neighbor, Mrs Irene Bunson, knocked on the door, wanted to know if he was alright, wanted to know what happened. He looked her in the eye, he said “Irene” he said, “I wouldn't tell you even if you'd been here to see it.”
Well, it was a real keynote for Halloween I’ll tell ya- a whole load of squash dropping on your bed out of nowhere. People getting kinda ready for Halloween by telling stories about poison. Adults talk about it in Lake Wobegon, recite the latest story they've read in the papers, heard on the radio. Don't talk about that in front of children- not wanting to frighten them. The idea of these strange poisonings. But, you know, children have been frightening themselves for a good long time. They've been frightened by worse things than that, and this is the time of year when it starts to come true for you.
When it gets dark earlier and when it’s chilly and the trees are bare and the earth seems so dark on a moonless night, it almost absorbs any light that there is- and little wind can make those dry leaves hiss and rattle. And in six blocks between school and home after dark a kid can think of a lot of stuff. Terrible people lurking in all the dark places, of which there are so many. And then up in the trees- cougars. Pumas up there. Their muscles tensed and their tails twitching. Except of course in the trees where there are snakes. Giant boa constrictors that got out of the zoo truck. The zoo truck that drove through town about 1/2 hour ago. This box fell off the back of the zoo truck.
And one zookeeper said, “well, shall we go back and get it?”
The other guy said “naw... they won't hurt anybody will they, no, they won't hurt even unless they get up in a tree and somebody walks underneath it.”
Big boa constrictors hanging up there looking just like limbs, you walk along and pretty soon you start running, slowly. But when you run, it's easy to believe somebody may be chasing you otherwise where would you be running? So you run faster and faster, and know that it's getting closer and closer it's right behind you- big Cougars running on their padded feet, and big boa constrictors swinging from tree to tree. Until you hit the door and you throw it open and you throw yourself inside and lock it. And then there's only your bedroom closet and under your bed to worry about.
Oh children. Children, children, children. I wish we could save you from all of that terror. Don't scare yourselves. Remember that the hairs on your head are numbered and his eye is on the sparrow. So he's looking out for the cougars too. They're not there, I'm almost positive.
That's the news from Lake Logan, Minnesota, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
GK has not missed football during the strike. Tourist highlights of St. Paul. Some cats don't grow thick coats and need hair restorer.
Star Tribune Nov 2 1982
1982.10.30 Louisville Courier / 1982.11.02 Star Tribune / This is a Berto tape. Only 90 minutes. / Audio of the News available on CD.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto