Bob Wilson (Greg Brown), Greg Brown, Butch Thompson Trio, Garrison Keillor, Red Maddock, Lisa Neustadt. Norman and Nancy Blake, Peter Ostroushko, Rising Fawn String Ensemble, Third Generation,
Yohnny Yohnson's Wedding ( Garrison Keillor ) You're some ugly child (Butch Thompson Trio , Red Maddock ) Danish Polka (Third Generation ) Moodari Danish Love Song (Third Generation ) Archivist Song ( Garrison Keillor , Greg Brown , Peter Ostroushko ) Before They Close The Minstrel Show ( Lisa Neustadt , Greg Brown , Peter Ostroushko ) Johnny Cats Medley ( Garrison Keillor ) Before They Close The Minstrel Show ( Lisa Neustadt , Greg Brown , Peter Ostroushko ) A Little Vagabond ( Greg Brown ) Natasha's Waltz (Norman and Nancy Blake , Rising Fawn String Ensemble , Peter Ostroushko ) Third Street Gypsy Rag (Norman and Nancy Blake , Rising Fawn String Ensemble , Peter Ostroushko ) Dept. of Folk Song - Boarding House Song, Billboard Song, There Was an Old Geezer, Do Your Ears Hang High, Long, Long Trail ( Greg Brown , Lisa Neustadt , Peter Ostroushko , Garrison Keillor ) How Much Wood Could A Woodchuck Chuck - Iron Range Songs Bob Wilson Songs (Bob Wilson (Greg Brown) ) Fathers What Will You Do? (Spiritual) ( Lisa Neustadt , Peter Ostroushko , Greg Brown )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Songs of the Cat) Fearmonger's Shop (Greg Brown & Butch Thompson discussing the "Conversation Crystal". helps you talk for hours!) Powdermilk Biscuits (Shy people plan what to say, but are planning too much.)
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It's been a quiet week back in Lake Wobegon, back in my hometown. It's a week that all the screens down the storm windows are up now, except I'm going to part of some of the adventurous element, you know, the gambling element in town, putting it off until later. The gardens pretty much done before up there, a few pumpkins and squash lying out there, slowly rotting. It was the week that Carl Krebsbach was out making the rounds in the big red fuel truck going around from home to home. Kind of surprising to see him. I didn't know it was getting on that late in the season, you know, especially a surprise to the people who hadn't paid their bills from last year. Carl came into the house, asked for some money before he pumped anti-fuel oil. Carl came as a surprise to them, you know, that this warmth that we've had courtesy of the sun in these many months, now we're going to have to pay for it, have to come out of the ground in one form or the other. Carl is pretty informal about credit though, as most merchants are in Lake Wobegon. And the thing that I'd like best about their credit system is that they give some credit on the basis of storytelling. People who are good at lying, you know, are given some slight advantage up there. Dog ate my checkbook, Carl, it's a fact, you ate it. Checkbook's sitting right up there on the table. Dog made a move for it, I tried to stop him but I couldn't be grabbed it. Put my hand in his mouth, it was down. Guess we'll have to wait a couple days before I can give you a check. It's a town where some people have been able to almost earn a living through fiction for a while. As was the week that the trees turned, that leaves turned in and around like Wobegon, those blazing maples appeared and the birches and even the oaks and the red oaks started to turn just a little bit. There was a picture of trees turning on the front page of the Lake Wobegon Herald Starr here on Thursday. Of course it was in black and white, but a lot of people thought it was the same picture that he ran last year. Maybe the year before that, but the colors are the same year after year, which in his case he didn't have anyway. I know that the article that Herald Star wrote under the picture was in last year. In fact, it was in back when I was a kid. It's been in every year. It's the article that begins once more, the hand of the master has touched these hills with hues and tints, emblazoning all nature and burning tones to enrapture the eye and inspire the heart. I was in when I was in school. I remember because I lifted part of it for our class assignment. We were supposed to write an essay about autumn and I, in fact, lifted that sentence once more the hand of the master has touched these hills with hues and tints. I got a C-minus on that paper. This Lewis wrote C-minus up at the top and underneath she wrote unclear. I thought it was pretty snazzy writing myself. Even though I was not particularly enraptured by turning leaves and my heart was not particularly inspired, I couldn't even see them from where I sat in her classroom. I sat back in the corner. All I could see was just the bulletin board and the display of leaves that were cut out of yellow and orange and red construction paper, which only the girls got to do because they were neater in that day. Every year on a Sunday afternoon, at least once during the fall, our whole family would climb into the forward and we'd go out for a drive to admire God's Handiwork out in the hills, what we did have of hills around Lake Wobegon, the woods. Though it was my mother who did most of the admiring, she sat up in the front seat on the right. My dad was on the left driving. One child sat between them and five of us were in the back seat. And with that many children, we were all occupied just defending our space. She'd sit up there in the right front and she'd say, oh, look at that. The feast, your eyes on that. We weren't doing any feasting at all. There were secret punches being thrown, poking and kicking being done back there. Make him stop that. He kicked me. I did not. Yes, you did. She breathed on me. Until my mother turned around, she'd say, you're driving me to the verge of a nervous breakdown. She said, you'd be still back there and look out the window or I'm going to come back there and shake some sense into you. That child up in the front seat was the good child always. Middle of the front seat. Little head just over the top of the seat. I like to reach up and yank on a bit of hair. Yank on the good child. Make the good child yope a little better. But you had to be careful because you had to know what mood mother was in. Depending on her mood, some days she'd give you three warnings and other days she'd just give you one. And she would turn around and shake some sense into you. I wonder if kids get shaken today. I don't know. It was her preferred method of punishment. She didn't hit because with hitting, it's hard to tell what effect you're having. Hard to know if you're hitting hard enough to get through to the child. But you don't want to hit too hard. And I know that she had been hit when she was a child with a razor strap. I don't think many times, but you wouldn't need to be hit many times to remember. So she didn't have a stomach for that kind of anger. But with shaking, you see, you could tell the effect on a child because it was right there in front of you. You shook a kid until his teeth shattered and until his ears flapped back and forth. Until his hair parted down the middle. And it had an effect too. It was almost the intimate kind of punishment, you know, holding a kid by the shoulders with both hands and shaking them. It was almost like an embrace in a way. There was something affectionate about it. All the mothers, I think, of every kid that I ever knew in Lake Wobegon, all the mothers were more or less continually on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We're coming to the ends of their ropes, holding on by a threat. And it wasn't the noise that kids made thinking back on it so much as it was, or kids tearing around or kids breaking things, as it was that relentless quality of kids. That weadling and that whining and that pleading and the relentless arguing and the relentless logic. The kids who are absolute literalists, standing there in a kitchen. But you said, you just got done saying. But Dad just said, why? A kid would say, why? Give me one reason. Why? Why? Until steam started to come out of the parental ears. And the parental teeth began to clench. And that nervous breakdown was coming closer and closer. And a kid going on and on, grinding, grinding out yardage. Just point by point. But you just said. But that doesn't make any sense. You told me yesterday, until that nervous breakdown was right there. I was curious about a nervous breakdown having heard so much about it. Wondered what it would look like. My sister said it would be like a tantrum. It would be like lying on the floor and kicking your legs. Which for some reason made me think of the June Taylor dancers on the Jackie Gleason show. And I thought of my mother in kind of a yellow chiffon dress. Lying there on her back doing high kicks, you know, making patterns with her legs. But she never came to that. I waited, I tried, but it never got to that. Because before she got to the nervous breakdown, she always shook some sense into us. And it was good for us too. It was good. In fact, I think sometimes I could still use a good shaking once in a while. The problem is that when you get older, you get to where it would take a couple people to give you a good shaking. Maybe three or four. And it's something that adults don't tend to do for each other. But it would be good I think. If maybe you had shaker groups that you belong to and holistic shaker groups. And you'd go on all week and smarting off, you know, and giving free advice to people and blowing smoke and being a jerk all you wanted. Then you'd go to your shaker group on Wednesday nights and there'd be a holistic shaking going on. How did I get into this? I'm not sure. I'm talking about leaves, whatnot. Lord, I'll tell you the mind wanders when you get to be my age. There's no covering it up. No making a graceful transition. You just say, anyway, anyways, I was saying, my leaves. All those Sunday afternoons driving with those people were all grown up now looking at those trees, never really seeing anything. Person needs a little shaking now, and otherwise you just wouldn't pay attention at all. You just walk through your life and never look at anything. And you just want to see what's there. It's like Mr. Berge who was down at the sidetrack tap, I believe, about two months ago, went in there late of an afternoon and stayed until late night. He just kind of crawled into that peppermint schnapps bottle and pulled a cap over him until he started to feel sleepy. And he dozed off right there at the pinochle table to put his face right down and went to sleep. Well, the pinochle players went along with that about as long as they cared to. And then they went and they turned out all the lights. And then they went back to their pinochle game as if nothing was different and they woke him up. And when he woke up and he heard the cards being slapped and dealt, and guys talking to each other, Mr. Berge came to the only conclusion that was available to him. And he fell down on his knees right there. And he said, God, if you give me back my sight, I'll never drink again. And then Wally switched on the lights. Kind of shook him. It kind of shook him and he was mad, of course. But he was also amazed at this miracle because to him it was a miracle. He thought he was blind. And here he was he could see. And he was just sad at the bar, trembling with wonder and just feasting on the beauty and the splendor of even this pretty decimal place beside Tractau. Just drinking it in. And then he started drinking some snobs. He figured that he didn't all that promise to God because it had been a joke. But see, God plays a lot of jokes on us. All meant to get our attention. I'm aware of one of his jokes every time I stand out here. Has quite a joke. It gets my attention every time. I'll shout out and talk to a couple hundred people without a real clear idea in your head. I'll tell you, it gets your concentration. And when I come down to what could be the end, I think thank you, God. Thank you for giving me a chance to stand out here and look at these good looking people. Please don't. And thank you also for giving me some kind of excuse, however flimsy, to do it. Because just as in Lake Wobegon, they are the women strong and the men good looking and the children all above average, everyone.
Salt Lake Tribune Oct 7 1983
1983.10.08 Berkshire Eagle / 1983.10.07 Star Tribune
Archival contributors: Ken Kuhl