Richard Allison, Stevie Beck, Philip Brunelle, Dan Dressen, Garrison Keillor, Tom Keith, Kate MacKenzie, John Niemann, Stockholm Accordion Club.
One More Fall in Minnesota ( Garrison Keillor ) Give me the roses while I live ( Stevie Beck , Garrison Keillor ) Don't You See That Train? ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie ) Tango Marguerita (Stockholm Accordion Club ) Undecided (Stockholm Accordion Club ) Are You From Dixie? ( Stevie Beck ) Minnesota (Oklahoma) ( Dan Dressen ) Poem to 25th Anniversary Couple ( Garrison Keillor ) Because (parents song) ( Dan Dressen ) Wooden Shoe Polka (Stockholm Accordion Club ) Novelty Accordian (Stockholm Accordion Club ) The Swedish Flag (Stockholm Accordion Club ) Somebody's Darling ( Kate MacKenzie , Garrison Keillor , John Niemann ) Election 1986 Poem ( Garrison Keillor ) Morning Serenade of capitols and States (Rossini) ( Dan Dressen )
Gourmet Cooking (Garrison does a cooking skit about gourmet cooking and hides his cookbook to impress guests. Eventually, he gets his own TV cooking show but has to be honest that he is not a real cook!) Public Interest Message on Sleep (Story of a TV weatherman who lost his job because he did not get enough sleep even though at 43 his mother still tries to advise him!)
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Oh, it's been a quiet week in my hometown, Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Trees all mostly lost their leaves here this last week, rained a little bit, turned cold, chilly, except for one old maple tree up by the Tollefson's house turned a luminous phosphorescent yellow this last week luminous especially if you walked along at night with the street light up there behind it shining through the trees you could just about read by that tree it was so brilliant we walked up there again and again to look at it except for last night of course last night was Halloween stayed at home and the children came walking to us in town dressed up as hobos about half of them dressed up as hobos and about half of them as rich glamorous persons came around with their grocery bags begging for candy and sweet rolls and apples whatever we have little money after the candy bars run out or just a kind word Trick or treat, trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. And we did. Because it's not easy being a kid and going around on Halloween in a little town like Lake Wobegon, where there's so much history. in that town that you know about and that you think about on Halloween late at night when it's dark and it's a long way between houses long dark stretches no lights where the shadows seem to reach out to you a little child and pull you in towards it back in the shadows back there where the children live who lie up in the cemetery that you've seen so many times. Back there in the shadows where Mr. Geske lives, who lived in our town all his life and who used to go up to the cemetery every day, rain or shine, after his mother died, whom he had lived with all his life. Went up the hill, Mr. Geske did, to the cemetery and tended her grave and planted flowers on it. Went there every day. It was strange, but then he'd always been strange, so people didn't notice. Until one day there seemed to be something different about him. about the flower plantings. Bud said, you've planted such a huge bed of flowers. Mr. Geske said, yes, those are petunias, my mother's favorite. She always loved them. But but you you've dug awfully deep to plant those petunias you don't need to set petunias in that deep do you but said well Mr. Geske looked away up the hill towards the pine tree like he couldn't quite remember he said I had to get the roots out of the weeds, the quack grass. They go down so deep. I had to get these roots out of there. I wouldn't want them to go down where Mother is. They found her body in the kitchen. He had put it on a kitchen chair. and put a cup of coffee in front of her and a piece of lemon meringue pie and had tuned the radio station to her favorite station. And there was more that Gary and Leroy never would tell us about. And so, when the little hobos come to the door, or the rich, glamorous people, and you see that look in their eye, you know it's because they've been out on Halloween. And there was a man back in the shadows holding a shovel who said, Come here. Not all of our spooks are as frightening as that. Last night, Daryl and Marilyn Tolerud got out their Ouija board to communicate with her late father, Elmer. Put the little pointer on the board and put their fingers on it. Sat there for 20 minutes. There was nothing, just silence. She said, It's Dad, all right. How are you, Dad, she said. Nothing, nothing. Minutes went by. Boy, she said, he was a man of few words. That's my daddy. Where are you, she said. How is it where you are, she said. Slowly the pointer moved, spelled out the words. Not so bad. Well, the ghost said, I guess I'll be going up now. That's all they heard. All they heard. Sound travels when the leaves fall off the trees in town and that makes it a little scary at this time of year. All of the things that you can hear from off in the distance sitting around the supper table the night before last. Sitting, we could hear a door slam halfway down the block because all the leaves were off the trees. We could, the sound traveled. We heard this door slam and seven angry, fast footsteps coming out the front door. And then stop. And the door had not closed. We could tell by the sound. It hadn't thumped. It had kind of wanged. Everybody listened. As the steps went back up. Up the steps. And slammed the door again. And this time it thumped and it wanged and there was a cry of pain. Ah! We all sat around the supper table. Forks stopped in midair. And we heard a man's voice say, get on in here, serves you right. And a younger man's voice saying, I hate you, I hate you. People stopped chewing. We let our breaths out. And waited. It's kind of like a radio drama with no announcer, no narrator, just sound effects. And the dialogue kind of muffled now when they closed the door. Angry voices from back behind the wall. We waited. Waiting for the shot. And my mother sighed. And she said, I have always dreaded the last week before an election. So that's what that was, of course. Well, of course, that's what that was. That wasn't homicide down the block. That was democracy. Those people were talking about something and have a few more days to resolve it if they ever do. My mother is a peacemaker. She's like a lot of women, and especially the women in our family. She is a peacemaker. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. We're still waiting to see if this is true or not. We don't know. It's a hard line of work. It wasn't that she couldn't get angry. She often did. But she always resolved it quickly. And an election campaign in which anger is drawn out for days and weeks was always too much for her. She used to get very angry. She hit me once with a broom. I was about 14 and I was standing. I remember where I was standing. I was standing between the refrigerator and the kitchen table. And she hit me with a broom. It was the soft part of the broom. But still, it shocked me so much that I forgot what had happened immediately before. Whether I had said something or done something, I don't know. I have no idea. I forgot it when she hit me with the soft part of the broom. But then it was always over fast. She always believed in making peace and not holding a grudge. She grabbed me once. I remember she grabbed me by the arm. And she yanked me toward her. And she hissed at me. She said, you little. And she made the sound of a bee. And she didn't mean to say, you little broom. She came within a second of denying her own marriage. You little broom. And once again, it shocked me so much that I forgot what it was that I had said or done, whatever little trivial thing I'd done to make her angry, I forget. If I knew, I'd tell you, but I don't remember. That was my mother. She was a peacemaker. The men in the family, well, I'm not thinking of anybody in particular. It really is kind of true of men in general. Men were not like the women. Men were... were able, as a result of a long-considered judgment, to become angry at you and remain angry for years and say they weren't. Men would say, I'm not angry. What, me? I'm not angry. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, a little bit, after what you said to me. But you don't need to apologize for it. You said what you meant. And now I'll just keep it in mind. But I'm not angry. No, I'm not angry at all. The women were like a firecracker going off, and then they'd forgive you, put their arms around you. And the men were kind of like a slow radiation leak over a long period of time. I say this about myself because I'm the same way. I'm a good hater over a period of time. There is one person, one flabby, malicious, beady-eyed would be another word I might use, jerk, whom I have thought very little of for about a year. And I intend to go on hating him for the rest of his life. And then I may let up on him a little bit. Hope it doesn't take too long. When he should die, I would cancel the show for a week so that I could devote myself to the festivities. Be there and savor it. It's a terrible thing to say. I know, but God knows the truth. God sees what's in the heart, so why shouldn't I tell you? But with women, in our family, it was always fast and quick and furious, and then it was over. And there were tears, and put their arms around you, and they were sorry, and you were sorry, and everything was all fixed up in about five or six minutes. It wasn't that my mother couldn't stand conflict, you see. That's not the thing about a peacemaker. Because she could. In fact, quiet made my mother very nervous because it made her think about what could happen. But when there was conflict and violence, then she knew what was the worst that could happen. It was right there, and she could deal with it. Do you understand what I mean? Little things like a bat in the house fluttering around or mice or a child climbing up in a tree could frighten my mother. But when something actually horrible happened or in the contemplation of death disabling injury or eternity before us she was very calm. And when our next door neighbor put his hand into his circular saw and came one warm summer day out of the back door of his garage, walking with his mouth open wide, holding something in his hand against his breast that was bright red and pumping, blood flowing down his arm, I was the one who leaned against the house feeling the blood drain out of my head and it was my nervous mother who walked to him and put a sash around his arm and stopped the blood and called to his wife inside the house Lorraine come out here right away she said and there was no panic in her voice she was a peacemaker is a peacemaker Don't want to make her nervous by referring to her in the past tense. Now, I grew up in the Sanctified Brethren Church, a little branch of fundamentalist Christianity that could have used a few more peacemakers and a few less scholars. They were dear, sweet people whom I loved then, and I love them now. But they were capable, the men of the sanctified brethren church, were capable of a kind of self-righteous pissery and BS-ification. that you find out among us sinners, usually only around election time, but they held to it more or less year-round all of their lives. These men, who were ready and happy to dispute, to take fault with, to pick apart, and to get into outright quarrels with anybody over anything, certain without a glimmer of a doubt that God was standing right behind them smiling and holding their coat. That's what they believed. The sanctified brethren did not call themselves a church. because that would confuse other people and put us down with the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Methodists, and those people who were in denominations. We weren't of those people. What the sanctified brethren were was the last tiny remnant of the church, you see. holding on to true principles and revealed truth from a clear reading of Scripture. We were the church, tiny, but the church. We were not a piece of the pie, you see, with all these other people. We were the center. We were the hub to which others could come anytime. Once they saw the truth, they were welcome to come and join us. We weren't keeping them out anytime they could come in. Back when those sanctified brethren were formed, 150 years ago, brethren believed, it was kind of a great miraculous event, kind of like God parting the Red Sea. So God parted the Anglican Church and out came the sanctified brethren. And they formed this movement, the true church, the remnant. But over the years... they were afflicted with tremendous biblical scholarship so that they divided and divided and divided again over points of doctrine that might have seemed trivial to other people, but to them were crucially important and were ready to fight with each other, to split up over matters of scriptural truth. All kinds, anything, just about anything, was good enough to argue over. If you had said, how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood, dearly beloved? Some of the beloved would have gone back to the second book of Chronicles and found a place where God had given the children of Israel some instruction as to woodchucks. And other people would have found a reference in Philippians where this was contradicted, and they would have fought over it. And you might have said, now, wait a minute. Woodchuckery and woodchuckism are not important to the faith, but to these people it would have become the very fulcrum of the faith, the crux of the faith, the hub around which all other questions revolved. And they would have split up over this question and never talked to each other again. They needed more peacemakers, and they didn't have them. Now there was, when I was a boy, one division in the sanctified brethren between the Jamesians and the Jacksonians. Those were the names of two brethren who led the split, Brother James and Brother Jackson. And it had to do with the question of hospitality to those who are in error, inviting them into your home, offering them a meal. Should you do it or not? Should a Christian show hospitality to people who held false doctrine? This was a division. And one of them, I forget who... held that, no, to show hospitality to false doctrine is in some way to infer agreement or acceptance with it. These people must be shunned and shut away. That's what one side believed. And the other side said, you are 100% wrong. Jesus preached a gospel of love, and you are absolutely wrong, and we're not going to talk to you again until you change your minds and you repent. And when you do repent of your error, you let us know, and then we'll take it under consideration. So off they went. They're separate ways. Well, this just broke the heart of my Uncle Al because he had friends on both sides. It really was a dispute between these two stiff-necked old men, and other brethren had been dragged into the dispute. And so, one summer day when I was a little boy, through tremendous effort, he arranged for Brother James and Brother Jackson to come to his house and Aunt Flo's house with some of their friends of either side to come and sit down together. Not to discuss this principle of hospitality. but just to eat a meal together in peace, hoping something would come of it. Eat some of Aunt Flo's justly famous fried chicken. And one Sunday, they finally came. It was amazing. He worked for weeks to get them just to come to dinner. Had to work through an intermediary, a brother Fields, who had never shown hospitality to anybody and so was considered neutral on this question. And they came in and they sat in the living room, these two gaunt, gaunt, gimlet-eyed, thin-lipped old men. in their dark suits and their plump, obedient wives and their friends and followers sat in awesome silence in this living room until finally dinner was called and they trooped into the dining room and sat around the long dining room table extended by two leaves so that nobody would have to sit close to anybody else. And they sat there, Brother James at one end and Brother Jackson at the other end. Now, my Uncle Al had anticipated a problem, and that was the matter of asking grace. Among the brethren, table grace was often used as a platform from which to send a message to other people. Around the table. Oh, Lord, we do thank thee now for this food which thou hast provided to us in thy goodness. And we thank thee, too, for the help of those who have assisted in the preparation of this dinner. Lord, we thank thee and hope that you will bless them and hope that you will lay it on the conscience of the others, their obligations as to the clearing of the table and the washing and the wiping of... The dishes, we would ask this Lord. People would do this at meals. Do a little preaching as a part of the table grace. So my Uncle Al, through Brother Fields, had arranged that grace would be silent. Would be silent. And so they all sat around and bowed their heads and had a silent prayer. The clock ticked in the living room and time passed. Everybody with their head bowed and their eyes closed. I could hear breathing. A cat came in the room, meowed. A child snickered, was stifled. Cars passed. As this went on and on, and gradually I realized that none of them was willing to say amen before anybody else. Because to open their eyes and end their prayer would be to admit that your faith wasn't as strong as the next person. So they were bound and determined that they would not be the first ones to quit praying. They went at it. And Brother James put his hand over his eyes and peeked out between his fingers at Brother Jackson at the other end. And he saw Brother Jackson with his forehead almost down on his dinner plate in earnest conversation with the Lord who agreed with him on so many things. They went on and on and on. It was the longest table grace ever. They just wouldn't quit. And their followers glancing at each other nervously, children looking around, peeking, people looking, when is this going to end? Finally, my Uncle Al, to offer them a way out of this impasse, said, Amen. Amen. And Brother James opened his eyes a little bit and looked up. But Brother Jackson had his eyes still down. He was still under the surface. So Brother James went back down and about that time Brother Jackson put his periscope up and he saw that Brother James had now descended back into prayer and so he put his head back down. And they kept on going in the longest table grace in the long and fascinating history of the Christian faith. and it was becoming a trial to my face because I should have gone before I sat down, and I didn't. And now I had to and I couldn't. And I didn't know what to do, and finally it was my aunt Flo who saved us from this predicament. All heads were bowed, all eyes were closed when she got up and walked into the kitchen and got the platters of food that these men were seeing who could be the most thankful for. And she brought them in, and she set the hay down where the goats could see it. It was chicken. It was chicken, but it was no ordinary fried chicken. It was chicken that had lived a life in the paradise of the yard, free, a free life, enjoying all the blessings of chickenhood. poured out for these chickens and then after death its body made incorruptible by a corn meal flour batter with eggs and milk and butter and fried to a radiant and rapturous color and the essence and the soul and the spirit of this chicken expressed in a glorious gravy that brought tears to our eyes sitting there with our eyes closed tears running down our cheeks for smell is the key to memory and in the dark with your eyes closed it is more real than life itself the chicken the smell of chicken and the gravy and the attendant potatoes and all the auxiliary vegetables and the rolls and the butter made these two men boys again boys again at another table years before surrounded by the Lord's people on a Sunday afternoon. Life is so good. Life is so sweet. There's enough for all of us. We opened our eyes and we began to eat and we ate with tears running down our cheeks. It was the most wonderful Sunday dinner. We all just sat there and wept and smiled. 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.
Garrison compliments the Stockholm Accordion Club members (33 of 100) on their red shirts. Later tells them some parts of Minnesota are more Swedish than Sweden. Garrison comments on Stevie Beck's first appearance on APHC 12 years ago and the first song she did, Are you from Dixie?
1986.10.31 Star Tribune
Archival contributors: Frank Berto, Ken Kuhl