Stevie Beck, Butch Thompson Trio, Garrison Keillor, Tom Keith, Chuck Mitchell. Talk of the Town Barbershop Quartet,
Lida Rose (Talk of the Town Barbershop Quartet ) Good To See You Now (Talk of the Town Barbershop Quartet ) I'm Alone Because I Love You (Talk of the Town Barbershop Quartet ) Mississippi Mud (Talk of the Town Barbershop Quartet ) I Want You To Be My Sweetheart (Talk of the Town Barbershop Quartet ) Goodbye Old Dixie (Talk of the Town Barbershop Quartet ) Have Some Madeira M'Dear ( Chuck Mitchell ) Look What We've Been Through ( Chuck Mitchell ) Thinking of You ( Chuck Mitchell ) Glorious Mush ( Chuck Mitchell ) St Anne's Reel ( Stevie Beck ) Over The Waterfall ( Stevie Beck ) Ragtime Inn ( Stevie Beck ) Bagpipe Reel ( Stevie Beck ) Telephone Answering Romance ( Garrison Keillor , Stevie Beck ) Honeysuckle Rose (Butch Thompson Trio ) Stompin' Low Down (Butch Thompson Trio ) Primrose Stomp (Butch Thompson Trio )
Clouds of Joy Bubble Bath Fearmonger's Shop Freeport Flyers Fritz Electronics Personal Air Traffic Controller's System Jack's Deep Valley Bed Mist County Fair Powdermilk Biscuits Professional Parents Incorporated Toast and Jelly Days Whippets
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Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. About 30 seconds actually be about enough to tell about it. Not a whole lot happening. All the toast has been picked up from toast and jelly days. People are more or less recovered from that. Now getting ready for the mist County Fair, which comes up in a few weeks over the Labor Day weekend. Mist County, which is spelled M, i, s, t, is the county in which Lake Wobegon lies, named for the fogs that rolled in off the lake, and also for the fact, of course, that the town was omitted in the survey of 1871 they scheduled that on Labor Day weekend years ago, the mist County Agricultural Association did to try and spare the 4h ers the temptation of coming down to see the Minnesota State Fair down in St Paul that was back in the days when they used to have girly shows on the Midway at the Minnesota State Fair. And so they wanted to offer a wholesome family fair in Lake Wobegon, so the 4h ers come to bring their pullets and their hogs and their sheep down wouldn't have the temptation to stray over to the Midway and see the Persian palm show and the Harlem review? Those shows are all gone from the Midway the Minnesota State Fair. Now you can no longer see that rather tame stuff. There you got much more exciting stuff on television.
But the mist County Agricultural association is not aware of that because they never have come to the state fair because they believed it was bad. So not too many people get a second chance up there in Lake Wobegon, except for the Lake Wobegon weapons, to get more chances than they ever want, really, they kind of wish their season could come to an end about now, they lost last Sunday to the Freeport flyers by a score of 13 to three.
They held a team meeting afterwards to discuss what was going wrong with them, which was kind of a triumph in itself, just having a team meeting. Ordinarily, a lot of those fielders will go out in the ninth inning and take their street shoes with them, you know, and before the last fly ball settles into somebody's glove, they're gone. They're across the parking lot, they're halfway home. So Dutch went around in the dugout and collected car keys during the game, and they sat down to talk a little bit about the team's problems.
One of their big problems has been the first inning. Whippets are likely to go out in the top of the first and give up 7-8-9, runs, all in a batch. And when you do that, when you were losing by 7-8-9, to nothing, after about 20 minutes of baseball, it kind of takes the starch out of you. It sort of takes the fun out of the game. Dutch tries to tell them, it's only a game. Boys, relax, enjoy it. But how can you enjoy it? You trot out there on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and you're out there. You're not even quite ready to play baseball yet. You're just standing there, and then all of a sudden, somebody hits one goes right by your ear. Luckily, you duck, you get down, and you're not hurt or anything. But there it is, and you got somebody standing on second, and then somebody walks and you got men on first and second, things are looking bad, and then there's a high pop fly. It comes to you, sort of, you think, but it's up there in the sun, and you're standing there yelling, Duke, Duke, Duke. And Duke is yelling, it's yours. It's yours. And it falls right in between you, and all of a sudden, you got the bases loaded, and you're standing out there in center field, and you kind of back up a few steps, and there's a grounder hit right up over second base. And you charge the ball, you run in towards it, and you say, I can't let this one go through my legs. Don't let this one go through my legs. And there it goes right through your legs, all the way back to the fence. You run back, you pick it up. You're so angry at yourself, you hurl it as hard as you can. It goes over the third baseman's head into the visitors dugout, and all of a sudden, there you are. You're behind four to nothing.
Oh, Whippets. What a team. I see Whippets all over though, in the world, you know, in the real world, we've got state employees on strike. Here in Minnesota, never had so many go out on strike, and never did people go out on strike at a worse time, as far as attracting fans. You know, we're living in a time when public employees are regarded as being just a step above welfare recipients. Those are Whippets walking those picket lines out there.
Half a controller, same thing. They're Whippets. I don't say that Whippets ought to win all the time, but good heavens, can you lose as bad as that all the time? Oh, dear, those Whippets keep hoping God will intervene somehow. I don't know what makes them think God would take an interest in that. God never promised anybody victory on this earth, heaven. It's the last thing they keep hoping he'll send a sign to them, maybe a long fly ball that you have to run for, and it just settles in your glove without you even having to reach for it. You go up to bat, a whippet goes up to bat and he prays, oh God, let me just swing my bat a little bit. Let me close my eyes and swing my bat and let it be kind of a hard liner just over the first baseman's head, go into the right field corner there for a stand up triple, or in my case, maybe a single.
But no, that's not what happens. Shuts his eyes, swings the bat, and it's a high pop, fly over second base, an easy out, an easy out when they're in the field. How come it's not an easy out when we're in the field? That's what whip its wonder. Well, they're still my team, and more than that, they're the team of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women are strong thank goodness, and all the men are good looking, and all the children are Above Average.
GK talks about Dr. Joyce Brothers. Supply-side comedy - the richer you are the funnier you are. Fifty years from now, the messages will be the best part of PHC. Chuck Mitchell boating on the Mississippi
Boston Globe Aug 1 1981
First 15 minutes missing from transcript. Rebroadcast 9/10/1983 (John Hall document)
Archival contributors: Frank Berto