John Bayless, Velma Frye, Johnny Gimble, Garrison Keillor, Leo Kottke, Kate MacKenzie, Doc Watson,
When It's Springtime in the Rockies ( Garrison Keillor , Johnny Gimble ) Time changes everything ( Doc Watson ) Quickstep Annie ( Doc Watson ) Jailhouse blues ( Doc Watson ) Just a little loving ( Doc Watson ) Picking the blues ( Doc Watson ) East Tennessee rag ( Doc Watson ) Beaumont rag ( Doc Watson ) San Antonio rose ( Doc Watson ) Way downtown ( Doc Watson ) Stars and Stripes Forever ( John Bayless ) Heart and soul ( Garrison Keillor , Velma Frye ) Duet ( Doc Watson , Leo Kottke ) Pass me not ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie , Leo Kottke , Doc Watson )
Bay Leaf Growers of America Bertha's Kitty Boutique Canadian Vacation Condos Central Bobbist Temple Chatterbox Cafe Father Emil Father Wilmer Hotel Minnesota Lake Wobegon Leonards Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Scotty's Cough Syrup for Dogs Sidetrack Tap Standard Sandpaper Wilmer's Minnesota Corduroys
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Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegun, my hometown. Darlene came back this last week. Oh, they didn't expect her. Darlene, who'd been a waitress at the Chatterbox Cafe all those years, moved down to Minneapolis, what, about, oh, three weeks ago. I went down to find her destiny and also find her husband, Arlen, so she could divorce him. She sent some postcards back, which Mr. Bowser read at the post office, so when she came back this last week, nobody needed to be caught up on her life. She had gotten a job at a license plate factory in Minneapolis. People thought those were made in prison somehow, but anyway, that's what she said. And she'd seen Arlen and she'd had lunch with him a couple times and she didn't say anything about the divorce. So it was kind of a mystery. She came back to take care of her parents who were sick this last week along with most other people in town. Well, half of them anyway, half of them were down with the flu. And the other half were on their way in that direction. It all has to do with this winter weather of ours, this strange warm winter with no snow, which we'll be talking about years from now. But it's really what's caused it in that town and maybe in others too. It's been too warm and too pleasant a winter, and it weakens people. A lot of these people come from Norway, which is a seafaring country, which means that Norwegians are happier and they do better when they are cold and wet and sick to their stomachs and misery. So if it's pleasant, it makes them uneasy. And it makes Norwegian people sick if it's nice out and sunny, as it has been, and they come down with Swedish flu, what we call it. On account of a weakness through lack of adversity and suffering, they get this Swedish flu, which is a lot like your Asian flu with the addition that you feel that it's your fault. So Darlene's parents had it, and she was kind of feeling a little sickly, and everybody was miserable in town this week. The Leonards lost three out of five of their starting lineup to the flu, and eight out of the top ten on the team come down with it on Sunday and were feeling sick, which these boys ordinarily feel right before a game, kind of. chills and fever and nausea and achiness. But here they felt it on Sunday and Monday. So they went to Freeport for the away game on Tuesday night. And he had to start Some of his substitutes, some of these tall, shy boys who had been sort of comfortable on the bench all season, kind of had gotten accustomed to the idea of not playing. They were out there on the floor in Freeport, all those Freeport kids yelling stuff at them, these boys trying to be as dignified as they could be under the circumstances and feeling a little sick themselves. These are the boys who kind of enjoyed being on the bench during games and kidding around with each other, having a good time and sort of making fun of the ones out on the floor, the team satirists. And there they were trying to pass the ball around and not drop it. And everybody yelling at him during the warm-up, feeling cold and feverish. And these boys, each one of them, thinking to himself, and I remember it too, thinking to himself, these are my formative years. And this tonight is an experience that will change the direction of my life forever. I'll be a hopeless derelict for beginners to start with. Sell secrets to the Russians and fire a gun into a crowd and go on from there. Cannibalism, who knows? All a result of this humiliation. And, of course, when you start out in the warm-up with those thoughts, it doesn't get any better in the game. And God does not intervene in this situation. Amen. The Leonards in Freeport on Tuesday night were greased and baked at 400 degrees for 40 minutes and served for lunch. And then they had to make the trip home. And then they were coming down with the flu in the bus as it barreled along those old tar county roads. These boys and their supporters, about 30 kids on the bus, bumping along, trying to keep their stomachs from moving. Just... Looking down the road, going down the road, 60 miles an hour, it didn't slow down, and they could see the train tracks up ahead. And they knew that when they bounced up over the train tracks, something was not going to come down. as they were barreling along and all feeling sick and the train tracks were coming up up ahead and then somebody yelled out train coming and there was a cold wave of fear that came up their bodies and he hit the brakes and they all lurched forward and then he went over the tracks and they all bounced up and they all settled down And they rode on in silence for about 15 seconds, all of them, praying, Dear God, don't let this happen. What is just about to happen and which is now happening. They had to hose out the bus when they got back and nobody cares to ride in it yet. That's what we get from having a warm winter. That's the result of it. The Dieners were sick. Marlis and Harold Diener were down sick, both of them. Their dog was sick too, but they were sicker than the dog, the two of them, lying there in bed and their kids running around the house, both Harold and Marlis, feverish and chills and vomiting and diarrhea, kind of gave a whole new dimension to their marriage. the flu dead. Ordinarily, one would be down sick and the other one would be up. One would be sick and the other would be the Christian person and be kind and sympathetic and bring you things and take care of you and be charitable and good. But when both of you just lie there side by side looking at each other with mounting disgust, feeling as bad as the other one looks, You can feel romance kind of withdraw back into the dim corners of memory. And then you go into this waking, sleeping state, dreaming and then waking up and running into the bathroom and back and you kind of lose track of things. They were in bed for a day and a half. And she got up to fix breakfast for the kids and get them off to school and then went back to bed. And she just kind of lost touch with town and school and family and society and got into the swamp of flu, which when you get down into the deep flu, You kind of cease to be an American or anything else. You lose your English and you go into a twilight world and are one of a race of slack-jawed, low-browed, hairy people who hunker in the twilight around a cold fire and eat hunks of rancid elk. and talk in a guttural language had she forgotten where she was or why and was in dreams in which boys were beating up on her and then waking up and it was dark which in Minnesota in February doesn't mean a lot, but she didn't have any idea what time it was, and she staggered out of bed and turned on the light in the kitchen and turned it right off again. It looked like the cupboards had blown up. She just didn't even want to look at it. She looked around for the kids, and she heard a sound like, like from a movie she had seen called It Came Out of the River. A movie about mutant eel pout. who swam in a river in radioactive wastes discharged by a nuclear power plant. And they became huge, massive, carnivorous creatures who slithered up the bank right down here in downtown St. Paul. This was filmed on a Friday night. in downtown St. Paul because we don't have a traffic problem here. This movie was shot here. So these huge eel pouts slithering along through down Wabashaw Street in St. Paul with their mouths open and a kind of a bluish radioactive light coming off of their bodies and making the sound And she went into the living room and the TV was on. The screen was blank. The sound was on. A bluish light shone out from it, and there in a swamp of pop cans and cracker boxes and potato chip bags, her children were flopped down asleep, their mouths open with white sugar coated on their lips. A picture of what happens when a family falls apart. There they were. She said, everybody, get up and go brush your teeth and put on your pajamas and go to bed. And that one sentence used up all of her energy. And Marla sagged back. And went back to bed and slept and woke and dreamt and slept and woke and it was light out and sun was pouring in and it was freezing cold and Harold was snoring and she got up and the kids had left the front door open. laughter It was 40 degrees in the house, and in the kitchen she could hear dogs, not just one, but more, three or four eating dogs. It was like the fall of Rome when the pagans have come in over the walls of the city, dogs in your kitchen. She went back to bed. That's what you get from a warm winter. That's the result of it. So Father Wilmer was sick. Everybody was sick with the flu. Father Emil had to get up out of his bed. Poor sick old man come down and do the honors for Ash Wednesday this week. To have Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent at the same time as half the people in town are down with the Swedish flu. It's almost redundant. It's a state of excessive contrition. But they did it. And people came to Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Church and came up the aisle, and Father Emil was there with the silver bowl full of ashes, and he dipped his thumb in it for each one of them and made the smudge on their foreheads and said those words that God said. to our first parents when they were put out of paradise dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return which you really didn't have to tell them not this week Adam and Eve I imagine they felt like this after they were put out They were not from around here, Adam and Eve, because it says in the Bible that they went around without clothes, and we know that's not right. But they were from someplace like here, except warm all the time, like a shopping mall, you know. And they had everything perfect. Everything was beautiful and shining and lovely and wonderful in paradise. Except they didn't know that because, you see, they had nothing to compare it to. They were innocent. They didn't know what grief and pain and misery and sickness and tears would be like. They had no idea. So when God gave them that one command and said, don't get on that bus, they had no reason to get on that bus. But then when the bus arrived, they had no particular reason not to. See? They didn't understand negatives in paradise. They didn't understand do not. Because paradise was the land of yes. So when the bus pulled up, that big silvery bus with the apple on the side that said Minneapolis. And the driver opened the door and there was a rather handsome snake at the wheel of that bus with his hair parted and licked back his snake hair and his little snake mustache. And he looked at him with his little glittering eyes and he looked down at him and he said, Minneapolis, yether, step right up. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, you're gonna love it. Minneapolis, Adam and Eve looked at each other, her standing there in her naturally curly hair and Adam standing there in his feed cap that said, let there be light across the front of it. And Adam said, do you want to go? She said, I don't know. I don't know. She said, it's up to you. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Well, he says, I could go or not. Do you want to take the apple, she said? I don't know. Do you? Well, I could if you wanted to. I wouldn't want to do it by myself. But if we both went, we could. But it's up to you. I don't care. Well, he said, I don't particularly care to go, but I wouldn't want to hold you back. Because if I did, I know I'd never hear the end of it. So if you want to go, then why don't we go? And she said, well, all right. She said, if you want to, then we will. And they got on the bus. And, of course, it was a one-way trip. And they left paradise. And they never went back. You never get to see it again. Once you've seen the interstate, then you never get to go back. Once you get on this trip, you never go back to paradise. Darlene was thinking about that this last week, come back, thinking about her and Arlen. She went back to the Chatterbox Cafe where she'd worked all those years, sat around as she always did. drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, smoking Alpine cigarettes, which she smokes for the coupons, you know, saving up for the clock radio and a nice gift you can get with them. And if you got a clock radio, you could give it to your mom, you know, toasters and golf clubs and things, sitting there smoking, thinking to herself, where did it go wrong? Where did it go wrong between me and Arlen? When did we leave paradise? Well, it might have been when she saw the recipe and she made that Sichuan chicken, which she had never made before. But Arlen was tired of the things she had always made, so she thought she would make this Sichuan chicken. And she went and she got a bunch of spices she'd never even heard of before, didn't know how to pronounce the names, and she used more garlic in one day than she'd used in six years of marriage. And she made this stuff, and then afterwards she couldn't remember. if she had put in six cloves of garlic or six whole bunches. A lot of garlic was missing. And these two innocents, these two innocent children of Lake Wobegon who'd been brought up on the ambrosia of cream of mushroom soup and all of its by-product hot dishes, including tuna noodle hot dish, the world's most comforting food, sat down and ate this dish, which was so hot and made them feel so bad, but they didn't want to be the first ones to say it. And they were brought up to eat everything on their plates and finish everything. And they ate everything in silence and laid down on their backs for a day and a half and thought they would die. And when they got out of bed, things weren't the same. It might have been that. or it might have been the time she thought that she was taking the shower in the bathroom and she was taking the shower and it was a summer day and she was soaping herself and singing how great thou art and she suddenly had a feeling that somebody was watching her and she looked and then she looked up and she saw the face of Rex their golden retriever looking over the shower curtain bar his big brown eyes looking down at her naked she covered herself big brown dog eyes looking at her full of guilt and prurient interest the dog looking and Arlen was holding the dog up so he could look over the bar Ireland, she said, you get that dog out of here. It's not funny. They laughed about it afterward, but it wasn't funny. Because every time she looked at that dog, the look in its eyes made her blood run cold, made her embarrassed. That dog looked up at her with those big brown eyes. He said, I know. I saw you. They had to give that dog away. They gave Rex away to Arlen's friend, Jack. And then every time she saw Jack, Jack looked at her like that. Rex must have told him. He looked at her like he knew, like he'd seen. Oh, she felt so embarrassed. And then, after a while, it seemed like every dog in town. Dogs talk to each other about these things. Cats will keep a secret, but dogs talk. Every dog she saw looked up at her with big brown eyes, as if to say, hello, baby, hi. She was so embarrassed. Maybe that was it. She wasn't sure. She thought about that this week. She thought about that, walking around that town. Half of all the people down with the flu, everybody sick and miserable. She walked around just hoping not to run into any dogs. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking. And all the children are above average.
GK&LK read poems about Mehitabel the cat & her kittens. 2nd Methodist Church had Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky, Sousa, Gershwin, Bernstein, Miss Palmer, and John Bayliss for music director. Radio Theater. Timmy, Fr. Finian, Buster, & the old cougar meet the Christian jungle girl. Problems with the script writers.
1987.02.22 Star Tribune
Archival contributors: musicbrainz, Ken Kuhl