Butch Thompson Trio. Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys, Queen Ida, Riders in the Sky,
[undocumented]
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my old hometown. No signs of Christmas as yet. Christmas decorations are not up on Main Street and probably never will be if Bud has his way. He never was excited about it- climbing up those old wooden light poles to hang the stars and the angels. He’s even less excited about it since he slid down one about two years ago. Embracing it with his arms and legs. It was an experience to remember.
Though it may not look like Christmas, you can hear that Christmas is coming if you listen closely in town. You'll hear people mention it and occasionally hear someone whistle a tune you might remember. And if you followed some of the high school kids, and if you were invisible you might see them one by one, all by themselves walking down the street looking over their shoulders to make sure no one is listening.
And then singing, “hodea, hodea, hodea, hodea crystals. Nah ha ha ha ha too cest”
A piece, they're rehearsing at the high school for the Christmas concert. Miss Falconer’s High School choir in rehearsal and coming to the serious stage of rehearsal too, when she sighs a lot. And gives them looks and folds her arms. Looks at them and says “people, this is not that difficult.”
Well, maybe for her it's not, but for some of those boys in that choir it's well, nigh impossible. Big gangly kids, long arms and legs hardly know what to do with their limbs, let alone their voices. It's hard- boys who sort of mumble if they ever speak at all. One hour every day having to stand in rows on the risers in the band room in the basement. And 16th century polyphony supposed to come out of their mouths.
You don't get to specialize in a school that small, you know. You have to do all sorts of things. One day you're out banging around on the football field and coach Magandanz is trying to bring out the crazed brute in you. Next minute you're up on the risers. Miss Falconer is trying to summon up the ethereal side of your nature. Sometimes not easily summoned.
She says “people, if you're not willing to work on this, then maybe we ought to cancel the whole thing.” And the boys think,” yeah. well, maybe we should.”
But she's not gonna do it. She says tenors “open your minds when you sing. You can't sing with your mouth shut. Basses, read the notes, they’re right there in front of you. Now try it one more time. ...on page 42.”
And they try it one more time, hoping that it will appear magically. After all, it's a Christmas concert. Miracles have been known to happen before. Not necessarily with that choir though.
Father Emil’s been hoping for miracles now for months, cash miracles. Large sums appearing suddenly, maybe Sister come running into the rectory some morning with a big bundle of bills in her fist saying “look, I found him under my pillow. They were there when I woke up this morning.
Maybe a letter from Reader's Digest sweepstakes. Addressed to Father Emil Lake Wobegon. Dear Mr Emil... Thousands and thousands of dollars.
Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility has always had a cash flow problem. But it's winter when Father Emil really feels the pinch. You know if you've ever gone up the hill and stepped into the church, you probably were impressed to find such a magnificent building in the town that small- a great brick 19th century pseudo Gothic pile up there on the hill. Great vaulted ceilings, soaring space up above you. Pretty impressive stained glass, including the one of the Sacred Heart that if you look at it when the light is right, it just almost seems to burn a hole in you and a great population of statues there in the sanctuary you sit in there alone and never feel lonely. A whole gang of Saints with you.
The architect who designed that church, Mr Emile Beebo, who was an itinerant 19th century Minnesota Gothic architect evidently intended those great upper spaces to give the music room to reverberate up there, which it does, and to inspire the faithful to let their hearts soar upward. Never really figured in the cost of heating all of that space. Warm air rises, you know, so you gotta heat that area up above where the hearts goes soaring before it gets warm down where the hearts take off from down in the pews. And those stained glass windows are not combination windows. I don't think they make storms in that size. And the heating bill every year just knock your socks off.
Father Emil has been keeping the temperature at 50 degrees. He doesn't want to go in debt for fuel oil because he gets it from Bunsen Motors, and he'd rather not be in hock to Lutherans.
So it’s been chilly. It has been chilly. He dropped a letter off to the diocese, suggesting that maybe if they had a few thousand dollars lying around- and they quickly disabused him of that notion. Bishop wrote back and said, “I sympathize. There is nothing I can do about it”, and technically Our Lady Parish does not come under the Bishop. It's not a diocesan parish it was founded over 100 years ago by a band of wandering monks who came out from their Abbey in Pennsylvania. Founded this church as a mission. And so technically, Father Emil reports to the Abbot of Saint Boniface Abbey back in Buena Vista, PA.
Trouble is the Abbot only responds when Father Emil reports good news. The abbot's kind of what you might call an optimist in that way. And when Father Emil reports that the rectory needs a new roof, or that the furnace in the school sounds like a steam thresher, or that they need money for fuel oil, it's kind of like that tree that falls in the forest, you know, where nobody’s around.
So it's been 50 degrees on Sunday mornings all month. Faithful sit down in the pews, bundled up in overcoats, you can see their breaths when they say their responses. Father Emil mentioned it in his homily this last Sunday. Said that he thought that central heating had contributed to the breakup of the American family. That back in days gone past you know there was usually only one warm room in a home during the winter months so you wouldn't have mother going off one way and the father off another and the kids all going up to their rooms to be by themselves 'cause those rooms would be cold- family all sit down together by the fire until the last moment when they make a break for it and race up the bed.
People didn't go off and do their own thing then, unless they were very well bundled up. Which somewhat limited their choices. He was suggesting that maybe it was time for the family of God to endure a little chill and that it would bring them all closer together.
It didn't go over very well. Our Lady is not exactly a democracy- I mean people don't stand up during the homily and make points of order- object to things- but Father Evil knows when he's dropped a rock among the flock.
So he's thinking of maybe moving mass to the cafeteria in the school. It's big enough. There wouldn't be any stained glass, there wouldn't be any organ, there wouldn't be any lofty spaces for your heart to soar up into. They'd have to make do with a lot of folding chairs and some benches made for little people.
But he might do it. Father Emil welcomes adversity. He's excited by it. That's why he loves winter so much. Summer makes him uneasy. Idea of just walking in and out and all over not paying any attention to things like there's no force of gravity or anything to, to improve your concentration. Last Sunday, I’ll tell you, up there with two sweaters on and a heavy overcoat under his vestments he was like a mountain up there. A man in his element. I don't think he really is hoping for miracles. I think he's hoping to be tried. And to come through with his colors flying. And I'll bet he will though- I'm not so sure about the choir.
The concert is a week from this Friday. Includes some easy stuff, and it includes that hautier. And I can imagine that turning out perfectly. But I know that it won't. Because I was in that choir. I remember how it was. Music could be perfect in your head, you know, the music was perfect, you could hear it perfectly up in your head until the time came to open your mouth and let it out. And then it wasn't quite it. It was close, but it wasn't quite it. It was worse for being close, you know what I mean? If you miss by a long shot, if you miss by a mile, that's comedy. Close is hard.
I remember, I had an uncle who reminded me of this. He was a wonderful storyteller. The best I ever heard. He had two stories. One was a story about going to the city with his father to sell cattle and the other was a story about a house burning down. The one about the fire was my favorite. It took him- each story would take him about 45 minutes to tell. Though he had a longer version as well. And when people told stories when I was a kid, we usually tell him in the winter time and almost always after dark and always with relatives sitting in close in the room. And everybody’d sit absolutely quiet- just taking shallow breaths. And not moving.
Nobody clapped at the end of em. You sat there without moving until when you finally got up hours later your legs had gone to sleep. And you'd fall over. That was a sign of success for a storyteller. My uncle, if he told his two stories back to back and told the extended versions- when he got to the end of the whole room full of people stand up and all of em pitch forward. That's how good he was.
I told him once when I was older I said, “you know, I think I heard your story about the house burning down about 20 times.” And I said, “you know, for all the times I've heard it, I'd love to hear it again. I love it now more than the first time I heard it”
And he said, “You know, for all the times I told it, I've never gotten it quite right.” He said “when you talk about your own people you never get it exactly right.” And I know what he means and he's probably right. But you don't dare not try.
That's the news from Lake Woebegone, Minnesota, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and the children are above average.
Bangor Daily News Dec 4 1982
1982.12.04 Berkshire Eagle / 1982.12.04 Indianapolis Star