Michael Cooney, Alasdair Fraser, Garrison Keillor, Kate MacKenzie, Brownie McGhee, Abby Newton, Jean Redpath,
Life is a gamble ( Brownie McGhee ) Walk on ( Brownie McGhee ) Down to California ( Brownie McGhee ) Good morning blues ( Brownie McGhee ) Their way ( Michael Cooney ) Sheep shearing ( Michael Cooney ) Kid's songs ( Michael Cooney ) Hamlet ( Michael Cooney ) Minnesota hail to thee ( Garrison Keillor ) Springtime is coming ( Garrison Keillor ) The ship went down ( Garrison Keillor ) I wonder why ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie ) When I Stop Dreaming ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie ) If I Could Only Win Your Love ( Garrison Keillor , Kate MacKenzie ) Yarrow ( Jean Redpath ) The die is cast ( Jean Redpath ) The bonny broom ( Jean Redpath ) Dumbarton drums ( Jean Redpath ) Nancy Spain ( Jean Redpath ) Key To The Highway ( Brownie McGhee )
Adventures of Buster the Show Dog Bertha's Kitty Boutique Bob and Hoppy Ingqvist, Rachael Kevin's Rental Clothes Pastor Ingqvist Toy Tools World Theater Condos
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Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown. So amazing, so suddenly spring, everything all of a sudden, the leaves all come out here. Or have I been sleeping? I don't know. And the last week or so, it seems like it. Grass, birds, new ones arriving every day. Now it's Easter. What a perfect, what a perfect weather for this Easter weekend. It's like paradise in my little town. So green and so peaceful. Last Sunday was Palm Sunday, which at the Lake Welbegon Lutheran Church is Sunday when traditionally the graduating high school seniors serve as ushers for Palm Sunday service. There are eight of them there, including Pastor Inkvist's oldest daughter, Rachel, who is 18 years old. How amazing. And who was there standing with the ushers with her hair cut unbelievably short, But that wasn't why Pastor Inquist was staring at them as they stood before church. He was staring at them because it had suddenly dawned on him the passage of time that these little children had, there they were, these people in suits and dresses were those little children that he remembered. He was so amazed that he got confused in the service and he skipped the presentation part of the service where they were supposed to come forward and stand in front of the rail and he would introduce them to the congregation and say a little bit about them. He just went on and so... The seniors were confused, and when he came to the offertory and said, let us offer our gifts unto the Lord, they thought that was the presentation. And they all came forward and stood facing the congregation. expecting him to say something about them, and so they had prepared modest expressions on their faces, looking down at the floor. But the organ kept playing for the beauty of the earth, and he didn't say anything, and gradually they began to realize they had made a terrible mistake. And they looked down at their feet in shame and embarrassment, which made it harder for him to catch their eye. So he leaned forward over the rail and he whispered to them, offering, it's the offering now. And they thought he said, how awful, how awful. And they died in front of everyone. And they just leaped back to their seats, just straggled off and just sat down all in a clump. And the organ kept on playing the offertory. And finally, Val Tollefson had to come down and bring the plates from the back and bring them down to the front row and pass them. And he did not look at the seniors as he walked up the aisle, but as he passed the plate down past Rachel and her friends, he just leaned down and he said, that is the last time you'll ever be ushers in this church. Well, they'll survive. They'll get through it somehow. It was hard, but they'll survive because they're young and because spring has a tonic effect on young people. It goes to their brains and it goes to their brains and oxygen floods in their brains and they become foolish. And their foolishness cures them of sadness, is what happens with young people. It was mysterious the other morning. It was Thursday morning, wasn't it, when we had a mist in town, a heavy mist, early Thursday morning, unusual here in the Midwest. It's usually clear. It's been a long time since we've had early morning fog. And up at the Best house, when Charlie Best came out his door to go to school in the morning, he stopped and stood and gawked at this. And as young people will, he took a deep breath and the oxygen went to his brain. And suddenly this town seemed fantastic to him. You could hardly see to the end of the block down on McKinley Street from where he lives. It was so thick, the fog. It was like the town had been lifted up into the clouds or that it had suddenly become on the oceans. an island, one of the Aleutian islands that they are studying in the fifth grade, he thought. And he walked down his walk, and instead of turning left to go to school, he was inspired to turn right to study this island more. His mother was standing in the door, and she called out, Charlie, don't you need to take your jacket? He said, Nah. and walked on, waiting for her to say, Charlie, aren't you going to go to school? But she didn't say anything. And soon he disappeared in the fog, and he thought, Goodbye, Mother, and walked on. And then it began to seem like ocean fog or seem like smoke from cannon fire as he walked down along the street under the trees that are blossoming out alongside the Anderson's house and there in the Anderson's garden was a man in a blue uniform who stepped out of the shadows and who said Captain Best the men are ready Charlie said, wait, I'm going on ahead. There were 20 men there in the garden holding their horses, 20 men in blue on this summer morning in Gettysburg. You wait here for five minutes. I'm going down. To see what the situation is, Charlie said, Yes, sir, the man said, as Charlie turned right and up the alley, crunching along on the gravel back behind the Lutheran church and down and across the main street of Gettysburg. as the haze hung over the lake he walked down behind the stores and down along the shore back behind the grain elevators and there back in the weeds in the ditch by the town sign a man was crouched he said captain captain best don't go in there they're in there they're waiting it's an ambush let us come with you no he said no Now you wait here. Give me five minutes. He said, I'd never send my men in a place where I wouldn't go myself. He could hear up in the woods horses whinnying. He could hear the sound of muskets being cocked and cleaned, the faint rattle of sabers as he walked down that path, down into the slough between the tall brown marsh grass and back in, way back in, almost there, almost back to the pine trees. he walked in and suddenly saw a bed of beautiful white flowers there by the lake in the marsh. White flowers with diamonds of dew strung on spider strands across them. And he picked two remembered to go to school where there was someone whom he could give them to. That's what spring does to you when you're young. You suddenly leap ahead in your mind, in your imagination, leap ahead to conclusions that in the wintertime you'd have to plow through the facts for weeks and to come to these same mysterious conclusions which in the spring is just instantaneous. It was in the spring that I decided to become a writer when I was a little child and it was just like that in just one moment. And I remember that I had been sad for a long time about something that happened downtown. I was a little kid. Something had happened downtown. I was walking down the street with Donna Bunsen in, I believe, February it was, and she whispered to me, she said, look out, there's a crazy woman behind us. She looks like something out of the movies. She looks weird. And I looked over my shoulder, and it was my Aunt Ray, who was a little overweight, but she was all right. But I was embarrassed because I was in love with Donna Bunsen, and she thought my Aunt Ray was crazy. And then it suddenly occurred to me, she doesn't know that's my Aunt. And right then I should have said, That's my Aunt Ray, and she's not crazy. She's all right. But I was embarrassed because I was in love with her. And so I said, hurry up. Let's run away and hide. And we ran around the corner of the grocery store, and we hid down by the garbage pails. And Donna Bunsen said she looked like she was talking to herself. She was watching us. She was following us. She was after us, that crazy woman. She was afraid of her, and so was I. I was afraid that Donna would know that I was related to her. And then that night, I thought about my Aunt Ray and how kind she'd been to me, and I felt ashamed that I had been so unfaithful. And I thought about this for the longest time until the spring day when I decided to be a writer. This cured me of this sadness. I was in the kitchen with my sister when she hit me on the head with a cast iron skellet. Hard. And I straightened up and I thought to myself, I'm going to be a writer. just like that, and I felt so grateful to her, although she said she hadn't done it on purpose. She said that she was getting the cast-iron skillet down from the cupboard, and it was so heavy, she couldn't hold on to it, and it slipped, and it banged me on the head. But nobody keeps their skillet in an upper cupboard. I don't recall that we ever did. To the best of my memory, we did not. We always kept it down below. But she banged me on the head with it, and I suddenly knew what I was going to do with the rest of my life, you see. What a wonderful thing. I didn't tell her about it because I was afraid that she might want to change me into something else. Make me a philosopher. But I suddenly knew what I was going to do. that bang on the head with the skillet, also gave me close to perfect pitch. Close enough for that town in that time. so that I was able to stand up and sing at the school program. Oh, springtime is coming. Oh, lonesome bird, your voice in the marshes I hear. Sweetly you're singing. Back in the woods where the moonlight is shining so clear. My love is away to a far distant land. A land that is over the sea. Go fly to her singing your sweet little song. And tell her to come back to me. Sweet bird. Sweet bird, go tell me that my darling is true. Sweet bird, sweet bird, I'll be just as happy as you. I sang that when I was 10 years old. And my teacher, Mrs. Myers, played the piano at the spring program. She played the piano. My teacher, my lovely teacher, whose arms seemed almost alive because they were so fat, her upper arms, that they bounced and jiggled when she moved her arms. And in the fat on the back of her arms as she stood at a blackboard or played the piano, we could see little eyes and a mouth so that we named one Bob and the other Hoppy. She sat playing the piano, and I was fascinated by her arms, watching my friends move up and down to the music. And I got ahead of her going into the chorus, and then I paused for a moment as she was trying to catch up with me, and I got confused and thought she was going into the second verse, and so I had to race to catch up with her. I couldn't skip words because I memorized all the words in a string, so I couldn't drop one. I had to sing, Oh, bird, sweet bird, go tell me that my darling is true. Sweet bird, sweet bird, I'll be just as happy as you. And I sang as fast as I could, trying to catch up with her going up in the second verse. And then she was trying to catch up with me. And I looked over there, and I saw Bob and Hoppy dancing, smiles on their little faces. And I looked out, and I saw all these people who loved me And I decided that even if I was a writer, I would still like to get up and sing once in a while. But this is carrying me away from my story, which I will try to remember. The boy went back to school, and the boy decided to become a writer. The whippets... were out for their first practice on Friday, was what I had meant to tell you at the beginning, I believe. Full of hope. The field had been a little bit wet on Wednesday for them to practice, so they put it off until Thursday and then put it off until yesterday. And it was so beautiful, so green, so great to be out there and put a glove on and to run around and to throw the ball around and to hear all of your teammates out there saying, Hey, babe, come on, be here. Good throw, good throw. Come on. Two, two, coming, he's coming, he's coming. Hey, good arm, good arm, babe. Hey, hey, babe, hey, babe. These guys stand around all winter in the sidetrack taps, standing cheap to jowl, talking about their jobs and their old ladies and their kids. But they never feel so close as when they get out onto that rectangle 90 feet square between the bases and the outfield beyond and the mound and the green grass. And it's so lovely and so intimate out there and so full of hope. in the month of April at least, and for part of May. They have high hopes this year, though, because Dutch has moved the left field fence out, a left field fence that has been bothering them now for years and years and years. though now that it's moved out, Pete, our left fielder, the old gardener, we call him, who was in his extremely late 30s, walked out there on Friday out to this larger left field and said to Dutch, he said, I don't know, Dutch. He said, I don't know. Maybe this is the year I got to sell popcorn and candy. It had been 270 feet down the left field line. way too short on account of that hill which is out there. So they were giving up a lot of cheap home runs to your right-handed pole hitters, which our team hasn't had one of for years and years and years. So the Dutchman finally looked at it last fall, and he said, to hell with the hill. We'll move the fence out. We'll bring the hill into the ballpark. So now that fence is sitting out there at a very pretty 320 feet. 320 feet from home base and about 20 feet above base level. Pete was out there in the left field on Friday. He says, I don't know, Dutch. I don't know. My legs aren't good for climbing anymore. I don't know if I can get up this thing anymore. He sat out there. and worried about it. But then Dutch's nephew, who has just moved to town to help Dutch in the septic tank business, his long, lanky nephew, got up on the mound to pitch, and everybody just stood and stared. His name is Pete, too, the young guy. So they called him Repeat at first, and then he threw batting practice for a while, and they started to call him the Sidewinder. because he'd throw up that left foot and you'd see the cleats on the bottom of his feet and then he'd fall off the mound to the right and as he fell you'd see that arm come around sidearm up from down underneath you'd watch him and a moment later you'd hear the whack in the glove and then you'd blink well sir Pete sat out there in left field and realized maybe this year there weren't going to be any right-handed pull hitters. They're pretty good. You sit up on that slope, you know, about 15, 20 feet, you get a good view of the ball game. Sit up there and enjoy it. After a while, they started to nickname this kid the Big Usher, they called him, because he was the one who showed the batters where their seats were. He stood up there, and he kicked high, and he fell slowly to his right off the mound. And you saw that arm come around, sidearm, and that ball rise, just rise up and come right across about at your knees. And then Ronnie come in to bat against him. Ronnie's a left-hander. He stood up to the plate. and he just put that bat down just put it down over the plate and he caught a little bit of a pitch and he sent that flying out into left field Pete sat there and he watched it small and white in the sky and he could not believe it because it came directly toward him It couldn't have been any straighter or truer. It came straight to him, and it settled flat into his glove, held up to his chest. And the moment that it hit in the glove, he thought to himself, Marshmary golds. Marshmary golds. Val Tollefson had called him the night before and asked him if he wouldn't take care of finding a spray of flowers for the altar at the Lutheran Church on Easter Sunday on account of Esther was not going to come right home from her mother's funeral in Duluth but was going to stay up there until Monday or Tuesday so wouldn't bring flowers from there. And Val asked him to get flowers. And Pete had been thinking he was going to have to drive into St. Cloud and get lilies. And then he remembered that Eloise Best's boy had told him about marsh marigolds out in the swamp. He thought, marsh marigolds. I'll get those for Easter. They're not lilies, but you wash them off a little bit and they smell just fine. He stood up and he held up the ball for everybody to see. Marshmere calls for Easter. And he kicked with his left foot. He kicked and he threw a perfect throw into home plate. A perfect throw. Low and hard and one bounce. And Ronnie scooped it up with his right hand. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Where all the women are strong, and all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
GK predicted the beautiful weather. Poem about a a cat. Poem about the zoo's white whales. Buster the Show Dog. The writer throws the four friends into a trout pond and a desert. The might Wurlitzer organ
Tennessean Apr 19 1987
1987.04.12 Star Tribune: no mention of Brownie McGee
Archival contributors: musicbrainz / Frank Berto, Ken Kuhl