Greg Brown, Butch Thompson Trio, Garrison Keillor, Lieberman Fogel & Bey, Kate MacKenzie, Peter Ostroushko. Stoney Lonesome, Vern Sutton,
Mosquito Song ( Greg Brown , Kate MacKenzie ) Jesse James ( Greg Brown , Peter Ostroushko ) Slow days of summer ( Garrison Keillor ) Blue room (Butch Thompson Trio ) Planting Our Own Garden (Butch Thompson Trio , Vern Sutton ) Song to Jogging Couple ( Garrison Keillor ) Stoney Lonesome Theme (Stoney Lonesome ) How's The World Treating You? (Stoney Lonesome ) I'm Working With My Lord (Stoney Lonesome ) It Dont Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing (Lieberman Fogel & Bey ) Roll Over Beetoven (Lieberman Fogel & Bey , Butch Thompson Trio ) Lake Wobegon Merchants Song ( Peter Ostroushko ) Sweet Revenge ( Peter Ostroushko ) Remedial Adult Program Song ( Garrison Keillor ) Dept. of Folk Song - Long, Long Ago, Jesse James, A Lullaby , My Gal's A Corker, Bamboo Tree ( Greg Brown , Peter Ostroushko ) Million Dollar Baby (Lieberman Fogel & Bey ) Straighten up & fly right (Lieberman Fogel & Bey )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique (Bertha now includes a book with each cat purchase to deal with the old cats at home!) Bird Dog Brand Turkey Wieners (Where to Go in Minnesota) Jettison Brother's Trash Killdoll Canning Company Powdermilk Biscuits (You lose 25 points of I.Q. when you cross the border into another country.) Soft Contact Council Sons of Knute Fraternal Insurance (The Fishing Report)
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Well, it's been a quiet week and Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown. Weather's been great up there. Tomato crop is finally starting to move forward, kind of like a glacier. Some of those kitchens getting about full up and they've already canned dozens and dozens of quarts. It's a long way to go. It's a dog day's the summer up there, including for cats too. There emo came back this week on Thursday morning from his annual vacation trip to Civil War battlefields where he goes every year. And so his sub, Father Frank, took off late Wednesday night, kind of passing like ships in the night there. Two of them, Father Frank was there for two weeks and the crew gers held a going away party for him on Wednesday. Come a small party on their patio, the only one in town, under the only table with a striped umbrella that you'll find back there. And kind of a small party for Father Frank. There were four of them, all told. Most Catholics in Lake Wobagon, not quite ready for Father Frank. Not quite ready to sit down with a priest in canary yellow Bermuda shorts. Sitting there at that table under the umbrella and squeezing his olive and saying, Jack, this is really good. This is a martini. Jack, what'd you do? You just think about vermouth? Wow, this is great. Not quite ready for a priest who stands out on the rectory lawn practicing his chip shots. All week Father Emo is going to think those moles been taken bites. Sister Arvan was peering out of the window from next door, watching him do it. As he kept chipping he had about 50 balls there on the grass. Little and each one landed right on the blanket. She thought he must do that quite often to be that good at it. She thought I wonder if he really did go to seminary. If maybe he won the collar as a bet. He looks good for 56. He served time in the Palm Beach Diocese and still has kept up the tan that he got there and has terrific legs if you should say that sort of thing about clergy. And is something of a sport which is not what they expect a priest to be in Lake Wobagon. He set up as he did last Sunday and delivered his homily on the Olympics. The struggle as we go for the gold in our life. Though the sport he had in mind was golf which is not an Olympic event. But which is his event and he prayed a little golf prayer at the end of the service and said, Thou who? Leedeth our ball. Beside the water hazards on the green fairways. Yay though we walk through the rough. We will fear no bogey. For Thou has prepared the green before us in the presence of sand hazards. And our putt runneth over to the cup and dwells there. It was odd that our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility people weren't sure they heard what they heard. But the Krueger's like him a lot. They think he's a man that you can talk to. They're already signed up for his winter tour to St. Petersburg in December. Father Imo got back on Thursday as I say. He'd been on this trip, the Civil War battlefield tour. Now this is silver anniversary, 25 years. He's made the same tour. He's now the senior member of his bus. And looked up to by the others, kind of an authority on the Civil War, of course, after all these years. Though as he says, you keep learning new things about it every year. Though not necessarily about the war. Sometimes about the people you're with who seem to him not quite up to muster and not quite up to the level of the parishioners at our Lady who remind him in some ways of the Confederate army. In that they are poorly supplied, but enjoy a brilliant leadership in the field. But coming down in the bus, out of the Blue Ridge in the rain past green pastures where they look like golf courses in a way and yet a century and more ago were heat with the bodies of dead men at Chancellor'sville, where Hooker was defeated by an army half its size. Led by General Lee and where Stonewall Jackson was shot and Fredericksburg, where Burnside was humiliated by the army of Northern Virginia, coming down through these sights and looking out the window and seeing it as if it were happening. And then in the seat in front of you on the bus, a man complains about the TV reception in his motel room last night and says Eddie tried to watch his show but it was like it was coming in from the moon. And his wife folds her arms in size and said well it's just your own fault. She said I told you I wanted to go to a resort this year but no sir you said this would be interesting. Well ha. Father Emo thinks that as a military unit this busload would not be capable of knocking over a gas station. They are weak reeds and he missed his old friend from years back, his old comrade, a man named Suizo who bunked with him for years and they would stay up late at night rethinking the battles of the Civil War. He wasn't there this year and finally Father called him from Appomattox and Suizo said well he said you know we decided to go to San Francisco instead this summer you know how it is. Well yes Father did know how it is. Dessertion. Walk away from your duty. Leave other people to do the work. It wasn't being done by the tour guide who was a college kid named Bryce who spent most of the time combing his hair and who would show them a sight took him to Gettysburg and let him off the bus and said well he said I don't want to get too technical here but basically mead's army was up here and pickets was over there and those trees and they charged over and they made it about up to here and then they went back over any questions. Father was scandalized and even still when he got home and I would bet that the parishioners tomorrow are going to hear a stiff sermon about soldiering and suffering and the necessity of it and bucking up and doing your duty whatever it may be though I'm not sure that Carl Cripps buck is up for that sermon he almost gave himself a farewell party on Thursday of this week Carl is in the construction carpentry and odd jobs business in town with the emphasis on the odd and it's hard in a small town to be a carpenter when most of your work is for people who are related to you or are old pals of yours it's hard they call you up one night and he says Carl I wonder if you're not busy if you'd have time come over look at my back steps tonight I'd appreciate that and he says well I'm kind of busy but I suppose I could maybe tomorrow and so I'll let be wonderful Carl I'd sure appreciate that and it's that word appreciate that bothers him because he's got a pretty good idea he's might hear it when he's done with those back steps and they look at it and they say oh Carl that's wonderful I sure appreciate that I don't know how I can ever repay you they look on it as kind of a favor that he did for them well he's got an idea how they could repay him by check as soon as possible but it's hard to do it with people whom you know and who've invited you over for dinner more times than one and more times than one have looked at you across the dinner table and said I read somewhere where some places carpenters earn twelve dollars an hour can you believe that yes he can believe that he hadn't seen it himself but he can believe in it he can kind of hope for it but in a town where you're related to half the people and know the others you're pretty well stuck with a five dollar an hour wage for a long time for a long time as you find out even with those people who ask you to do a job for them and they say now Carl I want to pay you for this so you be sure and send me a bill okay so he does and they look at it and they about fall over as his aunt Alice did on Thursday she looked at it and she said honey she said I had no idea it would be this much she said I wish you had told me well you can't tell them because you can't talk about money in a town like that you're not supposed to be very interested in it in a small town you're supposed to be neighborly and neighbors are supposed to help each other that's the Christian way so what do you do if you're the capable one and your neighbors are inept like his neighbor his brother-in-law Lyle he hadn't helped in a long time thank goodness hasn't even offered but he did it one time for a while he'd come over ask if he could help Carl would say yeah I'd say hold this and he'd look around and find something for him to hold that it wouldn't matter if he dropped it leave him there for a while Lyle would say you still want me to hold this Carl say yeah hold hold that unless you want to go in boil water I don't care so that was the last straw for him aunt Alice on Thursday when she looked at her at this bill for $100 for a bathroom three days labor materials looked at $100 looked at this bill like he'd given her a dead cat and said honey I wish you had told me about this I didn't have any idea it would be this much that was well it wasn't the last straw it was one of three last straws the second last straw was when he went down to the chatterbox and he was mad and he sat down and he ordered some coffee and he said that he would probably gonna be moving to Minneapolis sometime soon and maybe by the fall if they could find a place and nobody said a word nobody even commented on us it was like he wasn't even said and said anything that was the second last straw and the third last straw was when he got home and Margaret met him at the door and she said oh no you're not she said guess again an hour and a half later and the word had already gotten to her man can't spit in a town like that that people find out about it tell everybody else he said I am too he said I'm leaving he said I've had it I'm fed up with us she said well you're just a little bit too late to be fed up she said you should have had it about 20 years ago now it's too late to go that was that she wasn't in a mood to listen to him because she had been working for days on a navy blue polyester double net dress for their daughter Cheryl who is going off to college in the fall spent days working on this it's not easy to sew polyester it slips on you they had the first fitting on Thursday morning and Cheryl put it on and it was too tight in the shoulders and it was riding too high in the waist and it pinched under the arms and her mother thought of saying well lose some weight then but she didn't say that she went back she made the alterations and then during the second fitting it suddenly dawned on her that Cheryl was never going to wear this dress except on Sundays when she comes home it was when Cheryl turned around and said do you think this looks nice on me you don't think it makes me look older and Margaret said no polyester it's real easy to care for and navy blue doesn't show the stains and the and the spots Cheryl said it feels like a suit of grammar and then she turned around and looked at herself and she said oh mother she said you put the darts too high it looks like I've got two sets of breasts she'd worked on that dress for two days and she knew that she wasn't ever going to wear it it's been a hard year for Cheryl her senior year of high school she'd been going out with Wally Megan dance because he was all it was available he's talked about marriage he has she wanted to talk about his eyebrow and ask him if he had ever thought of shaving it in the middle to make two but didn't bring it up he wanted to give her his ring she said she was allergic and thank goodness she wasn't wearing any jewelry at the time and hasn't since but they did exchange billfold photographs and it was the thought of her picture riding around town on Wally's rear end that made her really think seriously about college and become a miser so that every dollar babysitting money came through her hands didn't leave it and she actually went down to the bank and got along and in another month she'll take off for college nothing for her there and she really believes that when she gets to that dormitory and opens the door of her room and puts her suitcases in and puts the clothes in the drawers that right then once she walks to the window and pulls the drape then is when her real life will begin and so as she stood in the navy blue double knit polyester with the darts too high she said to her mother no she said it's all right said if i could just keep it pulled down it'll be all right you don't need to do anything to it her mother said oh don't be silly she said it just take me a couple of hours i just have to rip out a couple seams she'll sit now don't bother it's all right i like it her mother said please let me do it she'll sit no really it's nice the way it is that's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota where all the women are strong all the men are good looking at all the children are above average.
Walter Mondale is in the audience. He didn't get a good seat, Garrison says: don't expect to go away and become famous and then come back and expect special treatment. The Whippets game was rained out which was good because Lefty Soderburg's parents kept him home until he finished his chores.
1987-08-08 1987-08-29
Miami Herald Aug 12 1984 Philadelphia Inquirer Jul 29 1984 Star Tribune Aug 10 1984
Archival contributors: Ken Kuhl