Scott Alarik, Butch Thompson Trio, Ann Fennessey, Peter Ostroushko, Neal Ramsay, Spokane Falls Brass Band. Stoney Lonesome, Pat Ward,
Gypsy love song (Butch Thompson Trio ) Manzanetta ( Neal Ramsay , Pat Ward ) Oodles of Noodles ( Neal Ramsay , Pat Ward ) Greetings - Always Lift Him Up ( Peter Ostroushko ) Heaven's Light Is Shining on Me (Stoney Lonesome ) Itraced Her Little Footprints. In The Snow (Stoney Lonesome ) Don't Let Your Meal Go Down (Stoney Lonesome , Peter Ostroushko ) Ana Lee ( Scott Alarik , Peter Ostroushko ) William Tell Overture (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Beautiful dreamer ( Ann Fennessey , Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Texas Bar-B-Q (Stoney Lonesome ) Doug's Tune (Stoney Lonesome ) Chatterbox Cafe Jingle (Stoney Lonesome ) All Thy Names Are One (Stoney Lonesome , Scott Alarik ) Snowy Morning Blues (Butch Thompson Trio ) Ham Trombone (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Pineapple Rag ( Ann Fennessey , Spokane Falls Brass Band ) I'm Just Wild About Harry ( Ann Fennessey , Spokane Falls Brass Band ) A Study in Saxaphone Laugh ( Neal Ramsay ) Alabama Jubilee (Stoney Lonesome )
Ajua Hot Sauce (Stoney Lonesome do them song to Ghost Riders in the Sky.) Bertha's Kitty Boutique (The last two weeks of Bertha's June cat sale.) Cliff's Chicken Ranch (Leghorns that clean and fertilize your lawns at the same time.) Fearmonger's Shop (New book: "Traveling in Remote Areas Among Strange People.") Ora Gel (Too hot food!! (Spicey Variety)) Powdermilk Biscuits (Garrison discusses how large corporations are looking to buy small companies like Powdermilk Biscuits. also Wally the Old Knuckleballer tried out with the Minnesota Twins in 1962.) The National Council of Thing That are Bad for You
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Well, it's been a quiet week, and Lake Wobegon, my hometown, the Reimer's left on vacation finally here on Tuesday, late Tuesday afternoon, they finally got off the whole family did in their station wagon. Going out to South Dakota to see the black hills and Mount Rushmore for two weeks. Their neighbor Clarence Bunson celebrated, got out his bottle of old overcoat bourbon and poured himself big jelly glass full of it. Sat out in the backyard, drank it. Said some stuff to the Reamer's golden retriever, Bob, whom they left behind, and who think Clarence thinks he can train in the next two weeks to maybe not dig up the garden the way he has and not bark his full head off all the time. Dog is kind of a reverse watchdog. He barks at departures, you know. Clarence is getting a little bit tired of it. It's about the seventh strike against the Reimer's, and in Lake Wobegon you only get four. The mister is the first strike and the biggest one. He comes over to talk whenever Clarence is outside. Doesn't have much to say except tell him what a wonderful place Minneapolis was, which was where the Reimer's lived before he got a job with the school district here this last fall. A city that according to him has everything that a person could want to be happy. Which Clarence is not particularly interested in hearing even if it is true. A second strike is Mrs. Reimer, who has a voice like a jigsaw, and who is always after those kids and who's threatening them with terrible things that are going to happen if they don't shape up and who's been threatening them now for weeks. That if they didn't shape up they wouldn't get to go on this vacation. Clarence said to Arlene he said if she threatens them with not seeing Mount Rushmore, and then they go out and see it. They're never going to obey her again in their lives. Punishment be better than the prize in a case like that. Clarence has seen the black hills in Mount Rushmore. He thinks they look better on a view master. I was Tuesday, Tuesday was Flag Day in Lake Wobagon. As well there were flags flying every place from the flag poles, of course, pole up behind the statue of the unknown Norwegian. Flags in the brackets on the pillars of the porches and flags on the pole stuck into the holes in the sidewalk in front of all the business places that were drilled there about 16 years ago by the sons of Knutt. Paul was celebrating Flag Day in a big way, and who went around 16 years ago sold a flag and a hole in the sidewalk to all the businessmen, except for Jack, a jack's out of repair who thought they were trying to push him into it. So he flies his own flag. Says, don't tread on me. Old American flag. Knutts decided last week they were going to have another living flag on Flag Day. They'd been here since they had a really good one, so they were going to round up people, put on the red, white and blue feed caps, get down the main street in front of the central building and do a living flag that everybody could be proud of. They were out on Monday and Tuesday with clipboards that Knute's were all over town trying to sign up people for the flag. People said, well, I'll try and make it if I can. I probably might be busy on Tuesday, going over to my mother's after supper. Knute's said, well, we got your mother already signed up. Well, it was later in the evening we were going over to mother's. We were going to kind of busy and work in the garden and so on. Tuesday about supper time, they only had about 125 people signed up. You need about 400 for a good living flag. So they went out again, ran around them up. They said, you want to be a star or a stripe here, we'll write your name down. People said, well, I might have to be a little bit late for that to get down there as soon as I want to come down there. Kind of busy. You've got a carburetor. It got effects. It wasn't that they weren't patriotic. It's the way that Mr. Berge has been bossing people around at that living flag for years now. He's the grand Oya of the son's a canoot. Tuesday night after supper he's standing up on the cab of a pickup there on Main Street ordering people around as he always does. Yelling at him. You blue people here. You get over here and get around these stars here. You've got to straighten up this stripe here now. We got too many white people. We need more red people. So some of you change places there. And I want these, I want the red stripes to stand out so you taller people get on the red caps here. Get in the stand. Except this year he had a bullhorn that plugged into the cigarette lighter of the pickup. So he could be heard all over town. He could be heard all the way out on the lake where the guys were in the boats fishing. And he saw that he only had about 130 people in his flag. So he aimed his bullhorn up the hill and aimed it down towards the lake. And he said, about 15 more minutes here. You want to come down and be part of the living flag here. We need you. I know where people are just on their way to come. Just going out the front door saying, well honey we get down and be in the living flag here. When all of a sudden he started yelling in his bullhorn. He said, you know a lot of us in the lodge have worked real hard on this all through the year. And this is really a darn shame. We don't get a better turnout than we do. We really try and do a flag down here that we can all be proud of. And I don't know what's wrong with you people up there. Which was about the time the people up on the hill just turned right around, walked back in their houses. Sat down on their porches and clenched their teeth. Was his fine to have a living flag and all of that. But if it meant marching to his tune well they could live without one. Till finally some of the canutes had to tug at his pants like and say that even if it wasn't as good a living flag as they've had in years past it was still pretty good. And it was about as good as they were going to get. And it was time to sing the star spangled banner and go home. And that's what they did. Clarence Bunsen was not down in the living flag. He was sitting up on his porch kind of wrapping the old overcoat bourbon around himself thinking long thoughts as the sun started to go down thinking about the car business Bunsen mortars which hasn't been very good lately. In fact he couldn't remember when it had been good. Couldn't remember why he'd gotten into it. It was Grandpa Bunsen's business really. Grandpa Bunsen who got the first Ford dealership and had airy for miles around back when Henry Ford was a piker. Grandpa Bunsen died his fortune to the automobile. Oneing went against the advice of his dad who thought that automobiles were nonsense soon blow over because any fool could see that car just got stuck whenever the mud was more than a foot deep which was anytime it rained. But Grandpa went against wisdom and he signed on with the automobile and it was a big success and it was good for him. He was proud. But after that Bunsen mortars it was just a case of sons following their fathers along in the same route. Clarence had been in the car business since 1951, 31 years. So long ago he couldn't remember why he went in and he's old enough now he wouldn't know what he'd do if he got out of it though he's been thinking about aerial photography. By a plane take flying lessons get a camera go up take pictures from up in the sky that you could sell to people who wanted to know what it looked like from up there. Lake Wobegon doesn't have any tall buildings other than the central buildings just three stories. All you'd see if you went up there was just the street the living flag if you were lucky. How many kind of fun get out of the office get up in the clouds and buzz around up there in a circular nimba and taking pictures like farmers they'd be interested you got two 300 acres be nice to have a picture of that hanging on your wall maybe take them up personally take farmers up so they could see at a glance you know how things are doing. I looked down and say yeah that corn is kind of burnt you can kind of tell by the brownish color of it can't you. Farm photos aerial lake photos for fishermen showing schools of fish and sandbars and feeding areas and sunken tires bird's eye view of your town bird's eye view of Lake Wobagon home of the famous living flag lower left near the brownish area maybe get an aerial close-up of the living flag and put the plane into a steep dive. Aerial photo of living flag in panic. Oh that's a funny Clarence thought. Selfie said you know I'm supposed to be a businessman I got businessman of the year two years ago from the chamber. He said I haven't been interested in being successful or making money since God knows when. Got no more interest in success than I do in looking at Mount Rushmore. Success probably be a lot like looking at Mount Rushmore. Except maybe the faces that talk to you you know. Everything that interests me is stuff that would interest a 10 year old boy. Why'd we all follow grandpa into this business? Grandpa was a gambler he was a wild man. Grandpa and his friends you know a lot of them left the old country on nothing more than just a whim. Just threw overboard the traces and came over to America based on nothing but just the feeling they had one day. Grandpa's been dead for all these years one might do and following along behind the roll behind grandpa. What what what is he care? Arlene came out on the porch she said it's about 10 o'clock aren't you going to come up to bed? He said yeah I'll be up in a minute. She said what are you sitting out here thinking about all by yourself? Things? She said what kind of things? Said I'm thinking about how hard it is to get old. Said yeah well she said it's not for the timid. He said Dwayne home she said yeah he's up in his room. He's been up there typing on something for hours I don't know what well Clarence says might as well go up to bed then. Yeah she said it wouldn't hurt. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota where all the women are strong all the men are good looking all the children are above average.
Garrison discusses the Eastern US tour. The Whippets played last Sunday and lost to the Freeport Flyers. Tomorrow the play the Upsula Oof Das!
1983.05.20 Spokane Chronicle / 1983.06.18 Louisville Courier