Michael Doucet, Richard Dworsky, Garrison Keillor, Howard Mohr, Dave Moore,
Happy trails to you ( Garrison Keillor ) Damn cold ( Garrison Keillor ) Lynn Cruz - engineer ( Garrison Keillor ) Treasures untold ( Garrison Keillor ) Waiting for a train ( Garrison Keillor ) I'm gonna be all right ( Dave Moore ) She ain't no good ( Dave Moore ) Adolo rido ( Dave Moore ) America ( Richard Dworsky ) Momma is a dancin' girl ( Richard Dworsky ) Blackbird ( Richard Dworsky ) Johnny can't dance ( Michael Doucet ) Cowboy waltz ( Michael Doucet ) Pretty little black eyes ( Michael Doucet ) Young woman ( Michael Doucet ) The Battle of New Orleans ( Michael Doucet )
Bob Louven Bible College Cherished Government Booklets Father Emil Minnesota Language Systems Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Powdermilk Biscuits Prairie Home Low Temperature Starting Advice
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Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobbegon, my hometown. It's been cold up there this last week. One reason for being as quiet as it has been. So cold, in fact, that cars would not start. Cars that had always started, good starters, died. One day this last week, what day was it, I forget, Monday or Tuesday, Mr. Odegaard, one of the great Norwegian bachelor farmers, his Ford pickup died on him, never had died before and died in the middle of the day. I believe that was on Tuesday. He was in the sidetrack tap for a while doing what he ordinarily does in there and came out and that pickup had cashed in its chips right there in the parking lot. He was so angry he just set out walking. Thought he'd walk home, show it, teach it a lesson, would let it sit there. Walked for a ways out, walked about two miles out west on the county road towards his house and it was cold.
And he did what a Norwegian bachelor farmer would rather not ever do. He turned around and he waited for a car to come to hitchhike. Asking a favor of other people. A Norwegian bachelor farmer would just about almost rather die than do that. Because what would he do if a car stopped? He wasn't sure. Get in. And then what? To have to talk to him. What if it was somebody he disliked? What would they talk about? Well, they wouldn't have to talk about much because there's only a few miles to his house. But then he'd have to thank them at the end of it. He'd have to say, thanks. And it wouldn't be easy. But it was cold. It was so cold. The wind blowing out across the snowy field had brought tears to his eyes. He stood and waited for a car to come, and he saw a car coming. It was a green Chevy. It was Mr. Bowser from the post office in his green postal service Chevy, hightailing it out of town, who knows where. He put out his thumb, and Mr. Bowser drove right past him. He couldn't believe it. He turned around and he screamed at him. He said, tell what you, tell what you, just tell what you. He said, I'm not ever going in your postal service again.
I'm not going to walk in your, I'm never going to write another letter in my life. Shouted things at Mr. Bowser long after he had disappeared down the road. Mr. Bowser has been preoccupied. Lately, though, he's been thinking about himself at the age of 58 and thinking about trying to make something out of himself, do something outstanding with his life, not just work in the post office sorting mail until he retires. He's been thinking about an idea that he's had now for about five or six years, ever since he bought a Lawn Quest Rider Moor. I've been thinking about getting some guys together who enjoy Ryder Moors and setting a new cross-country Ryder Moor record. Month, five weeks, whatever it would take. Maybe no one has ever done this before. Maybe it's not even in the Guinness Book of World Records. Cross-country Ryder Moors. So they wouldn't even have to drive all that fast. They'd take six weeks, seven weeks, set a record.
Los Angeles to New York on Ryder Moors. It'd be something. People would talk about it. People would pay attention. Or maybe start from New York, go New York to Los Angeles. Start in New York where the national news media are. It might be better to have the news media there for the beginning of your trip rather than the end of your trip. The end of your trip might not be so photogenic. Start in New York, go Los Angeles. He'd been thinking about that, thinking of taking a leave of absence from the Postal Service if they offer such a thing and getting something going with rider mowers, finding a sponsor, maybe get some endorsement contracts. It could lead to something. But Mr. Odegaard didn't know that as he stood out on the shoulder of the county road and watched that green Chevy disappear over the hills and into the trees. He just screamed at him. Anger made him warmer. He walked a little faster.
He hoped that he might catch Mr. Bowser by the side of the road a little farther on with perhaps a flat tire. And he thought he might kill him. There was a team of evangelists came to town on that cold day this week. A whole bunch of them came from Bob Louven Bible College down in Blunt, Georgia in a blue Motor Van looked like they had come directly from Georgia up to Minnesota, thinking that the fields were white for harvest up here, but it was snow in the fields, and they looked as if they didn't like it very much, as if warm clothing was not doing them any good at all. They worked the houses out north and west of town along the county road. They worked them in teams of two. The blue motor van with Bob Luven Bible College, Blunt, Georgia written on the side, sitting out in the yard, its motor idling, as a couple of evangelists made a run for the front door and knocked on it real hard and said, Good morning, ma'am. We're from Bob Luven Bible College in Blunt, Georgia. Mind if we come in for a while and share something out of the book of 1 Corinthians? And she said, what, huh?
And they said, do you mind if we come in, please? They didn't like winter very much at all. And looked as if they might want to not just come into your house, but stay for a few months. Just go right upstairs into a spare bedroom. But the thing about these evangelists was that they didn't look like the sort of people you would want to have stay with you for a couple of months. They looked like the sort of people who, if they came and stayed with you, after a few days they would find some verse back in the prophets that proved why you ought to serve them four meals a day instead of three and why you ought to be making their beds for them. So they got turned away from homes, one home after another. The Toleruds turned them away and the Rehnquists and the Olsens turned them away and they all sat and huddled in that blue motor home from Bob Luvin Bible College in Blunt, Georgia until finally they decided to shake the snow off their sandals and head out. And they headed out west on the old county road. headed out and saw an old man standing on the shoulder of the road, standing there with his thumb out, edging up onto the pavement. waving his thumb at them as that blue motor home whizzed on past. The old man standing there on the shoulder of the road with his finger out as he looked at them, yelling things at them, which it remains to be seen whether they will come true or not. But he was hoping. It was a cold day. It was a cold day. I believe it was Tuesday. If it wasn't Tuesday, it was Monday or Wednesday. Take your choice between the three. I forget. I forget because there was an item of news this week in Lake Wobegon. Another strange motor vehicle seen in town. A long black car. Limousine, I don't know if you call it a limousine, but probably about as much of a limousine as you're likely to ever see in Lake Wolpegon.
Long black car with a silver angel hood ornament pulled up in front of the rectory of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility and sat there with its motor running. Long black car. Just during morning recess at Our Lady's school next to the rectory, just as Sister Arvon had all of the livestock all lined up there on the sidewalk between the two railings, ready to get them moving up the chute and into the classrooms... This long black car pulled up at the curb and the livestock all turned and looked and all of them made a break for it and galloped over to the fence and stood and stared at this long black car sitting there. as a tall man in a black suit and coat and black hat, a tall man with a tan got out of the back seat. There was a driver in the front seat, got out of the back seat and stood and looked at them. Just as Sister Arvon was saying, all right, everybody inside now,
He stood there on the sidewalk and said, Good morning, sister, and walked up to the rectory door and knocked and disappeared inside and was there for about a half hour, halfway into algebra. The long black car sat by the curb, its motor running, so that the children who went to the blackboard to work problems all looked out the window and down, watching that car, clouds of exhaust coming out, until Sister Arvon said, don't look at it, don't think about it, I'm watching it, I'll let you know if anything happens. What happened, though she didn't know this and still doesn't, was that Father Emil had submitted his resignation as priest asking to be relieved of his duties. He's 74. Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Church, this is what makes it complicated, is a mission church that was established there by Benedictine priests back about 1857 to minister to the Ojibwe Indians and then later to the German settlers who came out and who were following maps that had been drawn by a Reverend Schlafmeister, Father Schlafmeister, who was a Benedictine priest back in Pennsylvania, at an abbey in Pennsylvania, and who had drawn maps of the West, as this was called back then, partly from some letters he'd gotten from people and partly just sheer imagination. And in these maps that he drew before the Civil War back in the 1850s, he had placed Minnesota a good deal farther west than it actually is. So that these German Catholics who believed in his map and came west settled here in Minnesota but still with a feeling that what they were looking for was farther on to the west. That this was where they meant to be and this was the right place for them but that it actually maybe wasn't here but farther on Minnesota out there to the west but they couldn't go out there because it was here and yet they felt that it might not be. Do you know what I mean? A frustrating situation which has continued for more than a hundred years. It might not be here. It might be just a little farther.
Our Lady Church was founded as a mission church to serve these people and ever since has been under the jurisdiction not of the diocese but of this abbey out in Percase, Pennsylvania, the Abbey of St. Frederick, where Father Emil sent his letter asking to be relieved of his duties, which reached the abbot last week. But the abbot, you see, has only been in office for 11 years and Father Emil has been at Our Lady for 30-some years and the abbot had no idea that he had a church he was responsible for out in Minnesota because Father Emil tends not to ask for a lot of directions from superiors. He likes to deal his own hand, you might say. which threw the abbot into a panic to think that here was a church sitting out in Minnesota that he had been responsible for all these years and he hadn't even been aware of it out there in Minnesota like a cannon loose on the decks of the church, if you know what I mean. And the thought of cannon made him even more nervous. thinking it might be, who knows, it might be one of those nutty right-wing churches out there where they store up ammo in the basements and the Knights of Columbus have tear gas canisters in the hilts of their swords and carry walkie-talkies under their capes. One of those places. He wasn't sure. So he called out to Minnesota in a panic and called the Bishop of Brainerd. And he... And he said, he said, I've got a surprise for you. He said, I have just discovered that we have a parish out there and I'm wondering if you wouldn't like it to be yours. So that was the man who was in the long black car. The tall man in the black suit and the black coat and the black hat with the tan was the Bishop of Brainerd. come to call on Father Emil and to sit there in the dark parlor of the rectory and sit and sip a cup of Sanka and talk to this old man. He couldn't see his face. The bishop couldn't see Father Emil's face.
Father Emil was sitting in his old black rocker and he was sitting with his back to the window. The light, the sunlight coming in through the window over his shoulder so that he could only see the old man's corona of white hair and his shoulder. He couldn't see his face. Father Emo likes to sit that way when parishioners visit. It makes an impression on them. He kind of looks like the ghost of Christmas to come. The bishop sat balancing his cup of Senka on one knee and then the other, trying to see into this old man's face. He said, so you feel that it's a time for you to step down? Father Emil said, no, I don't feel that it is. I know that it is. He said, I always hoped and prayed that I would know when the time came and now it has and I know it. The bishop said, how old are you then?
Father Emil said, I'm 74. He said, when would you like a new man to come in? Father Emil said, I would like the privilege of celebrating Easter Mass. And I would like to leave on Monday, the 31st of March, the day after Easter. The bishop said, what are your plans then, Father? He said, my plan is that you will take care of me for the rest of my life. The bishop said, well, I would think the abbey of St. Frederick in Perchesi might have made some provision for that. Father said, I don't think so. He said, but whatever, he said. Monday the 31st, I'll just pack my bag and sit on it out at the curb and wait for you to come. So the bishop said, all right. Got up to leave. Still hadn't seen Father Emil's face. Felt kind of strange about it. felt strange about it all the way out to the car. And as the car pulled away from the curb, he'd known about Lake Wobegon, of course. Lake Wobegon is a border town. It sits right smack on the line between the Diocese of Brainerd and the Diocese of St. Cloud. For some reason, the Bishop of St. Cloud and the Bishop of Brainerd have never found it a problem. have never argued over which one of them ought to have jurisdiction over. Lake Wobegon, it's not that kind of town that you'd argue about. It was a strange town, he thought, as he drove away. It would require a particular man, a particular sort of man, to serve this town and the parish. Strange place. Old priest sitting like a ghost in the rectory. And then out on the sidewalk, this guy who'd come up and talked to him, the bishop, about rider mowers and a project that he thought maybe the church might be interested in sponsoring. Strange, strange deal. And now, as he headed towards Brainerd in the back seat of his long black car, this old man standing down the road, not on the shoulder, but standing out in the middle of the road, waving his arms up and down. The driver had to put on his brakes and veer way over to the left to get around this man.
The bishop looked out the rear window just in time to see the man throw something at them. It hit the back window. He winced, but it didn't crack. The rear window, it stuck to the rear window. It stayed there for a few miles. They stopped and John got out and went around back to scrape it off. But it wouldn't scrape off. It just kind of smeared across the rear window. And they rode all the way into Brainerd with the reminder of it right behind them. More about this later. That's the news from Lake Wobegon. For all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
Folk Songs: "Bringin in the cows" 'The key of G" "Land of dusty roads" "I like bananas" "No parting there" "Song of the polar bear". Lynn Cruz is leaving after years as the PHC's engineer
Archival contributors: Frank Berto