Greg Brown, Philip Brunelle, Butch Thompson Trio, Garrison Keillor, Charlie Maguire, Vern Sutton. Thompson Brothers Ragtime Orchestra,
State Fair food song ( Greg Brown ) Walking down to Casey's ( Greg Brown ) Fare thee well Titanic ( Greg Brown ) Animal fair ( Greg Brown ) Sidewalk blues (Thompson Brothers Ragtime Orchestra ) The Chrysanthemum (Thompson Brothers Ragtime Orchestra ) Purple rose of Cairo (Thompson Brothers Ragtime Orchestra ) Elvira ( Garrison Keillor , Greg Brown ) Mr. Casual ( Garrison Keillor , Greg Brown ) The future ( Garrison Keillor , Greg Brown ) We'll be there ( Garrison Keillor , Greg Brown ) Nearer to thee ( Garrison Keillor , Greg Brown ) Duluth ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Wisconsin evermore ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Minnesota Moon ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Piano bench ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Collegiate ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) No flies on us ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Goodnight baby ( Charlie Maguire ) Fall is Here ( Charlie Maguire )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique Bunsen, Arlene Bunsen, Duane Butch Thompson Mortgage Corporation Earl and his Buddies Driving School of Offensive Driving Fearmonger's Shop Greg Brown Music Corporation Powdermilk Biscuits Sidetrack Tap
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Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. My hometown, Duane Bunsen called here just this last week. What was it? Friday night, I think. He went up to Alaska, you know, with his pals on that trip. He called back home to say that the reason he had not come home on Thursday night was that they were having such a good time and that he probably would be staying until a week from Tuesday, that is, this coming Tuesday. Arlene answered the phone, his mom answered the phone. She said, "Oh, you were supposed to be back last night." He said, "Yeah, that was the plan. We were going to be back on Thursday night." She said, "Oh, I didn't realize that." He said, "You didn't realize that?" He said, "That's what I said." He said, "You know, this is pretty wild country up here. You know, we were thinking about doing some rock climbing and there were rocks, cliffs, sheer rock going straight up. You can get a guide to help you with this, but we were thinking, no, we wouldn't do it. We'd just go climb. And I mean, if you go up on a trip like that, you want people to know when you're supposed to be back. So if you don't get back, you know, they would send out someone to look for you. And she said, "Oh, well, I didn't realize you were supposed to be back last night." It hurt his feelings, I'll tell you, to be overdue and not to be noticed. But he is the youngest of four children, and she pretty well used up all her hysteria on the first three. There's not much left over for the youngest. The first two children, she used to worry any time she'd leave them out in the sandbox, worry that they'd eat handfuls of the stuff and choke. The third one came along, Barbara Ann, she wouldn't take the training wheels off the bike for two years. She was so worried. Now the fourth one comes along and... Maybe climbing sheer cliffs up in Alaska. And she just hopes that he, you know, dresses warmly. Wears a sweater. Well, she's had a lot on her mind lately. She read a magazine article last week entitled, How Good Is Your Marriage Really? And she took the quiz at the end of it. And found her score in the guide and it said, maybe a little counseling wouldn't hurt. Which really shocked her, so she went back, took it again. By that time, of course, she knew all the right answers, so that when she had a score that said, congratulations, you've worked hard for a good marriage and now you have one, it didn't make her feel any better. So she's had that to think about. And she went in to get glasses on Monday this week, which was hard for her, even though she knew for months, years, that she was going to have to get them. She's been having to study things so hard, you know, the newspaper and magazine. When you have to slow down for road signs. So she went in to take an eye test last week and saw the art chart up there and with all the letters on it, she kind of felt like getting up out of her chair, going over, looking at it, you know, as you're curious what was up there. So Monday she had to go down to Clifford's to get a pair of glasses. Clifford has the shoe store in town. He sells glasses too in the back. Arlene went in kind of pretending she was shopping for shoes and then She said well as long as I'm here. Maybe I'll have a look at some glasses So she did she bought a pair But when she got home, she just cried her eyes out. It was so depressing. He didn't have any glasses in there that really looked good. They were all either sort of grandmother glasses or they were young miss glasses, you know, decorator glasses or kind of your valedictorian girl scout glasses. There weren't any Arlene Bunsen glasses here. Interesting, mature woman style. But the worst of it was that Clifford didn't seem to care about this. He showed her all these pears and she'd try on one horrible pear after another. And he'd just say, that looks good on you. That looks real good on you. Or he'd say, you know, that's a real popular model now. We're having a hard time keeping those in stock. She tried on the ugliest pair in the store, a pair of silver pixie glasses with rhinestones on the bows. And he said, "That looks good on you. That looks real stylish." And after a while, she got the clear impression that what Clifford was really saying was, "What's the big deal? You're 55 years old. What does it matter? It matters a lot. She thought, "Boy, if Shirley MacLaine went to get glasses, you know, she'd go someplace where they really cared what she wore. She'd go someplace where a guy was gonna look through all the glasses and find the one that would actually make her look better." And he'd say, "Shirley, sweetheart, these are your glasses here. These are beautiful. Trust me on this, sweetheart." And Shirley had put on the glasses and wow, they'd be great. But Shirley MacLaine doesn't live in Lake Wobegon and she's not Lutheran. And if you do, and you are, then you have to go to Clifford for your glasses. 'Cause if you got 'em someplace else, he'd notice it on one Sunday morning and he'd come up to you after service and he'd say, "Where'd you get those glasses?" And you'd tell him, and he'd say, oh, you should have come to me. I could have gotten them for you cheaper. But cheap isn't the problem. The problem is finding someone who knows that you want to be attractive. Even those of us who look like we don't care what we look like. Because we're old. We still want to look good. It's hard getting old. I know. I've studied the subject for a long, long time. Ever since I was a kid. And I looked at old people who were the age that I am now. And I always thought there was something faintly disgusting about them. They were almost inert, some of them. Hardly ever moved. And they talked about dull, dumb things. And a lot of the adults did things that if a kid had done them, a kid would have been spoken to very sharply. I had an uncle, Uncle Ernie, used to eat with his mouth full. Sit there at the table and he'd turn and ask you to pass the meat and potatoes and there'd be a big wad of meat and potatoes. Yuck. Big wad of potatoes and gravy and peas. Looking you right in the eye. If I had done that, my mother would have said, "Don't eat with your mouth full, or talk with your mouth full." Nobody said boo to Ernie, I'll tell you. I remember looking at adults when I was little and thinking to myself, "When I get to be that age, I'm going to remember one thing." And now I'm that age and I kind of forget what that was. But I think it was, "Don't ever grow up to be like that." But then I got glasses, you see, when I was eight years old. Went down to Clifford with my mother. First pair I tried on, little octagonal wire rim glasses. He said, those look good. She said, fine, we'll take them. I looked like just kind of a little old man. Eight years old. Well, Arlene, she got herself the clear plastic frame, sort of on the theory that maybe if the light was right, you wouldn't be able to see them, you know. Kind of like that piece of plastic that the president reads his speeches off when he looks through it into the camera and smiles at us. She thought maybe people wouldn't notice that she had glasses, but they do notice because she keeps taking them off and putting them on, depending on whether she wants to see or be seen. Take them off when she talks to you and put them back on to see who you are. And Clarence keeps telling her, she says, they look nice, they look good on you. But she knows what his sense of taste is. She's been married to him for a long time. He doesn't have much. This last spring for her birthday, he gave her a $15 gift certificate for the beauty shop down in the central building. He said, "Go treat yourself to the works. Have a good time." But he doesn't know Myrtle, the beautician down there. She specializes in permanence, the sort of permanent that makes a woman look old enough to have been around when those were popular. Arlene's been in any number of times with a little photograph, you know, from a magazine. She shows it to Myrtle. She says, here, could you do this? Could you do this for me? And Myrtle says, oh, now that wouldn't be practical, dear. That would take you too much time to keep up. You'd be spending an hour a day in front of a mirror. Arlene thinks, maybe I want to. Maybe I don't want to be practical. So she took up running this last week. Kind of a big step for her. She'd never done that in her life. Except for when the washer starts to shimmy on the spin cycle. Took up running and she got a pair of Dwayne's gym shorts and her sneakers and a gray sweatshirt and she decided that every morning she was going to run up to the dump and back. It's about a half mile. And it was hard. Along with the legs, you know, hurting so much. It was also hard for all the people who stopped and offered her a ride. Car after car, pickup after pickup, stop alongside Arlene. Say, everything all right, Arlene? You need a ride? She'd say, I'm going up to the dump. She'd say, I'm going up that way. I'll give you a lift. She said, no, I got to run now. See ya. Ran up to the dump. So Wednesday, Thursday morning, she started taking a little bag of garbage with her on her run in the morning. Just so people have an idea there's some purpose involved in it. And it looks unusual. A woman who can't wait to get the garbage out has to run a quarter mile every day. But that's her business. It's not easy getting old. As old Mrs. Inkvist said, she said, it's not for the timid. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, all the children are above average.
The LW Whippets beat New Munich and are now 2 - 12. The MN State Fair is open. The story of Icaraus' wax wings. He was shy and nobody saw his flight. Vern Sutton's opera wrestling.
1988-09-03 1990-09-08
1983.09.03 Star Tribune / rebroadcast on September 8, 1990.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto, Ken Kuhl