Daryl Adams, Philip Brunelle, Garrison Keillor, Kate MacKenzie, Howard Mohr, Peter Ostroushko, St. Lucas Congregation, Stoney Lonesome, Vern Sutton. Butch Thompson,
Won't You Come and Sing For Me ( Daryl Adams , Garrison Keillor ) Come Ye Thankful People Come (St. Lucas Congregation ) Psalms 84, 92, 103, and 34 (St. Lucas Congregation ) Ye Thankful People (St. Lucas Congregation ) Poem about Thanksgiving Dinner ( Garrison Keillor ) I Want A Hug ( Daryl Adams ) I Ordinarily Love You ( Daryl Adams ) Since Love Came Along ( Vern Sutton ) The vacant chair ( Garrison Keillor , Vern Sutton ) Behold The Host Arrayed in White (in Norwegian) (St. Lucas Congregation ) Psalms 100, 27, 130 and 72 (St. Lucas Congregation ) I'm So Glad at Christmas Eve, The Night of Jesus Birth (St. Lucas Congregation ) Medley: Beautiful Savior, Built on a Rock, Earth and All Stars, When Morning Guilds the Sky, Oh for a 1000 Tongues, Oh Master Let Me Walk with Thee, ( Philip Brunelle ) Satisfied (Stoney Lonesome , Butch Thompson ) Will You Love Me When I'm Old? ( Kate MacKenzie , Butch Thompson , Daryl Adams , Garrison Keillor ) The Lake Wobegon Anthem ( Garrison Keillor ) Psalms 5,23,and 1 (St. Lucas Congregation ) How Can I Keep Singing? ( Daryl Adams , Kate MacKenzie , Vern Sutton , Garrison Keillor ) Montet of Congregation Thankfulness ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Closing Hymn (St. Lucas Congregation )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Pill injector for cats.) Minnesota Language Systems (Harold & Phyllis begin to depart from the Ackbaum's house.) One Minute Romance (After hesitating to do this production in a church we learn about a man and woman meeting at the Cottonwood Mall. Sponsored by Pork Brand Shoes.) Powdermilk Biscuits (Garrison discusses the town of Cottonwood and St. Lucas Lutheran Church and how the town was settled in 1871 by Norwegian Bachelor farmers who remained bachelors until a year later when their families arrived! )
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Well, it's been a quiet week up there in Lake Wobegon, my hometown. Quiet week for Thanksgiving. Not really, it's a lie, but it's what I say every week anyway. It's been a quiet week. As Thanksgiving comes and goes, that beautiful, that beautiful one-day holiday that nobody can make complicated. Nobody can find a way to make it commercial because there's no way to sell people something on a day when they give thanks for what they already have. sell them some placemats or something, some napkins with turkey on it and some brown crepe paper and a larger platter for the middle of the table.
But there isn't much you can sell them because they already know what they're going to eat anyway. So you couldn't really change their minds about that. Thursday afternoon, just think of it. Millions of homes across America. Millions of people sitting down and eating exactly the same thing. Eating roast turkey and dressing. Little room for improvisation on the dressing. Not a lot. Bread crumbs got to be in there. mashed potatoes and turkey gravy. And you have to have sweet potatoes, you have to have cranberry, you have to have squash. If you fulfill your cranberry requirement, then you may dabble in another vegetable or two somewhere. But basically that has to be it. Pickle tray, including watermelon pickles, which I've never seen anyone eat. It's a kind of a ceremonial Thanksgiving dish. Watermelon pickles, just there for the purpose of being passed to someone so they can have at least one food item that they say no thank you to.
And then put back away, along with the other decorations, put in the refrigerator for next year. Is what watermelon pickles are for. This great, great holiday of thanks at which we sit down and eat the exact same thing and say in many homes the exact same prayer year after year after year. So the time stops for us on that day and we are children again except that we look at other children and they are holding the chair for us and looking at us with such profound respect in their eyes that we realize that we must be a great deal older than they are. This comes as a surprise to me every time it happens to see that look of respect in another child's eyes. and to realize that that child is probably not going to throw a lima bean at me when her father is not looking because her father is my brother who is now almost at the age where his children could have children. So she's not going to throw a bean at me because I am her old uncle. And that great possibility of thanksgiving has passed. Of food being thrown at you. Always a great moment for me. Going back to when I was a little boy.
And I had to watch my sister carefully across the table as we sat with older relatives on either side of us and squared off, her against me, across the table. I had to watch her because she could reach for a pad of butter holding the roll in her left hand, reach for a pad of butter, and go to put it on the roll, turn up to the left to ask for the jam to be passed. And with one flick of her wrist, she could put that pad of butter into my left nostril. And it was right there in my face in a moment. I never said anything when she did it. I just wiped it off and looked at her and smiled, got up, walked into the kitchen and got the water pitcher and put a lot of fresh ice in it and filled it with water. What a good boy. Bringing the water pitcher back in to refill the glasses of all of our guests at Thanksgiving dinner and walked along her side of the table until too late she realized I was coming, hearing the clink of ice in the pitcher and went to push her chair back but couldn't because my foot was behind its leg. and leaned forward to press even harder back and when she did that she opened up a slight gap between the collar of her dress and her neck and the ice fell into It just fell out of my hand, fell into that place and down her bare back. A long way down, I didn't even have any idea how far down it went. I think a long way.
She didn't say anything because in our house these disputes were resolved by my dad pointing fingers at both people and saying, you and you, out. So we tried to settle them ourselves. by retaliation. I watched her the rest of the meal and I watched her as we did dishes and hours passed and she didn't make a move and she was just humming to herself and washing the dishes and wiping and I was moving around in the kitchen keeping an eye on her trying to keep my mother as a barricade between us and It was when my mother left the kitchen. I turned to say something to my sister.
And there was a little cloud of cranberry in the air. It seemed to hang there. It was like a cloud. It was like a cranberry comet. The annual cranberry comet. It just hung in the air. I can still see it there. I only saw it for just a split second. And yet it's indelibly engraved on my mind, that large chunk of cranberry in motion in orbit towards me, as it came towards me. The feeling that I had at that moment was very much like the feeling of love. of excitement, of your whole body suddenly opening up to the possibilities of life. That's what happens when somebody throws cranberry at you and you look and see it at the last minute coming towards you. That's passion, is what you feel. I knew I was going to get around to that subject of love. Senator K. Torvaldsen was up to his families for Thanksgiving. No food was thrown at anyone. But his true love came out from the state of Maine. I just pass on the information to you. A man in his early 70s who fell in love last winter but wasn't aware of it until summer, when he spoke to a beautiful woman from the state of Maine, and heard her say his name on the phone and say, sweet man, sweet man, and realized then he had been in love with her for a long time, did not know how long. She came out for Thanksgiving dinner. arriving on Wednesday night and was there at the Tollefson's on Thursday.
Laura, who'd come all that way, slender, gray-haired, handsome lady, beautiful woman. He sat and admired her all through Thanksgiving dinner. The graceful way about her. The graceful way that she took the food on her fork and brought it to her mouth. She didn't shovel it towards herself the way other people in his family do. The way that she breathed through her nose. Not her mouth, but breathed through her nose. So graceful and lovely. The musical way that she talked, the musical way that she laughed, her laughter was music to him. He just sat there and heard music go through his mind. Oh, she's so beautiful, so lovely.
His sister-in-law Mary said, Peterson, you say, your last name's Peterson. I knew a Harry Peterson once. You wouldn't be related. No, Senator said. No, she's not related to them. She's not related to Harry Peterson. She's not related to anybody, he thought. She is an angel who was sent from heaven. His sister-in-law Mary looked at him and said, You know, I saw a blue knit dress like that in Sears Roebuck. Did you get that at Sears? No, Senator said, she didn't get that at Sears. She doesn't wear blue knit dresses from Sears. God put that on her. God put that on her when she was in heaven. He got her out of the house as soon as he could and took her on up the hill to walk. They walked up towards the cemetery. Ordinarily, a person 72 years old doesn't walk up to a cemetery for enjoyment and recreation, especially when it's cold and windy and the road as slippery as it was on Thursday.
But for some reason, lovers have always enjoyed walking in cemeteries. Maybe because they feel that this will never happen to them as wonderful as life has turned for them. He walked with her up the hill towards the cemetery, talking with her, making plans for this next year when they'll be in Florida together, including some plans that he wasn't going to talk to her about. And suddenly slipped and fell. slipped and his legs went out from under him and he hit the deck on the soft part of his body and in the moment that he hit suddenly everything seemed clear and there was music in the world there was a low hum of music there was a symphony a symphony in the world in the trees and in the wind in the trees Just that one fall did it for him. It did it for me once too. And I even wrote a song. I was walking out the front door of my uncle's house up near Lake Wopegon, out into a farmyard I had seen so many times before. I was going out to shovel the front steps. And as I was going out to shovel, I stepped out into midair the way cartoon characters do. But I hadn't had enough coffee to be able to do that, to float. So I kicked high and I did a great dance that defied the force of gravity for about four or five steps, all the way down the steps and out onto the walk, performing high kicks that I couldn't do for you right now.
But I did them then with my hands in the air, a kind of Minnesota winter flamenco dance down the front steps. and hit the deck and looked and saw a farmyard that I had seen hundreds of times before but everything was stopped in a frame and I saw it so clearly this is a thanksgiving hymn that I wrote with Dvorak and I wrote this together Morning light, soft and bright, woe-begone reveals. Early frost all across farm and woods and fields. Coffee dawn, I'll have some, step outside alone. Look around, sat me down on a slab of stone. By the barn cattle tree, murmur in the pen. Strong and pure, cow manure, I know where I am. I know where I am.
I am home again. Precious Lord, by your word, simple gifts are blessed. Creatures all great and small, heavenly love express. Love and faithfulness, Let the promise of salvation come by daily observation. In this farmyard, Lord, be with us. My old dog takes his walk, sniffing every tree. Every smell seems to tell his biography. Chickens dash across the grass. Cats patrol the yard. Seven geese marching east form an honor guard. Then a small trumpet call ringing to the skies. Three loud barks, bark, bark, bark, wake up and arise. That's the news from Lake Wobegon. For all the women are strong and all the men are good looking. All the children are above average.
Members of St. Lucas read Psalms 84, 92, 103 & 34
Garrison circles back to the Ackbaum house to see how Harold and Phyllis are doing with leaving.
Garrison recounts the history of the Swedes, Icelanders and Norwegians that settled Cottonwood. The same names that are listed in the graveyard are the same names as are on the church roles today.
Garrison goes back to the Akbaum's. They are now on the front porch as Harold and Phyllis are walking toward their car.
Garrison admits that the church is West of town not East as he said earlier.
Archival contributors: Ken Kuhl