Butch Thompson Trio, Garrison Keillor, Kate MacKenzie, Odetta. Peter Ostroushko, Stoney Lonesome,
Post Office Crew ( Garrison Keillor ) In 1953 ( Garrison Keillor ) Oh Little Town ( Garrison Keillor ) This can't be love (Butch Thompson Trio ) Show shine Boy (Butch Thompson Trio ) Lover's farewell (Stoney Lonesome ) Darlin Cory (Stoney Lonesome ) I'd Like to go Back (Stoney Lonesome ) Stay a little longer (Stoney Lonesome ) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (Stoney Lonesome ) My Love & I (Odetta ) I Got to Believe (Odetta ) Love song of the Nile (Odetta ) Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Odetta ) Amazing Grace (Odetta ) Mooma's waltz ( Peter Ostroushko ) Bound to Ride ( Kate MacKenzie )
Ajua! Hot Sauce Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Winter cat toys) Bob's Bank Chatterbox Cafe Jack's Scraps for Dogs Powdermilk Biscuits Sidetrack Tap
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It has been a quiet week back home in Lake Wobegon, as much as I know about what's happened there. I do know that Monday was Columbus Day, a day that was sort of a dark, sad day there among the Norwegians of Lake Wobegon. who feel that entirely too much credit has been given over our history to this Italian adventurer who sort of headed willy-nilly across the ocean and wasn't even looking for a new world. He was looking for spices, is what he had in mind. Of course, he was almost 400 years late after the first Norseman came to North America, as they know back in Lake Wobegon. I got the Lake Wobegon runestone there in the museum, a big rock that Mr. Oberg found in his field back years and years ago with what they say is Norse characters on it. It says eight of us came and stopped and stayed a while for coffee and a short nap. Sorry you weren't here. I guess that's about it. Some people don't think it's authentic, but... The rock is that old. I know that. That's probably true. But that was Monday, and today is Saturday. And I think about them back there and what they would be doing at this hour. It'd be supper time in most of the houses. Probably have the lights on. It's getting dark early. Most people have their storm windows on. Some houses, some kids would be memorizing Bible verses for Sunday school tomorrow. And some of the older kids would be upstairs studying about Uruguay or protons and neutrons and protein and nutrient and... Kids in Mr. Svensson's English class would be reading Shakespeare's sonnet, Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds Admit Impediments, trying to understand what all this has to do with the star for every wandering bark and all this stuff. What does that have to do with marriage? My parents are going to have grief. This is about love. It's about romance, not about marriage. Well, children, children, children, children, you just don't look close enough. I think about Mrs. Berge back there at home. She's had kind of a hard life in her marriage. She's a woman who has entered contests over the years due mainly to the fact that her husband feels that all the money that he earns is his money. and that he shouldn't give her any, or it would violate some sacred principle of which only he is aware. And so she fills out blanks and she enters lotteries and sweepstakes and contests. She's won money from time to time, small amounts. Won a TV set once, a toaster. About 14 Mrs. Johnson frozen chicken dinners she won once. Got a bunch of pizzas in the mail. And here now this last week... she learned that she had won a small prize in the name the Dream Home Contest, which was run by the Peanut Dream Candy Bar Company. And she'd been studying the label of the candy bar, and she noticed marshmallow on the side, and so her name for the Dream Home was Mellow Mar, and that won her $250. She got the check in the mail. on Friday. And she took it right down to the First Inkvis State Bank and she cashed it into five dollar bills. So it would seem like more. And then because she was afraid that she'd have to spend it on bills or something, on Saturday morning she got up, last Saturday, and decided she was going to go off to an auction and get something gorgeous. Well, there were two of them a week ago Saturday. There was the Lindbergh auction, the widow Lindbergh selling off her stuff, and a lot of people went to that out in the country because her late husband was a great cabinet maker and woodcarver. He made the altar up at Lutheran Church. But they got there and they found that he might have done good things for other people, but he never made any for her. It was all pretty ordinary stuff there in our front yard. So they hide themselves down the road to the Schmidt place where Mamie and Alton are leaving their old farm after 60 years. Their boy is taking it over. Their boy who is 48, I guess. And he lives in a rambler across the county road from them, so he doesn't need the old home. And as they're moving down to Arizona for their health, I guess the old home place probably just be left there to slowly fall apart and someday it'll burn. But there they were as people drove up, saw the rows of furniture out in the front yard, and sitting in two great chairs were Mamie and Alton, who surely never wanted this to happen, having to leave because they're so old, kind of sick. and having all of your earthly goods spread out there in the sunshine they were never meant to be seen in the sunshine they were meant to be seen in the dim light all out there in the bright light and everybody from miles around coming to paw them over and buy them as cheaply as they can including Mrs. Berge who came with her five dollar bills in her pocket and looked over the goods There was a great high boy there and a mission chest and a washstand with a porcelain pitcher and basin, a lot of old china, some cedar chests. There was a magnificent bedstead with great posts that went up like flagpoles. Magnificent carved oak headboard and it looked like a barge that you could have sailed down the Nile River. or in their case, the Rhine. And there was a piano, a big upright piano, a little dusty, but Mrs. Berge stood by it and looked at it. And she could see that with a little work you could bring out the finish in the wood. She wiped away the dust and on the front by the music stand it said, Schubert Carillon Piano, 1912. She touched a key. And evidently there were some kind of little chimes hanging inside, because when you press the key, these little chimes would vibrate along with the strings, and it made a beautiful sound. You just press the key, and it went... Better than that, but kind of like that. Oh, she was nervous. It was such a beautiful piano. She looked around to make sure there weren't any antique buyers from the Twin Cities, those guys in the checked sport coats and the little tweedy caps. go and pay outrageous prices for antiques. One of them was at the Olson's auction a few weeks before and bought about 25 of Alma's brass and glass doorknobs for about 25 bucks a piece. Alma said, boy, we really took the money off that guy. She said, we didn't need those, we got all new ones. But... Some other people in Lake Wobegon would have liked to have some of them. Well, she played just a little bit of a tune on this piano to see how it sounded. Little bout of tune, but it was nice. She wondered if she couldn't buy this for Curtis, her boy. Thirteen years old he is. He plays a guitar now. One they got for him out of the catalog from Sears. And he's been talking about getting an electric. And you know what that means. She could save her boy. She could save her boy from God knows what. Get him this beautiful piano. He'd fall in love with it. There'd be music in their home. It'd be so wonderful. And she looked up and she saw Mr. Swetland, the band director, whose wife is the piano teacher in town, Marvell. He was looking at it. He said, that's some piano, Mrs. Berkey. She said, nah, she said, it's got a crack in it big as your thumb. You wouldn't want it. But when they finally got done auctioning off all the junk, you know, that's where they start, the coffee cans full of the bolts and the nuts and the screws and all the broken things and things that nobody wants and little toasters and odds and ends, they finally got around to the piano. And she stood there as the crowd gathered in close around her. And the auctioneer started off the bidding at $50. $50, she said. Mr. Swedland said, $75. She said, $100. Somebody else said, $125. From then on, it was her and him. He was standing right behind her. And she didn't dare look at him. She felt feverish. She didn't know if she ought to be spending this much money on a piano. She wished she'd just had a few moments to think about it. But the auctioneer was going along at a furious pace, and the bidding was going up. She bid $225. Mr. Swedland bid $250. He got $250. Somebody give me $300. He bid $300. She met him at $350. They were kind of intertwining there, going back and forth. She was sweating. She didn't dare look at other people. She knew everybody was staring at her, thinking what a fool she was. $350 for some old broken-down piano. Probably would never play anyway, but it's not foolishness. Get music for your children. Give the gift of music to your children. That's a mother's love. It's not foolish. She bid $400. She thought I could cash in my insurance policy. I'd give me $150 plus the $250. Mr. Swedland said, $450. And she remembered she'd already cashed in her insurance policy. It had gone for the dining room set. $450. $500, she said. Mr. Swedland said, $550. She couldn't go any farther. She turned around to him. She said, Maurice, she said, will Marvell give Curtis lessons on it? And Maurice said, sure. She's been giving lessons for 30 years. What do you think? Mrs. Berkey said, okay, it's yours. $550 going, going, going to the gentleman in the blue sweater. Mr. Swedland couldn't believe it. What had he done? This was going to be a birthday present for Mar-Vell. This being Lake Wobegon, she probably already knew about it and knew how much she'd paid for it. Good heavens, $550. How is he going to get the money? He wondered if the bank clerk would accept a post-jaded check, say maybe to February or March. And he'd need somebody to put it on a truck. He didn't have a truck. He'd have to go ask somebody for a truck and ask some guys to help him lift it up. And he'd need a place to store it in town. And he couldn't think of people who owed him that many favors. he found Mrs. Berkey. She was out behind the barn. She was watching them auction off some implements. And he said, listen, he said, you're right. He said, Curtis would love this. I'll tell you what. He said, I'll give it to you for $400. If you like it, you can pay me the rest later. She said, well, I'm not sure. I don't think I ought to take something I'm not entitled to. He said, you take it. So she did. Half an hour later it was on her brother-in-law Roy's pickup and they were in at the Berge house and Roy and Mr. Berge and the neighbors were lifting it down and they brought it into the living room and they sat it there. It kind of trailed a little trail of dirt behind it and barnyard stuff and the cover had come off partly so she could look down inside it and she saw that a chicken had been living in there for a while. But she went to the bottom of the stairs and she called up and she said, Curtis, come on down. I want to show you something. He said, I'm reading, I'm reading a book. She said, come on down. He said, oh, mother, mother. So she sat down at the keyboard and she played a little tune. Just a song at twilight when the lights are low and the flickering shadows softly come and go. La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la Love's old sweet song. Love's old. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Well, the women are strong, thank goodness. All the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.
GK talks about the 2 1/2 week road trip. It takes a long time to assemble 20 people. Trivia sticks in memory.
Star Gazette Nov 20 1982
1982.10.16 Star Tribune: East Lansing
Archival contributors: Frank Berto, musicbrainz