Jethro Burns, Butch Thompson Trio, Cranberry Lake Jug Band, Garrison Keillor. Lieberman Fogel & Bey, Sally Rogers,
Song to Ray Schmidt ( Garrison Keillor ) Poor Butterfly ( Jethro Burns , Butch Thompson Trio ) Panama (Butch Thompson Trio ) Don't Mean a Thing (Cranberry Lake Jug Band ) Albert Let Your Socks Hang Down (Cranberry Lake Jug Band ) Working in the coal mines ( Sally Rogers ) St. Louis Blues ( Jethro Burns ) Violin Lesson on Mandolin ( Jethro Burns ) Miami Beach Medley ( Jethro Burns ) Don't Call A Bagel a Donut ( Jethro Burns ) Don't Ration Swing (Lieberman Fogel & Bey ) Days of Wine & Roses (Lieberman Fogel & Bey ) Logs to burn ( Sally Rogers ) They Tore the Railroad Depot Down ( Sally Rogers ) Happy Birthday Poem ( Garrison Keillor ) Whispering ( Jethro Burns , Butch Thompson Trio ) Straighten up & fly right (Lieberman Fogel & Bey , Butch Thompson Trio , Jethro Burns ) It ain't right (Cranberry Lake Jug Band )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Feeding your cat vegetables) Bob's Bank (Banking by mail, the address to send is on the back of your bank book.) Celebco Meals with Wheels (Take lunch with your favorite stars!) Powdermilk Biscuits (Discusses talking about "Something That is on His Heart"! ) Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery (Basic socks, nothing exotic!)
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Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, Bud has finished plowing after the big snowfall weeks ago, has finished plowing out the alleys in Lake Wobegon which is always a problem. People don't know exactly where they are and they're someplace in there between the houses. Father Emil is just fine, Pastor Inquist, went on a field trip down to the cities with Luther League members and came back with all of them. Which was, I think the purpose of the trip. I know the big news for me was not this last week, but actually the week before when the class of 1983 voted on their class gift. It was a wonderful tradition been done at that school for years and years. I wonder if it's done anywhere else but in Lake Wobegon, where each graduating class presents a gift to the school. It's a lovely idea. When you leave, even though you want to go, you still pretend there was nothing. You don't just shake the dust off your sneakers and get out as fast as you can. You leave something behind. They had a lot of money to spend on it. It's just has been the most lucrative class in the history of that school. They just earned money hand over fist selling popcorn and candy at the Leonard's football and basketball games. Selling magazine subscriptions and salve and light bulbs and everything they just. In the case of 1983, they just had the most fun earning money and they had a couple thousand dollars. Including several hundred that they earned at that car wash. That Jack ought to have repaired this last fall. The one that featured the incredible water fight between the two teams. One of them with three garden hoses and one of them with only one. But the team with one, that one garden hose was hooked up to a deep spring well. And water that it shot out was cold enough so it could shrink your skin by about six sizes right away. Team with the three hoses made a lot of good lateral movements with their water buckets. But whenever the one hose hit them, they showed a lot of vertical mobility. I remember hearing some of those boys scream who I don't think had screamed since they were little children. A lot of girls at age are fairly regular screamers and they have kind of musical screams. But to hear a kid, a boy give out with a scream who without any practice, you know, is like somebody grabbed at a chalkboard with their fingernails. Like the time the Altson boy went down to Jacks and screwed a kazoo under the airhomes. Kind of a kind of a base and a soprano at the same time. A bullfrog singing opera. Their class advisor Mrs. Hoffert ducked for cover. She just stuck her head out a couple of times to say children. This time that we start acting like grownups. But of course that was the point of it wasn't it. So their childhood was running out and they had to get in a few last licks, get in one last great water fight and then just before Christmas they got in one last good food fight in the cafeteria, turned the tables on the sides and got down behind the barricades. The custard and the macaroni and cheese back and forth fired the Brussels sprouts. But I tell you they did themselves proud when it came to voting on a class gift. As I recall our class, our gift was a large plaster bust of Shakespeare with a brass plate on the front of it. It was the idea of one of our English teachers who knew where she could get one cheaply. And it was cheap in fact the bust cost less than the brass plaque would set gift of the class of 1960 on it. And then when they drilled holes in the base of the bust to put the plaque on it cost even more than that to fix Shakespeare and to glue him back together. It was a we meant well but it was the sort of gift that the recipient kind of looks at and says oh thank you. Puts on a shelf somewhere and it was put on a shelf in the library where it's been all these years. Generations of students have applied makeup to it so Shakespeare looks like a cocktail waitress. Well the class of 83 met a week before last to vote on their class gift and they had ideas of buying some sort of gift like that. Somebody nominated stained glass windows for the librarian. Somebody nominated a marble drinking fountain with a brass plaque on it. Nancy Krebsbach stood up and she moved that they spend the money on an oil portrait of Mrs. Hoffert who is retiring this year. It seems so odd she seemed so young when I was in school but she's retiring. Mrs. Hoffert was there. She stood up and said oh Nancy. Nancy all been a prize student of hers. She said oh Nancy. She said I'm just that someone would think of that as an honor enough for me. She said I have to tell you I'm not worthy of that sort of recognition. She said for me just having had the opportunity to teach and to have worked with so many young people over the years and not only as a teacher but also I'd like to think as a friend has been rewarded enough for me but I thank you. And she sat down. Mrs. Hoffert did sort of expecting I think they would vote in the oil portrait by acclamation. But then the Magandance boy stood up. Coach Magandance his son who's real anxious to get out of school and to get away from his father's disappointment that he never was any good at football. Scott Magandance stood up and he said let's buy a computer. Mrs. Hoffert stood up then. She said oh Scott she said I don't think that would be a very appropriate or meaningful gift for this class to give. She said compared to an oil parker just to take one example that's already been mentioned. I think a computer would be sort of a cold and a life gift don't you? No he didn't. Some of them did they held out for the stained glass window and they said a computer. It's just a piece of the equipment. Might as well buy waste baskets or erasers. I like this marble drinking fountain that lasts for hundreds of years that'd be a beautiful gift to give not a computer. They voted in a computer. Vote was 26 to 18. They also voted to get it right away so as to get some use out of it themselves. Because school doesn't have one Mr. Halverson mentioned it to the school board in August just kind of feel them out a little bit on the subject and the school boards said absolutely not that's a frill they don't need that. We got along without one of those absolutely not we're not going to get one negative on the computer. So the class of 83 bought it and it arrived on Thursday. Clint Bunsen had to go down to the cities to see his period on it so he brought it up with him and he brought it in right after the lunch hour and they set it in the library table. One big box and three little boxes over the objections of Miss Jurassick who said I don't want that thing in here all that beeping and that worrying and clicking people in here to read books I just going to bother them. They set it up on a library table and they opened it up and they took it out and there it was. It's a gigantic thing. Screen on it. Keyboard. And this other thing. Instruction manual Mr. Halverson some of the boys were studying the instruction manual. Everything lost in it having to go back to the beginning. After about half an hour they managed to figure out to put Jack A and Jack B into socket A and socket B and they turned it on so there was a light on the screen. Then little voice piped up from down near the floor and said he put the program in the disk drive and they looked down and there was one of the third graders who had come over from. Next story come over from library. Kid there he sat up at the chair at the computer and he put this little black disk into a slot and he hit a couple of keys and then on the screen flashed a message it said welcome to the mysterious kingdom of algebra. What is your name? And he typed it in James Halverson. Are you a Knight, a Squire, a Sorcerer or a Pion? Knight. Welcome Sir James Halverson. You will proceed to Vector A and await further instructions on your sacred quest. He was at that machine for about half an hour on his sacred quest Sir James was with about 20 kids in a wedge right behind him about 20 heads in about six cubic feet. They just sort of congealed in there behind him and nobody said a word nobody complained nobody said don't breathe on me stop kicking me they just all were absolutely quiet watching on his screen as Sir James fought his way from the plains of arithmetic and pure numbers up the slopes of symbolic thought into the forests of variable equations. Until finally the bell rang and Sir James Halverson's teacher snaked her arm in through the crowd and grabbed a hold of the brave Knight's neck and dragged him out. But as soon as the brave Knight's rear end was off that seat why somebody else was in there and they were there the rest of the day until school was over and after school was over and after the sun had sat that didn't even bother to turn on the lights. They just sat there with the glow of the screen lighting up their faces all watching it until finally Bill the janitor after he had dried mobbed every room in the building and washed off the blackboards mobbed the lavatories finally came up to the library and he pulled the plug on him and they said no oh no just a little longer no he said out don't use the lavatories don't step where it's wet out they said oh please just a few more minutes we'll lock up really we will trust us please please please please please please he had to say out about 35 times out no out go out before they finally dragged themselves away amazing to see kids have to be dragged away from school like that usually there's no problem evacuate you did what you did not either a computer are you kidding at school yes idea I programmed a computer all by myself I made it count up to a million forwards and backwards simultaneously John come here listen to this you did what and here sat a child eating the same meatloaf as always and yet a child who seemed different somehow a child who had ventured off into the unknown and who had crossed that great divide and gone off and done something that their parents couldn't do child who had programmed a computer to count up to a million forwards and backwards simultaneously amazing brilliant child brilliant child I don't know what I would even do it well I don't either why I remember when yes I remember when they were I never knew that they well no I didn't do I don't think that I could have no I don't think I could have either they're unlike us they're different but that's okay because we know how we turned out there a new story exciting that's the news from Lake Wobegon Minnesota well those children are above average you're listening to a prairie home companion coming to you live from the World Theater in downtown St. Paul.
Butch Thompson played during a silent film for 2 hours and 16 minutes.
Archival contributors: musicbrainz, Ken Kuhl