Boys of the Lough, Pat Donohue, Prudence Johnson, Garrison Keillor, Cathal McConnell, Howard Mohr, Angelo Roule, Andrew Rulle, Pop Wagner.
There's no tomorrow ( Andrew Rulle ) Moving and Grooving ( Pat Donohue , Prudence Johnson ) Make Our Lives One Life ( Garrison Keillor , Prudence Johnson ) Beetle Baum Boogie ( Pat Donohue ) It don't mean a thing ( Pat Donohue ) Knocking Down Windows and Tearing Down Doors ( Pat Donohue , Pop Wagner ) Cincinnati Rag ( Pop Wagner , Pat Donohue ) Railroad Bill ( Pop Wagner , Pat Donohue ) The Ragland Road (Boys of the Lough ) Come by Here My Lord ( Pop Wagner , Garrison Keillor , Prudence Johnson , Pat Donohue ) Sloop John B. ( Pop Wagner , Garrison Keillor , Prudence Johnson , Pat Donohue ) Barbara Ann ( Pop Wagner , Garrison Keillor , Prudence Johnson , Pat Donohue ) Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore ( Pop Wagner , Garrison Keillor , Prudence Johnson , Pat Donohue ) It had to be you ( Prudence Johnson ) James Born's Reel (Boys of the Lough ) Janie Diamond the Weaver (Boys of the Lough )
Bob Humdee Enterprises (Composto Carb- Burns animal waste, garbage and dead animals.) Catholic Homes and Garden Magazine Chuck Weimer Band College of Low Technology Father Emil Fearmonger's Shop (The dangers of hair dryers and explosions.) Fleidersheidt, Gene Fleidersheidt, Gerry Fleidersheidt, John Fleidersheidt, Lois Fleidersheidt, Patty Fleidersheidt, Phyllis Fleidersheidt, Sam Jack's Auto Repair (Jack writes a letter read by Garrison regarding the high price of a ticket to the show in the new theater.) Luger, Erwin Mrs Luger Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility The Desperados The Happy Houligans United Pies (Pop sings the theme song for pies made by Eunice and Evelyn United)
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Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown. We did not have a team in the state basketball tournament, so we didn't have to go through any of that uproar. A lot easier for us, because if we did have one, why would we just be disappointed? So you can see my point. We didn't even have one get close to getting in the tournament this year. Not for a long time. I don't know why. We don't seem to have the basketball players up there. Every winter, though, you see boys, you see little guys out there in driveways shooting baskets in their parkas on the gravel. They cut the tips off their gloves so they can shoot even in the coldest weather. They're out there shooting baskets. You hear them after the sun goes down. They're still playing, slipping and sliding on the gravel. You hear the basketball bouncing off rocks. You hear guys yelling. You hear guys making set shots in the dark. with heavy parkas on, hoods over their heads. Somehow, when they go in on a wood floor in a heated gym, it takes something off their game. They lose it. They're like Minnesotans. They thrive under adversity, you see. You put us where it's warm and lighted and we're just the same as everybody else.
We're a state of gravel players. It's two weeks until Easter, and a lot of the exiles will come back for a little Easter dinner, which is always a big event. And it's two weeks until Father Emil leaves and becomes an exile himself. After 40-some years, at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, he is leaving. after Easter to go off, I'm not sure where, somewhere south. It's hard to believe, 40-some years as the pastor of that parish, to think that he is leaving. People cannot believe it. He was at the big dinner and dance in Our Lady's basement on Friday evening last night for the Fliderscheits, their 50th anniversary, Jean and Lois Fliderscheit. LAUGHTER And people watched him as he came in and as he was walking from card table to card table saying hello. People thought in two weeks he'll be gone. He's been here as long as I can remember almost. And he'll be gone in two weeks. Father Emil. Couldn't believe it. So sad.
So sad, they thought, to think of him gone. Except he didn't look sad at all. Father Emil didn't. He looked great. He looked younger than he looked when he was young. He was a very serious young man. He was having a great time. He walked in through the door and Gene Fleiderscheit handed him a bottle of beer, a Wendy's, and he drank it and pretty soon he was showing one of the grandchildren how you can play a beer bottle. Father Emil was demonstrating how you blow across the top of it and you can play a polka on a beer bottle. You make the oom-pah-pahs just blowing across it and hum the tune through your nose. I'm not going to show you now, but you can try it when you get home. It works even better if you've got two beer bottles. If you've got one that's empty and then one that's half full, you can play the um on one, the pawpaws on the other, and two people can hum a polka through their nose.
He was showing a child this. And people watched and people thought, they thought, Kind of makes you feel bad, don't it? A man is about to leave town and he looks like he feels wonderful. You'd think he'd have the grace to look lost and confused and depressed at least until he gets beyond the town limits. He walked in and he told Gene Fleiderscheidt a joke that was so racy it made Gene practically faint he had to sit down and put his head between his knees. People thought, well, if that's how Father Emil feels about leaving us, maybe we don't need to put on a farewell party for him after all.
He was out dancing. They were dancing before the roast beef dinner. He danced a shottish with Lois Fleiderscheit and her sister, Mrs. Luger, the three of them in a row, danced a shottish and danced so hard they almost fell over. They both grabbed onto him, and he had to practically carry him off the floor. People couldn't believe it. They looked at him, and they thought, there used to be more dignity in the priesthood than there is nowadays, I think. He looked great. He was having a wonderful time. But it was a great party. The Fleiderscheitz 50th anniversary party. Lois came in a red pantsuit, which was the color of some neon signs in parts of town you and I have been told to stay out of. It was red. They were like Toreador pants. She had black lace that was sewn down the sides of them and black lace across the bodice. and she had a black wig on. She's what, in her 70s?
She had a jet black wig on, and she had lipstick in a shade of red that made her mouth stand out from across the room. You could see her talking, walking around, drinking beer, smoking camel cigarettes. A lady in her 70s, she was a sight to behold. Gene was dressed in khaki pants and he had a kind of a yellow and green plaid shirt on and a green jacket that he got from Pioneer Seed Corn. It was a green nylon jacket he wore. She took a look at him. Lois took a look at him and she just walked around. She said, look at him over there. You'd think he just walked, went out for a walk around the block. You'd think he just was walking down to a grocery store. I've never been so insulted in my life. He shows up at our 50th anniversary dinner dance in a green nylon jacket. Can you believe it?
He took one of their daughters aside. The Fliderscheits have seven daughters. He said, look at your mother. Look at your mother in Toreador pants and a black wig at her age. I ask you, is that a Catholic mother? She looks like she might as well be in the show business. She looks like you could rent her out to dance with her. I've never been so embarrassed. They walked around the room, Jean and Lois, talking to anyone who would listen to them about the other one and how upset they were that they would do a thing like this at their 50th anniversary dance. But that's the Fliderscheits. That's the history of their marriage. They have been complaining about each other to anyone who would listen for about 49 years, 11 months, and 29 days of their marriage. She has gone over to her sister, Mrs. Luger's, and said, I could just choke him.
I could just wring his neck and tell her sister about the latest thing that Jean had done. How many times has Jean walked into the sidetrack tap and said, that woman, I have about had it with that woman. I am done. I thought I was done before, but this time I'm done. I've had it. I know how much a man can take and I've had it. They have done this now for 50 years in that town and they have gotten hours of free counseling from sympathetic people. who over the years have gradually come to realize that the Fleiderscheitz marriage stays aloft through some law of physics that we do not understand.
And that they are in some way, we don't know why, happy with each other. Meanwhile, the counselors who have sat and listened to Lois and Jean's problems over the years and given them good advice. Meanwhile, the counselors have discovered that their own marriages were falling to pieces. Mrs. Lugar, for example, who has faithfully read and followed the advice of Sister Joseph in her Let's Talk About Marriage column in Catholic Homes and Gardens magazine. and who has counseled Lois over the years that a good marriage is based on just giving and not asking anything in return, Mrs. Lugar has come to realize that Irwin needs more than generosity. He needs a kick in the pants. Meanwhile, Jean and Lois just go on talking to whoever will listen to them about how they can't stand each other. And it didn't stop on their 50th anniversary dinner dance either. It was a great dinner.
It was a roast beef and potato dinner, all served on paper plates and put out on card tables. The Fleiderscheidt's daughters had borrowed every Catholic card table in town... for this event. When you see four men sitting at a card table with four big paper plates full of slabs of roast beef and boiled potatoes and sloshed with sweet, salty gravy with oil slicks on top, four men sitting down at a card table who put their elbows on the table You see something dramatic and interesting. You see drama in the making. Gene Fleiderscheidt wouldn't sit by Lois, of course. He'd sit down with his brothers, with John and Jerry and Sam. Four big Fleiderscheidt brothers sitting at one car table with four big platters of roast beef. Lois come by. She said, take your elbows off the table, she said to Gene. She said, you got brains or not? She said, the whole thing's going to tip over.
He looked up at her, his wife of 50 years. He said, what? She said, take your elbows off the table, you dummy. Where was he brought up? He was about to say, you can't talk to me like that. And realized she'd talked to him like that for 50 years. Took his elbows off the table. But then the table was out of balance. It started to tilt. His end rose a couple of inches. John's plate started to slide toward him. He picked it up. Gravy spilled over. But the stains on his pants kind of went with the stains that had been there before, so it was all right. It was an exciting evening, and it was a great dance. It was a wonderful dance. People were out dancing as soon as they moved the card tables aside, but people were there to watch the Fliderscheits. They were a show in themselves. Lois Fleiderscheit zooming around the room from one group to another, lighting cigarette after cigarette in her red Toreador pants, talking to anyone who would listen to her about what she had put up with from this man over the years, talking to her daughters, whichever one she could corral. These seven girls, the Fleiderscheit girls, after growing up as Fleiderscheits, They all married men with names like Gray and Smith.
I can't remember one of those girls from the other. Can't really tell them apart. White, I think. One of them married a white or a brown. Mr. Brown. I think Patty married a Brown. Patty Brown. She was talking to Patty about it. She said, you know, I send him out. He gets one job for this anniversary dance, and what does he do? He can't even do one little doggone thing. I send the man out to get a band. He's supposed to get the band tonight. I tell you, it's just the old story. You send a man out for bread, and he brings home bricks. Gene was supposed to get the band for the dinner dance, and he got his cousin's son, Denny, who was the only professional musician in the family. Well, Denny has a three-piece band, and he plays for dances from one end of Stearns County to the other and on up into Mist County.
And up there, a band has got to be able to go both ways. You see, you can't just do one kind of music. You've got to play for the very young people and you've got to play for the very old people. Those are your clientele, mainly for dancing. Middle-aged people sit home, don't get up much to dance. get up to see if there's more chip dip, but old people and young people are the ones who do the dancing. So Denny, who plays the drums, has a three-piece band, and they play, on Friday and Saturday nights, they play rock and roll, and the name of the band is the Desperados. And then on Sundays, his keyboard player goes home and he gets an accordion player and then he's got a three-piece polka band called the Happy Hooligans. But the accordion player had to play with another band called the Chuck Weimer Band on this Friday night and he couldn't come and play. So the keyboard guy had to play this polka and shoddish date. And though they called themselves the Happy Hooligans, really they were the Desperados. And they had the bass player and they had the drummer and they had the kid who was playing the keyboard who was 19 years old and who was from St.
Cloud and who wore his hair like it was 1973 and who stood at the keyboard and just tried not to move his head very much because it hurt so bad from something that he had done to himself earlier in the day. and just tried to play a few chords more or less in time to the music on his electric keyboard. And when Lois walked up to him during a break and said, when are you going to play the blue skirt waltz? The kid looked at her and said, we don't take requests. He said, I'm a songwriter. I'm not into requests. She said, but we've got to have the blue skirt waltz. It's our anniversary. And we've got to sing doo-doo leeks to Miriam Harrison. He said, I've never heard of it. So there it was. Gene had gone out and gotten a band that didn't even know how to play the two tunes that you've got to have at an anniversary dance. For any German Catholic couple, you've got to have the blue skirt waltz. It's a rule. There are some rules in life. There are things that you do and don't do. This is a civilization like Wobegon. There are rules that people follow.
And you can't have an anniversary dance for people who've been married for 50 years without having the blue skirt waltz and doo-doo leekst Miram Harrison. This is not Minneapolis. This is like Wobegon. There are things that you have to do. It's like you serve coffee in cups. You don't serve it in pails. You don't just pour it into people's cupped hands. You have cups and saucers and spoons. You have sugar, cream, saccharin. You have bars and cookies and cakes. When people come in for coffee, there are rules, and there are rules for an anniversary dance. You've got to have the blue skirt waltz, and everybody's got to sing doo-doo leeks to Merrimaritsen. Lois said to her daughter Phyllis, she said, I can't believe he would do this to me after all these years. Fifty years I've been married to him, and he comes in with a band. He might as well have gotten a phonograph and three records.
Well, finally, they got it all patched up or tried to. Father Emil tried to get things sorted out, and Denny tried to teach the keyboard player a little bit how to play the blue skirt waltz and to bring the old folks over as their kids were saying, please, Mother. Please, Dad. For our sake, please. Jean on one side of the basement and Lois on the other. Jean in his green nylon jacket and Lois in her red Toreador pants. I can't believe he would do this to me after all these years. I've never been so insulted. He's insulted me before, God knows, but never like this. Jean standing over with his friends on the other side. Listen to her, I said, listen to her. Makes me feel like a fool. Finally, Father Emil got them together to dance the blue skirt waltz together with everybody gathered around and the band trying to play it, at least in something like a waltz tempo. They danced without looking in each other's eyes. They danced at arm's length, Gene and Lois, not looking at each other, looking for sympathetic faces in the crowd... Someone who would understand why. Finally, they had come to the end of their ropes. They had come to the end of their ropes before, but now they had really come to the end of their ropes. They danced at arm's length and then stood, then stood not looking at each other. As their children said, please, Dad, please kiss her. Please, Mother, please, for our sake. Father Emo made them hold hands. They stood holding hands. They held hands, but they didn't squeeze.
Please, for our sake. 50th anniversary. 50th anniversary, he said, and she just makes me look like a fool in front of other people. She just tries to embarrass me. That's all she's trying to do. I've had it. She said, look at him. Look at him. Come to our anniversary in a green nylon jacket. Just look at him. Please, Mother. Please. If he thinks I'm going to apologize to him, I'm not. If he thinks, if he thinks he can get away with this and just walk all over me and treat me like dirt under his feet, he's got another guest coming. Father Emil led them in the singing of, Du, du liekst mir im Herz, du, du liekst mir im Sinn, du, du magst mir viel Schmerzen, weiß nicht wie gut ich dir bin. Ya, ya, ya, ya. La, da, da, dee, da, da, da, da. They're supposed to dance. La, da, dee, da, dee, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
And finally. Finally, Father Emil said, please, Gene and Lois, I ask you as your priest, for my sake, as a favor to me, as a favor to me and for no other reason, embrace and kiss each other. Gene put his hands around her waist like he was grabbing a sack of potatoes. Please, for our sake, please make us. But you see, they are actors. They're wonderful actors. This is their play. They've been playing it for so many years. They know it so well. And they know their audience. And they do it for our sakes. That's why they do it so big and so loud. He looked at her and he said, Lois, he said, I love you. She said, well, it's about time. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women are strong and all the men are good looking and all the children are above that.
History of the Driftwoods
1986.03.22 Star Tribune / 1986.03.16 Star Tribune
Archival contributors: musicbrainz, Frank Berto, Ken Kuhl