Butch Thompson Trio, James Depogny, Carol Hofsted, James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band, Garrison Keillor, Leroy Larson, Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble. Peter Ostroushko, Pop Wagner,
Norwegian National Anthem ( Carol Hofsted ) Syttende Mai Today in Lake Wobegon ( Garrison Keillor , Peter Ostroushko ) Laura Polka ( Leroy Larson , Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble ) I've Got Rhythm (Butch Thompson Trio ) Breezing (James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band ) Disco on the Bayou ( Pop Wagner ) Scandinavian Drinking Song ( Garrison Keillor , Leroy Larson ) Jet Plane ( Garrison Keillor ) Country Boy (James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band ) Old Man River (James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band ) Norwegian Walking Tune ( Leroy Larson ) Stroms Are On the Ocean ( Garrison Keillor , Pop Wagner ) Sinclair Schottische ( Leroy Larson ) Beer Barrel Polka ( Peter Ostroushko , James Depogny )
Fearmonger's Shop (Warning about night creatures and the need of the "Bed Net") Hedlund, Roger
This transcription may have been auto-created from the audio. Can you help improve the text? Email us!
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown. Sitting to my, the opening of fishing season today on this very day. I wonder what they're doing now. I'm not sure that I want to know. Having a good time, I hope. It's been very rainy this last week. Got an awful lot of rain, which was good for all the lawns and the gardens of town. Not really for the farmers, but for the people in town it was. Everything just turned so green this last week. Such a powerful shade of green all through the town. Walk down the alleys where there are alleys. and along the streets and sidewalks where there are sidewalks and just look at the grass look at the bushes and the trees the green just comes comes out at you with a light of its own you look at it for just a moment and then you see green for the rest of the day turns your eyes green everything that you look at your kids are green when you look at them Your food is green on the plate in front of you. Look at your thumb. Your thumb is green. But it's not really. It was the rain that accomplished all of this.
Though some of the kids in Lake Welbegon did turn a little green this last weekend in Lake Welbegon, it was the weekend of the annual junior-senior prom a week ago Friday night, and... You know how that goes. It was an elegant evening. Caribbean holiday was the theme of the prom. Hundreds of palm fronds hanging from the rafters of the gym and a great illuminated moon up over the scoreboard. Laughter an illuminated moon and a little plexiglass lagoon out in the middle of the floor and dim lights and sweet Latin music and young people dressed to the teeth dancing close. And visions of elegance led, as they often do, to illusions of omnipotence during and later out in the parking lot when the bottle was passed, or the fruit jars in some cases. And some of the boys had more than they had ever had before in their lives, which was none whatsoever. And they learned a lesson about vodka a week ago Friday night that I'm sure they'll remember for the rest of their lives. that it may be tasteless going down when you have it with orange juice. You may not notice it going down, but on the return trip, it's a... It's a memorable sensation.
There were a lot of young people wandering around in the streets early Saturday morning. A lot of sailors... battling heavy seas in Lake Wobegon about 2, 3 in the morning. I'll tell you, if there had been preachers up and around that early, they could have converted those young people to just about anything they chose. Convert them to Lutheranism, convert them to Masonry, Methodism, Rosicrucianism, or convert them to Japanese yen. Those people were ready to be picked, those young people. But they just went to bed and slept until sometime Saturday night and probably forgot the most important part of the experience. Anyway, we got a lot of rain, so whatever they left behind, it was all washed away by Sunday and everything was fresh and green this week. It was not so good for the farmers because they had gotten as much rain as they could use now. It was far too much rain and all at the wrong time. So that for some of them with things going as as badly as they have been going and now the weather against them it was just almost more than they could stand i'm thinking of roger headland who had 80 acres left to plant and then it started to rain and it wouldn't quit and it was the worst 80 acres the 80 acres with a good clay under soil and held the water and it just turned into a pond out there to the west of his house just awful he just sat all week and looked out the window at it And just about drove his wife crazy and their kids as well.
He was just absolutely impossible to live with all this week. Jumping up and looking out the window and sitting down and jumping up and walking around until finally, on Friday morning, Cindy said to him over the breakfast table, she said, let's just get out of here. Let's just leave, she said. three years in a row now your brother has invited you to come up to Grand Rabbids for the fishing opener and You've never been able to go and let's go tonight. Just get in the car and leave and His girls were at the table Kathy and Martha and said yeah, why don't you? It'd be good for you. He said leave I don't have my planting done. I can't leave. What sort of person do you think I am? She said, you're not going to be able to plant. You can see that. You can't plant for at least three, four days if it does stop raining. Let's just leave. Get in the car. Just leave it. You can't do anything about it. Well, he just couldn't do it. He just couldn't walk away from it until she said, and remember, Roger, she said, tomorrow is certain to my. Well, maybe we could go, he thought. The girl said, yes, why don't you go? You'd have a good time. Certain to my, he thought.
Well, maybe I will. He is a Norwegian who can't stand soot. Hates it every year. He has to try and please his mother. Mrs. Hadland now, she's pushing 85. You don't see her too often, but you see her uncertain to my... She's always out there. And to please her, Roger has to put on his little Norwegian knickers every year. And his little cap with the bells on it and a funny shirt that nobody in their right minds would wear in Norway ever. He has to dress up like a fool and go around and dance down at the Sons of Canute Lodge. And hopping around and... And he can't stand it. And then she always says to him, his mother always says, Roger, sing Paul and his chickens. the only song that he knows in Norwegian, and he has to stand there like a fool and sing it, he thought, well, yes, maybe we will go.
So, last night, in the late afternoon, finally he got a few chores done. And they got their stuff all packed up. And Kathy and Martha said, you don't worry about us. They said, you don't worry about us. You just go and have a good time. You just go and have fun, Dad. We'll take care of things. It was their tone of voice... when they said that, that he thought of the next hundred or so miles heading up the highway towards Grand Rapids. It was the cheerful look on his daughter's faces, 16 and 17 years old, as they helped their parents out to the car and said, here, Dad, let me carry that for you. You just go have a good time and don't worry about us. Those words rang in his mind as he drove north and some way beyond Brainerd, without a word to Cindy, he just put on the brakes and turned around and he headed back home. What in the world, she said. What in the world?
He said, don't ask me why. Don't ask me why, but I'm going to go back. She said, are you crazy? He said, as the father of two teenage girls, I'd be crazy not to be crazy. He headed back. It took him over an hour. It was about 8.30 when he finally headed out from town towards the house. He noticed more traffic headed in that direction. than he'd seen before, cars he'd never seen before, strange cars, kind of low in the rear, filled with people, heading out that way west of town, and all of them turning in the driveway of his house. He cruised on past the driveway. She said, you're not going in then? He said, I'm not sure if it's something we really want to know about. We may not want to know about it completely. He drove down the road a little ways, and he stopped, pulled off the road. They sat. They looked out across those 80 acres, out towards the farmhouse sitting out there, the barn and the woods, the house blazing with light like a cruise ship out there in the dark. It looked like a Caribbean cruise ship. and more and more cars coming up the gangplank and heading in to the farmyard. I don't know, he said. I don't know. She said, I think we ought to just turn around and head back to Grand Rapids. I don't know, he said. I don't know what to do. Do you think we should go up there, he said. She said, no, I don't. She said, I think that when you trust people, you have to trust them and not go spying on them to make sure they do what you want them to do. You have to trust them. He said, I'm going up there. I'm curious, he said, I'm going up there. He said, you want to come? She said, of course I want to come. So they took off their shoes and their socks, they rolled up their pant legs, and they headed out across the 80 acres in the dark, walking slowly, squish, squish, squish, through mud that come up to their ankles and sometimes deeper, heading towards the bright lights of home as the music got louder. And louder, heading through the mud, through this swamp, towards home. Headlights in the farmyard and the music. Voices screeching like people they'd never heard before. Drums beating. Bass guitar pounding.
The music seemed to come up out of the ground. Roger said, my God, they're going to kill the chickens. And in fact, they come in past the chicken coop. Cindy looked in the window. The chickens did seem to be a little dazed by it all. Seemed to be disheartened. All the chickens inside the coop there, all of them in their nests, but they seem to be upside down in their nests. They couldn't see their heads except for the rooster pacing up and down by the door. Looked like he was about to call the cops. They looked out around the chicken coop and the yard was full of kids.
My God, Roger said, I didn't know there were many, this many teenagers in the county. Where do these kids come from? There must have been a hundred of them out there in the yard, moving around, milling around, a couple of kegs of beer by the back door, kids getting beer in plastic cups, passing them around, some kids smoking, wandering around, music pounding, pounding, coming out of the house. Where's the dog, he thought. Where's Oscar? Their old watchdog, Oscar. My God, a car slowed down on the county road, that dog goes berserk. Now where was he? Spotted him, saw him, little pile of fur there by the back door. Dog sleeping, its head down on his paws. Empty glass of beer by Oscar's head. A dog drunk, what a disgrace. Roger stood there, just watched, just watched. All these kids milling around, talking, milling, moving. Kids looking around, kids talking to other kids, but looking over their shoulders to see if there was more fun over there. Kids moving, boys in groups, boys watching girls, girls in groups watching boys moving, watching each other. It reminded him a lot of parties that he'd remembered from when he was a kid. He seemed to remember this. Lighting up cigarettes, he remembered it. Not exactly this way, but sort of. These kids lighting up cigarettes and passing them around.
How generous, he thought. Kids smoking, lighting up. Then he saw his own daughter reach for a cigarette from someone's pack. Kathy, someone held out a pack of cigarettes to her. She reached for one. He thought, no, darling, don't. He took a couple steps out from the chicken coop. No, he thought. Don't do that. Somebody held a light over towards his daughter's sweet lips. Oh, please don't, don't, don't do that, he thought. She inhaled. And a great cloud of smoke came out of the mouth of his sweet 16-year-old daughter. Oh, sweet love, don't do that, he thought. He stepped out. He was just about to head over towards her. He wanted to... But he didn't really, you know. He didn't really. Cindy was right behind him. She was pushing him a little bit. She said, this is ridiculous. She said, how could they do this? She said, are you going to let them just get away with this? Roger thought, I don't know. Cindy said, aren't you going to go out there and stop this? He said, I don't know. You don't know, she said. No. Well, I don't know either, she said, but I thought you would know. You're the one who's always so strict. I don't know, he said. He said, you know, I'm kind of tired of being a father.
It amazed him that he said that. But it seemed to be just exactly the way he felt. He said, come, let's just leave him. He didn't want to walk over there and have all those kids turn silent when they saw him. That terrible silence of the approach of the authorities. All those kids looking at the ground and him supposed to make some kind of speech. He didn't want to do that. He'd done it before. Had all the pleasure of it he's likely to get. Come, he said, come on, let's go. She said, look at them. She said, they're walking on my flower beds. They're walking on my petunias. They're killing the plants. Let's go, he said. Let's just leave. And they turned and walked out behind the chicken coop and ducked down under the box elder trees and out beyond and past the wreck of the old corn planters sitting there in the high weeds. They walked past, tiptoeing in their bare feet, past the wreck of Grandpa Hedlund's old Model A sitting in the lilac bushes, its doors still open. They walked out beyond the trees and started back slowly across the swamp towards their car as the music receded behind them. Kids milling around, kids laughing, music playing. They walked out.
He said to her, he said, you know, it reminds me a lot of that party at the gravel pit. You remember that? She said, I don't remember that. Oh, he said, you do too. That's where I met you, he said. No, she said, you did not. We met at Luther League. We met at the gravel pit and it was just like that, he said. And then suddenly heard footsteps behind them. Fast footsteps through the brush. He turned. He saw coming towards him. It was Oscar growling low in his throat. Snarling at him with teeth bared. The dog coming, barking at them. Oscar, he said. Oscar. Easy. The dog stopped. But he still snarled. Roger said, Oscar, it's me. He took two steps towards the dog. The dog backed up, snarling, growling. How ridiculous to have to sneak up to your own home and not be able to go in and then to be chased by your own dog and chase them, that dog did, all the way across the swamp. they walked faster and faster with that dog on their heels in the dark, snarling at them. And back and down the ditch and up into the car. How ridiculous, he thought. And how ridiculous, especially ridiculous, to get in the car and start it up and find that you had pulled a little farther off the road than you had intended. And that when you started up and gunned it a little bit, the rear end slipped down in the ditch and you were stuck. How ridiculous. so he had to make the long walk back to his house this time by the driveway they got up to Grand Rapids about 3 o'clock in the morning got to his brother's house got into bed and as he lay in bed Roger could remember everything that had happened he saw it all over again like in a movie somebody else's life walking up the driveway to the house, turning the corner, how quickly they were silent. They knew he was the dad. Someone switched off the tape. The music stopped. All of them stood around, clearing their throats. His daughter came out.
She looked at him straight in the eye, without shame. She said, we decided to have a party. He liked that, the fact that she wasn't hangdog about it. She wasn't afraid of him. She just looked at him and said, we decided to have a party. Later, Martha said, I'm sorry if we upset you, but they weren't apologetic. Roger believes in that. He's never told them that, but he believes in the old principle. It's better to apologize than to ask permission. He liked that. He said, I need a push. Anybody got chains? Yeah, somebody had chains. He thought about how right after the hockstetter boy pulled him out of the ditch with his pickup truck, all the kids out there on the road standing around the dad who got stuck. He thought of how when he sat back down in the car, Roger felt a strange feeling in his rear end. No billfold. He had had it before. Must have dropped it when he was running from Oscar across the field.
Must be out there in the 80 acres somewhere out in the mud. Didn't think he'd go out and look for it right then. He said to Kathy, he said, do you have any money? She said, how much do you need, Dad? He said, oh, if you had $40 or $50, it would sure be nice. She said loud to all her friends around. She said, my dad needs some money. Anybody got some money on him to lend to my dad? They passed a hat. They collected $52. It was pretty good. He thought about how his daughter Martha took him aside out there by the car and said, what were you doing parked by the side of the road? He said, none of your business. She said, you weren't. You weren't. He said, well, he said, I'm human too. She said, Dad, how sweet. He said, but I meant that, you mean you thought that, you thought that your mother and I were, that was sweet.
He remembered how driving up north towards Grand Rapids. For about an hour, he thought that his wife was asleep. And then all of a sudden, out of the dark, her head in his lap, she said, I remember that party at the gravel pit. You were there with your cousin. Your cousin Jack. And Jack was talking to me and he spilled beer on me. And you had a clean handkerchief. And you wiped it off. And I remember that. I remember thinking how kind and thoughtful you were. That I had beer all down my leg. And you were wiping it off and wiping it off. And then... There they were at his brother's house, in bed. His brother had gone to sleep long before, left the door unlocked, a note that said the rollaway is down in the basement. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. See you at six o'clock in the morning. Lying in bed in the dark, he thought once again, I'm getting tired of being a dad. Five daughters he's had, now he's down to the last two. Loves them dearly with all his heart, but he's had about enough. Had about enough of being in charge of things and being the authority on things.
Watching that party in his yard, he thought, these kids are going to outlive me. They're going to run things someday. This world is going to continue without us. These children will go on long after we're left. So, don't need to be in charge of things anymore. Life is short. Let them go. And just learn to enjoy them. and just learn to love this sweet life. Thank you, God, for this good life, he thought. And forgive us if we do not love it enough. And thank you for all this rain. And thank you for the chance to go fishing in three hours. which I thank you for now because then I probably will not feel like it. And he kissed his wife on the back of her neck, and thinking of the gravel pit, and thinking of her right leg in white pedal pushers, full of love, he fell asleep. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
Garrison discusses Syttende Mai, Norwegian Independence Day on May 17, 1814, when Norway became independent from Denmark! More discussions of the Norwegians who discovered America. Garrison does a 17-line poem about Syttende Mai!
1986.05.16 Star Tribune / rebroadcast on December 5, 1987
Archival contributors: Frank Berto, Ken Kuhl