Greg Brown, Philip Brunelle, Butch Thompson Trio, Odetta, Peter Ostroushko. Spokane Falls Brass Band, Vern Sutton,
New rag (Butch Thompson Trio ) Can can (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) I'd Give a Dollar For A Dime (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Showboat blues (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Washington Post (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Somewhere in the west (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Thanksgiving day ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Autumn ( Philip Brunelle , Vern Sutton ) Hosanna and praise ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Thanksgiving dinner ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Ain't It Hard (Odetta ) Mister Rich Man (Odetta ) Weeping Willow Blues (Odetta ) Yoko Blues (Spokane Falls Brass Band ) Ash Grove ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Old Papa (Odetta ) Love song of the Nile (Odetta ) Thanksgiving Eating Song ( Peter Ostroushko ) Living With the Lion ( Greg Brown ) Paper Dips ( Vern Sutton ) Contada for Thanksgiving ( Vern Sutton , Philip Brunelle ) Bill Bailey (Odetta )
American Fiction Writers Chatterbox Cafe Happy Dog Shoes Phillip Lipper Paper Clip Company Powdermilk Biscuits Tolerude, Daryl Tolerude, Marilyn
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Well, it has been a quiet week. And Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, even with Thanksgiving, all the family reunions, up there in every house, been fairly quiet. Everybody had one that could be seen, even the Inkvests, Virginia. And Yjalmer had their kids up, though Virginia had said weeks ago she had had it. She had made every turkey she was ever going to make in her life and was ready to go to St. Paul and go to a hotel and be served food on a plate. But her children said no, they wanted to come home for Thanksgiving. They'd bring the food. Mom, you just sit with your hands folded. We'll do everything. But of course, she couldn't go along with that. People bring food to your house. And like Wobgan, it means you're dead. So she made the turkey, thought about stuffing it with lutefisk, but decided not to even sit down. It was quiet. Unlike other years, when families have gotten together in like Wobgan, and you could hear the grinding of teeth halfway across town sometimes, particularly in election years, when people have different opinions about things. And it was pretty quiet this year. Although there was a moment of poison silence up at the Bunsen's, Clarence and Arlene's, when they sat down to the table on Thursday, just before the blessing when they first sat down, admired this work of art on the table, this still life that Arlene and everyone had made. And daughter Donna in town from San Diego said, Oh, Mom, this most wonderful Thanksgiving of my life. And her husband Rick said, Yeah, but if Mondale had been elected, it would have been the last one we would have had. Ooh, silence. Yeah, Rick said, Yeah, if he'd had his way, the turkeys would be having us. Arlene's been a Democrat since about 65 years before she was born. She gave him a one look Clarence dropped his head fast as he could, said, Let's pray, All Lord giver of all good things we come to thee and prayed a long prayer as kind of a ceasefire. And what he said, Amen. Arlene looked over at her son-in-law Rick and gave him her brightest smile. He smiled back. She said, How smashed potatoes, Rick. He said, Thank you, Mom. She wences when he calls her mom. She smiled at him again. And members of her family know that this is the smile that she gives to people she'd like to slap silly. Whenever they see this smile on Arlene's face, kids always used to think, Okay, I quit. That's enough for me. Oh, right. I'm sorry. She smiled. He said, All Mom. All Mom. He said, This is the best turkey I've ever tasted in my life. I mean that sincerely. Her son-in-law for 20 years, she can't abide him. Can't abide him. He brings up her grandchildren all wrong. He comes up to Minnesota and talks about nothing but the advantages of living in Southern California. He wears silly clothes. He says insulting things about Norwegians, Democrats and women, particularly his own wife. The man is a fool. The man who loves the sound of the word agenda coming out of his own mouth. He uses it every chance he gets. Well what's our agenda here? I sense the hidden agenda here. Well he heaped his plate with Thanksgiving agenda and dug into it and she just wanted to smack him silly. Give him a piece of her mind but she couldn't do it of course because he's got hostages. Her grandchildren. So what she's been doing with him all week, that is since Wednesday morning when they arrived, has been killing him with kindness. She has been stuffing that man like a turkey. She discovered the crack in his armor and it's his mouth. His Achilles mouth. He's gained about four pounds. Her goal is eight, ten, twelve, whatever she can get in. Good morning she gets him up fresh caramel rolls for breakfast. A big tray of them. Pounds of smoked bacon and sausage and scrambled eggs and she puts them on his plate herself. Oh, that's enough mama mama mama mam. I made him just for you. Ahh, then fresh donuts about the middle of the morning and then lunch about two hours later. Pot roast and potatoes and huge slabs of lemon meringue pie. She cuts them herself in quarters. The man has been in a stupor since he arrived. She stuff this man till he can hardly talk. He becomes pliable. He sets down in a chair in the living room. She brings him brownies, has some fudge bells. Oh no mamam, couldn't, oh please I made him just for you. Oh no, can't eat anymore. Here Rick I'll just put him right here by you so you can reach him. And he goes into kind of a calorie coma. And then she takes her grandchildren for long walks, the little boy and the little girl. And she tells them stories on these walks about our great American presidents, all Democrats. And did you know children? Did you know that all of those great men were a little bit Norwegian? Yes they were. They were a little Norwegian. On their mother's side of the family. They were great men. They were good and they were real smart because they all listened to their mothers. Up at the Tala root farm, Daryl and Marilyn and their six kids walked up the hill to the big house to have Thanksgiving with Daryl's parents. On the county his brothers, Fred and Gunner and all their children were in town for Thanksgiving and there wouldn't be room for him in the little house where Daryl and Marilyn still live. Now years after, what, twenty-some years after he signed that partnership agreement, Gwen partnership on the farm with his dad. Daryl kind of thought there wasn't understanding that at some point he and Marilyn would be moving up to the big house and the folks would be moving down to the little house which is about big enough for two old people to sit real quietly and make no sudden moves. But nothing much has been said about it. So Daryl and Marilyn, they've had baby after baby, six babies and all those babies are big, lanky kids with a lot of energy all bouncing around in that little house. The two old folks sitting up alone in the big house with the four empty bedrooms. It was about a year ago, Daryl said to his dad, he said, we need a larger house. His dad said, well, we get the pig barn built, we'll see about it. Got the pig barn built. He mentioned it again, his dad said, well, he said, we get the pig barn paid for, we'll see about maybe putting on an addition. Pig barn is on a twenty-year market. But they went up to the big house full of people, full of old Thanksgiving smells, smelled just as it always had going way, way back in time. You close your eyes. Imagine that when you open them you might be six years old, you might be twelve. Same old Thanksgiving, same dialogue too. Out in the kitchen, his mother said, every year I bake it too long and it gets all dried out. Every year she makes it absolutely perfect, but she likes to say that. Boys, their dad sit in the living room kind of clearing their throats for a while and his dad says, well, boys, he says, I think I'll go out to the barn and see to the horse. You're always going to come out to help me see to the horse? Yeah, dad. They haven't had a horse for twenty-five years. So the four of them all troop out to the barn. They go in, he reaches down behind the hay bales, in behind the old horse harness, pulls out a bottle of whiskey, pass it around each, take a poll on it, talk about some stuff, pass it around again, take another poll on it. Then he makes a mark on it with a nail, mark the current level, puts it back in behind the harness, they go back in the house. Old Norwegian custom. Once Daryl said to his dad, he says, dad, why don't we ever just, why don't we just have a drink in the house? His dad flared up at him. He said, I'm not the sort of man, keep booze in the house. I wasn't brought up that way. Neither were you. I'm surprised you'd say such a thing. Daryl's brother Gunner did not have anything to drink. He's on the wagon now again, the third, fourth time on the wagon. Poor man, handsome, handsome man. But whiskey had been the curse of his life. Ever since he was young, he used to go in the chatterbox cafe and he'd have one shot of whiskey. And it would make him belligerent. And he'd start bullying people around, try and pick a fight with people. And he'd say, that's my chair here, sitting in. You know I just went into the toilet, you sat down in my chair, you know I was sitting there, I'm not going to take that off you. Well people didn't want to fight with him because he was big and strong and quick and so they solved the problem by giving him more whiskey. This was years ago. One day someone said to him, they said, Gunner, Gunner, I bet you can't drink a whole glass of whiskey. I bet you can't do it. He said, who says I can't do it? He said, $2 says you can't do it Gunner, here's $2. He said, put it down there where I can see it. Wally poured the whiskey in the glass, it was a beer glass. Gunner stood there and he drank it down. And as it went down he started to forget about the chair who sat in it, the $2, he forgot about that, forgot who he was, where or why. He really finished it and he collapsed in the chair, they hauled him out to the back so he could be sick out there. Somebody scraped him up, took him home. And that's how they took care of it when he got in a bullying mood. He'd start to push people around, somebody'd say to him, they'd say, Gunner, somebody told me you once drank a whole glass of whiskey, I can't believe you ever did that, I never saw that, I couldn't believe you did that, I don't believe a man could do that. Before the whiskey in the glass he'd drink it down, forget where he was, take him home. And after a while Gunner skipped the second step and went from the first to the third. He's a truck driver, he drives a semi-truck. And when he's drinking he keeps a bottle under the seat, he says it helps to keep him awake. People in Lake Wobgan are very grateful he doesn't drive around there any place. He went on the wagon the last time he had a crack up, it was down in Kansas, it was in broad daylight, the middle of a long straight stretch of freeway. He was driving a tank truck and a jacknife in the middle of the road went in, the ditch turned over, knocked a big hole in the tank truck, Gunner climbed out of the cab and he was up to his hips in scrambled egg mix. Made out an egg factory in Minnesota, they ship it out to California, have it be packaged they sell it to restaurants, kind of a faint yellow liquid. He slipped, he went down under the eggs, he thought he was going to drown. He managed to reach shore, struggled to shore, climbed out, he had it all over him and it had an effect on him. As I imagine it might have on you or me if we were that deep in eggs, almost suffocate on eggs, he quit drinking three months ago back in August. He tells it to everybody he meets, three months, three months, haven't had a drink, yeah that's real good Gunner, that's real good, yeah it's not bad, three months. He's proud of it, thinking maybe he might celebrate one of these days maybe, drink a little toast to sobriety. Daryl has been having some close calls on the highway for about the past three months, not because he drinks, he doesn't drink except when he goes to the horse in the barn. Can't understand it, what is going on but five or six times since this last summer. He's been in his car and he pulls out up to the highway and he looks to the left and checks and there's nothing there and then he goes to turn to the right and all of a sudden there's you and a car goes right by me, I've never even seen it. Five times it's happened once it was a semi-truck went by almost killed. It doesn't happen in Lake Wobagon, I mean there isn't enough traffic in Lake Wobagon, Lake Wobagon you'd have to sit and wait a long time to have an accident. Happens going into St. Cloud, driving into St. Cloud being very carefully looked to the left, turned to the right, car goes by, breaks, screech, people yell at him. Last time it was, last Monday he was with his son Eric, his 15, his dad is teaching him how to drive but Daryl was driving on Monday taking Eric into the dentist in St. Cloud and he just was driving along being very careful and all of a sudden his son grabbed him, and car went by. So on Tuesday went in to see a doctor about it, talk to a doctor, doctor looked him over, the doctor said well he said he talked a little bit about the aging process and its effect on the brain you know it kind of slows it down your reflexes a little bit, kind of a diminution of your faculties. I said ordinarily we don't see it that often people, your age 42 but it's normal, it happens and it's nothing to worry about you just learn to relax and go slow and take things at your own speed. Doctor was in his mid to late 20's, Daryl thought he'd like to take out his jackknife, kind of slowly select a blade and slowly chase this guy down the street but it depressed him, he was terribly depressed, he was depressed Tuesday night coming out of the pig barn, Daryl was, and he forgot he left the door open, he was halfway to the house when he heard little feet and little happy cries, 12 little pigs, school was out, recess for pigs, took him and Eric about two hours, got him back into class chasing him into the trees, into the cornfield but it felt pretty good as he did it because he found he was real fast on his feet and his reflexes were pretty good catching pigs, gotcha. And then on Wednesday after lunch he came back in the house, Marilyn was gone, he just wasn't thinking, he walked in, he opened up the fridge, you didn't even know what he was looking for, saw a bowl sitting there, took off the saran wrap off the top, looked in, there was a whole bunch of glop in it and without thinking he just was not thinking, he took this and he dumped it into the garbage can which was full of ashes and as this glop was falling through the air, Daryl thought to himself, that's men's meat pie filling. It was all gone, it was down there in the garbage. Well Marilyn had gone to her mother, he figured he'd maybe had two hours, two hours try and replace this. He'd never made mince meat pie filling before or much else but he figured well you make it from a recipe, what's the big deal, couldn't be that hard? Well it was real hard. Using the beef and the venison into little tiny pieces and how small does it mean to mince, well I guess real small and apples and spices and getting everything mixed in there together and then the recipe called for brandy. And he looked around the kitchen, he looked high, he looked low, he looked in every cupboard, there was no brandy, he said I wonder where Marilyn keeps the stuff. Do you have a secret stash someplace, maybe down in the laundry room under the dirty clothes? My gosh, my wife. He was running from pillar to post upstairs and down looking for the brandy thinking to himself, I gotta find a brandy, I gotta find a brandy and also thinking to himself, my gosh, 21 years she has kept this terrible secret, hiding brandy around the house. The mother of my children couldn't find any, finally got a little mustard jar, put it in his jacket pocket and snuck up to the barn. Actually crawled on his hands and knees through the corn, ran up to the back door of the barn, dashed in, reached down, got the whiskey bottle out from behind, the horse harness filled up the jar, made a new little notch on it with the nail. Her door slammed up out the house, tore out the back door, crawled on his hands and knees all the way down in the cornfield, stood up whistling, walked into his house, dumped the whiskey in it and mixed it up, cooked it up a little bit and put it in the fridge just as she came in the driveway, she walked in the house, he said hi honey how are you? She said excuse me, she said I gotta get the hamburger out of the fridge. He said let me do it, let me do it. So he was a little tense on Thursday when it came around time for dessert. He chose pumpkin. Everybody else chose mincemeat except gunner, he chose pumpkin too. They brought out the mincemeat pie, Daryl's mouth was dry, they sliced it, they put it on the plates and the first forkfuls went up to their mouths. And his mom said all Marilyn, that is the best I have ever had. Everyone said oh yes I should say, wow do you ever do this? All Marilyn said I just make it from a recipe. I said you put brandy in it or anything, she said no you don't need brandy in it. I said gosh it's good, gosh it's good. Daryl has some of this mincemeat pie, this is so good. He said no he says I got my pumpkin and I can't eat mincemeat anymore, rich food it just keeps me up late at night he says, I guess I'm getting old. That was Thanksgiving, that's the news from Lake Wabagon, Minnesota. We're all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, we're all the children, all above that.that she did not bother with brandy.
Exit poll results from Thanksgiving dinners. Story telling at Thanksgiving.
1984.11.18 Star Tribune/ rebroadcast on November 18, 1989. / Berto is unclear in documenting these songs: "Hard of Lord" "Oh poppa" "Love song" "Bill Bailey" -(),
Archival contributors: Frank Berto, Ken Kuhl