Butch Thompson Trio, Cal Hand, Lieberman Fogel & Bey, Silly Wizard, Rosalie Sorrels. Tom Leiberman Singers, Eugenia Zuckerman, Pinchas Zuckerman,
Sweet Sue (Butch Thompson Trio ) Why (Butch Thompson Trio ) Song of the wanderer (Butch Thompson Trio ) I wonder who's kissing her now (Butch Thompson Trio ) Lonesome me (Butch Thompson Trio ) Begging for your kisses (Lieberman Fogel & Bey ) Helpless (Lieberman Fogel & Bey ) Alphie (Lieberman Fogel & Bey ) Ashes on my feet ( Rosalie Sorrels ) I'll tell ( Rosalie Sorrels ) You got to sleep alone ( Rosalie Sorrels ) CPE Bach duet ( Eugenia Zuckerman , Pinchas Zuckerman ) Scots reels (Silly Wizard ) Oh what a parish (Silly Wizard ) Donald McIlivray (Silly Wizard )
Ajua! Hot Sauce Association of Serious People Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Cat Aroma Masks) Chatterbox Cafe Elephant Breeders Co-Op Liljequist, Janis Pedersen, Guy Powdermilk Biscuits Sidetrack Tap Skoglund's Five and Dime St. Cloud State Normal School Tolerude, Daryl
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Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Been kind of a chilly week, too, with a touch of frost in the air. Some people went out the other night to cover up their tomato plants to save what's left of the crop. Other people took one look, thought about it, and decided they'd let them die. Been about enough trouble for one year. Some of the tomato coverers were out today putting up storm windows and getting battened down for winter. Whereas some people, there still are some people in Lake Wobegon who figure that because we had a chilly September, that must mean we're going to have a warm October. There still are some people over the age of 12 who... who believe that there's fairness and justice in the weather, you know. If it's chilly and cloudy and miserable for a while, then you're supposed to get some nice weather. I can't think of too many people who believe that. Certainly not the farmers up around Lake Wobegon, who, well, they sort of expect the worst. And this year, it's pretty much all come true for them. with the corn and wheat prices being as miserable as they are. In fact, there were some farmers who were hoping for a good hail back this last month. Wipe out the crop, collect on the insurance. It's been a miserable summer. Chatterbox Cafe has been full of dismal talk by farmers all summer long who figure, and with some reason, that they are among the hardest working and most productive people in the country. but that the price of corn and wheat nowadays makes farming kind of a recreational activity, you know? A farmer has to pay for the pleasure of running livestock and planting, cultivating, and picking a couple hundred acres of corn just as you'd pay for any other vacation. Daryl Tallerud was in the chatterbox the other day and said he thought next year he might plant 180 acres of zinnias and marigolds. Not for seed, just for fun. He said, I'm tired of looking at corn. He said, as long as I'm paying for the privilege, why not have some fun doing it? Well, that sort of got the rest of them started who were sitting around drinking coffee. And Guy Peterson said he might sell his feeder calves and get some elephants for next year. He said, when I was a kid, he said I always wanted to go off and join the circus, but my dad convinced me it was more practical to be a farmer. Now it appears that he was wrong. It'd be fun to keep some elephants around the place. And with Daryl's marigolds and zinnias over there, why, there'd be no need to feed them. They'd just wander over there, eat the flowers. Oh, they were talking about all sorts of things they might do next year, bee ranching or growing mold or moss or whatever. But they just kept coming back to the idea of elephants. They liked the idea of running elephants out there. So they formed the Lake Wobegon Elephant Breeders Co-op. Elected Guy Peterson president, said they'd have meetings every month or so at the sidetrack tap and talk about breeding giant albino elephants. Which is sort of a joke, but then the price of corn and wheat nowadays is too. The Tollefson boy, whom we've mentioned before on the show, has finally gone off to college at St. Cloud State Normal School. And, uh, though it appeared here a few weeks ago that he wasn't going to go off, he came home and announced that he was a couple hundred dollars short on the money that he needed to get a room in the dorm for fall quarter. And he was surprised at how quickly his father moved in to offer to make up the difference. He was just there like that. He said, oh, $200, that's nothing. He said, I'll have a check for you in the morning, and he did. The boy said, well, he said, I was thinking it might be more practical if I invested in a car. Maybe I could commute to class for the first year or so. His dad said, no, no. He said, you don't want to do that. You don't want to live at home. You want to live there. You want to be there. College. Get in on pep rallies and glee club and all that stuff. Those activities they got there. What the boy didn't realize is that his dad and his mom have been kind of ready for him to move away for a couple years now. For a lot of different reasons. One of which has to do with the state of his room. Another one has to do with the talent that this kid has had for about the last couple years of projecting unhappiness and boredom and misery. and his ability to sit in a room with other people, usually his parents, and without saying anything, to let everybody know that he's bored and that this conversation has absolutely no meaning or value or interest to him, which he does by slipping lower and lower in his chair, by moving his eyebrows around, rolling his eyes, and through long sighs. of anguish and pain. As his mother says, well, she says, I don't know about the price of ground beef today. I was down at Ralph's. His dad says, well, they were saying it was going to frost last night. I don't think we got any of it, but it might frost tonight. Why do they talk about this? Why do they talk about the weather, about the price of ground beef? Why don't they talk about life? Why don't they talk about beauty and about truth? Why then, I wonder, after he had wanted to go away so badly, Why, after he paid a visit to the campus a couple weeks ago to register, did he come home and tell a lie that he was short a couple hundred dollars? Was it the fact that when he was there on the campus looking for the building that he was to register in, he asked directions of a guy who rolled his eyes and sighed and said, it's right there in front of you. Can't you read? And this boy recognized that he was entering into a different stage of life in which now other people would be doing the sighing and rolling their eyes. Or did he realize on the verge of leaving home that he really cared about these people that he was leaving and that his exasperation with them and their conversation was sort of an awkward measure of his love and affection for them. I hope it was for that. Anyway, life is a lot easier around the Tollefson's without him there. I'll tell you it's hard, hard to carry on a conversation with a critic so severe as that sitting right there at your table with you in your own home even if he is your own flesh and blood. But he's gone now. He's gone now. He raised the bet and his dad met it. And now He has taken his meals in a dining hall, sitting with a bunch of upperclassmen who've nicknamed him Reverend because he's so quiet and who are loud and who say dumb things all the time. But that's all he's got. And I hope he finds a way to live with it and comes back for visits. especially for homecoming, which this last Friday was up at the high school. And I wanted to mention it to you because Janice Lilliquist was elected the homecoming queen, much to the great surprise of everybody, including Janice, who didn't even vote for herself. She figured she just didn't stand a chance because she takes the bus. after school every day, and they live on farm out north of town. She's got a lot of work to do. She's the oldest of six children. So she's never taken part in school activities or joined any of the clubs. And in past years, homecoming queens have always been one of the girls from town, usually one of the cheerleaders, somebody who is active in everything. But this year, the boys in the FFA decided that they would all vote for one candidate. Instead of each of them voting for their own girlfriend. And they picked Janice because she wasn't anybody's girlfriend. So she was a perfect compromise. And with their help, she was elected. And on Friday, there she was, who never expected to be there, marching down the middle of the gymnasium in her blue organdy dress as she was crowned queen of the homecoming, as the band played pomp and circumstance, trailed by her attendants, the runners-up, some of whom would have liked to kill her, but she was proud. The alumni of the year awards went to the Reverend Bob Nelson, who has four Lutheran churches up in northwestern Minnesota. And also to Donny Krebsbach, who's been quite successful selling aluminum grocery store shelving down in western Nebraska. An award that is given out by the teachers. I understand that my name was mentioned during the committee meeting, but most of them didn't know anything about me except that I do commercials for powder milk biscuits. That didn't seem to be enough. Miss Molenbrock, my old teacher, mentioned that I was the powder milk employee of the month back in April. But as Mr. Stennerud pointed out, powder milk only has 12 employees, so... Didn't seem like a big honor. Anyway, I'm glad for Janice. Glad for Janice and her family. She presided over the dance. The Leonards beat the Millet team in six-man football 42 to 37 on Friday night. And between the coronation and the dance, her parents shot about 14 rolls of film. Yeah. So she'll have a lot to remember it by. 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 is starting on a book on cowardice. GK poem on marriage.
1982.09.25 Chicago Tribune / 1982.09.03 Star Tribune / 1982.09.25 Missoulian / Berto: PHC will be in Rochester, MN on Oct. 12, Chicago on Oct. 8, 9, & 10, Interlochen, MI on Oct. 13, Lansing, MI on Oct. 16 & 17. / Audio of the News available on CD. John Hall claims this date was a compilation fundraiser program.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto, John Hall by Ken Kuhl