Mollie Atwood, Butch Thompson Trio, Pat Donohue, Garrison Keillor, Manny Laureano, Howard Mohr, George Mushamp, Peter Ostroushko, Paul Reed. Tannahill Weavers,
Johnny Cope (Tannahill Weavers ) The American Stranger (Tannahill Weavers ) The Bass Guitar ( Pat Donohue ) The Dying Jogger ( Peter Ostroushko , Garrison Keillor ) Sounds of the Hudson ( Manny Laureano , Paul Reed ) Virgin of the Bull Ring ( Manny Laureano , Paul Reed ) Scottish Pipe Instrumentals (Tannahill Weavers ) New baby ( Pat Donohue )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique Bob Humdee Enterprises (The Bob Humdee Barking Pen.) College of Low Technology (Leading to the Bachelor of Common Sense.) Jack's Auto Repair One Minute Romance (Sponsored by Pork Brand Shoes... Man and woman meet at the seed rack.) Powdermilk Biscuits Pre-Grief Counseling (Pre-grief planning and grief contract.) The Prom Kit (All in one Prom Kit for just $29.95) Walleye Phone Company (Trouble with FCC, The Duluth line instead of making the call, it opens their garage door. Phones work 630 am until 10:30 pm)
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It's been a quiet week in my hometown, Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. It's been a quiet week this week. It was one of those early spring weeks where it's kind of cold and cloudy one day and warm and sunny the next. Kind of look forward to summer one day and the whole world just seems to be leaning in that direction. The bushes in the backyard start to leaf out just a little bit and tulips and crocuses coming up through the through the clods of dirt and the dead leaves in your flower beds. And then the next day the world is kind of nostalgic for winter. trying to slip back in that direction. All the gardeners in Lake Wobegon, participants in the great outdoor sport of gardening, kind of of two minds each and every day. One day you feel like you could just put a few seeds in the ground Out and back. And then the next day you feel like you ought to take your seeds and keep them in your pocket, you know, keep them close to the body. Keep them warm so they don't die. Sleep with them. Take them to bed with you. Build a little nest in your bed. Sit on the seeds, keep them warm. Probably have the male gardener do that. And the next day, it looks great again. What was it? It was Monday. It was a beautiful, warm day, wasn't it? Or was it Tuesday? Wednesday? Well, I don't know. I think it was Wednesday. It was the day that Clint Bunsen, the mayor of Lake Wolfgang, the proprietor, co-proprietor of Bunsen Motors had such a terrible, terrible headache and it was the day of the town council meeting that evening which he had to preside over and was not looking forward to and to do it with a splitting headache on top of it. It was because his Brother Clarence had come down to St. Paul and got lost here in the city and did not come back until late in the day. So that Clarence Clint had to not only work on cars down in the pit, but had to come out every time the bell dinged and pump gas. And coming into the bright sunlight and then down into the darkness of the grease pit and going back and forth between the two from bright light to darkness gave him a headache so that his eyes were misting over that evening when he sat down in his accustomed place beside the flag of the United States on the second floor of the town hall and gaveled the town council meeting toward him. It was on Wednesday night at 7 o'clock. He'd taken aspirin all day, and it just didn't do any good. His head was just throbbing. Everyone was there, members of the council, Mr. Luger, Judy Inquist, Mr. Tollefson, and Yalmer sitting, all five of them there behind the long cafeteria table, and Clint sitting down at the end. The Sons of Canute were there in force, which gave Clint pause. He knew why they were there. Elmer from the Sons of Canute had gotten all of them out because they wanted to have a resolution on terrorism and have the town council pass it. Clint had business to take care of at the council meeting. Potholes, they're terrible this year. And what in the world is the town going to do about them? Still, the deepest potholes that anyone can remember. And Bud says they don't have the money to fix them all. They could kill somebody driving down the street and your right front wheel goes into one. But the Sons of Canute wanted to have a resolution and discuss the subject of terrorism and come out in support of the president's policy in Libya. I tell you, it just burned Clint up. When you've got real business to take care of and a bunch of people want to act like congressmen or something and just make speeches in favor of this and opposed to that. But he finally got that taken care of and they were sort of heading towards the subject of potholes. when somebody else brought up the question of an expenditure in the budget for the month of March. $14.93 for a key. Well, it was way back on page 3 of the minutes from the last meeting. And everybody had to thumb back there and look for it. $14.93 key, it said. Had to think about that for a while. Then he remembered that was for a key. It was for a key to Lake Wolbegon, a big brass key, the key to the city, or in this case, the key to the town, which they were going to present to a former Wolbegonian who had achieved things and kind of put the town on the map and... done some stuff down in the cities and they were going to have a ceremony and give them this key and the plaque and then members of the town council thought it ought to be studied a little further and so the motion to honor this former Wobagonian was tabled and that's what the 1493 for this key was it was for a big ceremonial key not the kind that you put in a door so that was explained And he called for new business and Clint was just about to bring up the subject of potholes when Mr. Bowser of the post office stood up and marched to the front of the room past all the people come right up the center aisle and the town constables Gary and Leroy right behind him in their new brown camouflage shirts not bought at government expense. Mr. Bowser of the post office had charts underneath his right arm and positioned himself up at the end of the council table and set up an easel there and put these charts up for everybody to see and turned towards them and cleared his throat in a meaningful way. It was the first time that anybody had ever seen a chart at a town council meeting in Lake Wobegon in a long, long time. Since 1962, I think. when representatives of the State Highway Department showed up with charts that showed that building a freeway through Lake Wobegon would reduce the property tax by 185% for some homeowners. You see, you'd understand that better if I had a chart here to show you. Ever since then, people often, when the council has had a hard question to take up, have said, you know, we ought to get a chart on this. Have a chart to look at, some kind of graph or something so we could see what we're voting on here. So Mr. Bowser had a chart. It had two lines. There was a blue line that was going up and a jagged red line that was going down. And you didn't have to look at it very long or hard to see that The blue line was what you wanted to be a part of, if possible. You didn't want to go with that red line. The blue line was the winner. He said, ladies and gentlemen, he said, the postal and law enforcement authorities of Lake Wobegon, nodding to Gary and Leroy, have for the past nine months been studying the feasibility of of a street renaming and house numbering system here in Lake Wobegon with a view towards improved delivery of postal materials and improved delivery of community services including those of a protective or health or incendiary nature. meaning the fire department, I guess. And he said, we've concluded that it would be feasible to normalize the entire home enumeration and namification system pursuant to our responsibilities in this town, which I believe you know quite well, Leroy and Leroy Stafford. He said, I'd like you to consider a scenario that I don't think is so darned far-fetched. And then he had to stop and catch his breath. He's a big man, Leroy is, and stepping forward had taken something out of him. He had to collect himself. Everybody leaned forward. They'd known Leroy all of his life in this town, and they'd never heard him use the word scenario before. He said, you imagine that you're home alone late one night. And all of a sudden you start to get a pain in your chest like no pain you've ever had before in your life. And you realize that this is a heart attack. And you fall down on the floor. And you're all alone. And you've got to crawl to the phone. And you reach up and you pull the phone down. And you call and you dial the number. But we're not there. And the volunteer fire isn't there either. And you've got to call the sheriff. And the sheriff has got some new dispatcher from St. Cloud who doesn't know this town and you're lying there trying to get your breath and you've got to try and give this man directions to find your house And you've got to say to come up the hill on McKinley Street and turn right at the church and look for the greenhouse with a cast iron deer in the front yard. And you go two more houses and right across the street where there's the red pickup parked by the curb with the dimmit dammit bumper sticker, that's where you are. Imagine trying to say that. This town needs some geography, he said. We need house numbers, and we need regular street names. Well, that's what it was, was a plan to number all of the avenues, starting with Main Street and going north, and all of those would be numbered. And then the ones to the south would be numbered. Some would be South First Avenue, North First Avenue. 2nd Avenue, 3rd Avenue, 4th Avenue, and so on. All the houses would have five-digit numbers, house numbers, which Mr. Bowser said would permit greater specificity, pinpoint accuracy in the delivery of mail and health police and fire services. Well, it's true. A lot of the houses in Lake Welbegon don't have house numbers and never have. Some of them, the odd numbers and even are right next to each other on the same side of the street. Sometimes you'll have a low house number and then you'll go way up to a high one and then come back down a little bit. Like this neighbor over here would rather have lived by that person. A lot of streets, they start out as one thing, and then they jog a little bit, and they become something else, like McKinley, for example. Takes a little jog there at Maple, and McKinley becomes Lilac, and it goes on as Lilac for a while, which actually is what happened to McKinley. When he died, he was transformed into vegetative material, but... Did they really want to change all the street names in Lake Wobegon? That's apparently what Mr. Bowser and Gary and Leroy were talking about. People were dumbfounded. Well, Clarence Bunsen said, he said, are we sure that there is a problem right now with it? Well, yes, Mr. Bowser said. He said, that's why we got this chart here, Clarence. What do you think? This blue line up here represents... the potential savings in money due to the elimination of confusion. The red line, which has gone down here, represents the number of senseless deaths caused by misdirection and a confusing street system here in town. The line goes down because, of course, as more people die off, there are fewer of them to die. Nonetheless, it's not a happy prospect. Well, it wasn't a happy prospect. And yet, you know, everyone who lives there in my hometown has always been able to find their way around town. It's only people who are not from there who've had a problem. People who are from there have no problem at all. And everyone who's up there is from there. Otherwise, why would they be there? People who are not from there who might come in with an idea of being from there, take one look at my town and say, well... Actually, we had something a little greener in mind. We were hoping for something a little more spacious and elegant, which actually is what people in Lake Wobegon were hoping for too, but it didn't work out that way. So everybody who is up there is from there, though they might have considered being from someplace else and moving someplace else where it is greener. But when you go off to another town and look for a new home, you might find something you like, but then you find out that they won't cash your checks there. They demand cash. And how could you buy a home with cash? So people tend to stay put in Lake Wobbecon. And do they really need to have numbered streets? And all alphabetical Clarence Bunsen looked at it. According to this, living on McKinley there before it jogs and becomes lilac, that would all be changed to Hyacinth. His address would be 11532 Hyacinth Drive. Next street over would be Ibis and then Jonquil and Krypton. Larkspur. Myrtle and Narcissus. Well, myrtle, maybe. There are a lot of myrtles in town, but the rest of these flowers mostly don't grow there. Eleven, five, three, two. Do you really need that? Clarence doesn't even have a house number. Fell off the house years ago. He said to Mr. Bowser, he said, what if we What if we just tried to regularize it a little bit? What if we just, maybe we just tried to put all the house numbers in order so that it started low and it went up to the high ones, kind of in consecutive order, just as a starter. He could look at Mr. Bowser and see that Mr. Bowser didn't like that at all. Mr. Bowser was looking up towards the ceiling of the room. He was breathing deeply through his nose and turning a reddish tint. Clarence said, I don't mean that there isn't a lot of merit in your idea. There's a lot of merit, but you want to kind of take these things one step at a time. You don't want to rush from one thing to the next. Mr. Bowser was still breathing heavily through his nose and still turning red. Clarence said, I mean, we could just start with one little thing and see if we don't like it. Mr. Bowser looked at him. He said, Clarence Bunsen, He said, we put in nine months of study to come up with this system. And you didn't lift a finger to help. And now here at the last minute, oh sure, now you come up with your own idea. Man tries to do something for his community. Man works, studies to try and improve his community and make a contribution. And what appreciation does he get? Clarence said, but what if it's something the community doesn't want? Well, Mr. Bowser said, I guess that's up to you. I guess that's up to all of you. But he said, don't be too surprised if your mail delivery isn't as good in the future as it's been in the past. Don't be too surprised. If it takes your authorities to get longer to help you, don't be too surprised and don't be too surprised when that day comes and you feel a pain in your chest that you've never felt before and you fall to the carpet and reach for that phone and you find a strange voice on the other end and you realize you have no address. Don't be too surprised. right when he said don't be too surprised a woman walked in through the back door they heard high heels clicking outside the door and heard the door open and turned and there was a red-haired woman standing by the double doors to the council room a red-haired woman in a black suit they'd never seen her before in their lives She stood there, back by the Norwegian bachelor farmers who sit all in the back row with their arms crossed and kind of snort at people. Everybody looked at her. And she walked right up the aisle, stepped over Mr. Lundberg's legs, who had fallen asleep, and walked right up to the front row, walked up to Arlene Bunsen, and turned to her and said, excuse me, is this seat vacant? And sat down between Arlene and Karl Krepsbach, a woman with short red hair, black cotton jacket and a black cotton pants and a pink sweater. Nobody in that room had ever seen her before, but they didn't know that the others hadn't seen her before. They thought maybe somebody knew her, but they thought that they knew everybody, that anyone in town so why would someone else be keeping this secret from them who was this woman the discussion went on Clint Bunsen's headache getting worse and worse sitting up front but everyone was watching this woman sitting in the front row are there any questions Clint said there was only one question but they didn't dare ask it who are you They talked a little bit more and there was a little bit more debate between Mr. Bowser and Clarence and Mr. Bowser's side and Clarence's side. But people had lost heart. They were all looking at this red-haired woman, even people who were sitting in the front row with her, all pretending to look past her to something on the opposite wall, the open window or the map of Mist County or just the wall fan, but all of them studying her, her face. Her nose, she sat, she smiled pleasantly. Mr. Berge thought she looked like a picture. He'd seen someplace in a magazine. Was she a foreigner? When she said, excuse me, is this seat vacant? Wasn't that a foreign accent? They heard. Could it be? Maybe. A cousin? Come back from the homeland. He wanted to walk up to her and put a hand on her shoulder and say, Erdo Norsk? And if she looked up at him and said, yeah. Oh, Lord. Give her a knoose, a tusan knoose, a tusan kiss. But he didn't dare. Val Tollefson studied her. She looked a little bit like Eleanor, didn't she? Could it be Eleanor? He didn't know. She sat. She crossed her legs. Half the people in the room crossed their legs. The debate went on, but the heart had gone out of it. People saying, well, study it. Maybe so. I don't know. It's up to the rest of you. I don't really care that much. We could number a few streets, number a few houses. Doesn't matter all that. Whatever you people think is right. It's fine with me. Clint Bunsen was trying to figure out who, who was this woman. From her purse, she pulled out a small yellow notebook and opened it and looked at it. Arlene looked down. She thought she saw the word lamb. Then the woman closed it and put it back in her purse. Lamb. And then the woman with red hair stood up and walked back down the aisle to the door. There were so many motions on the floor by this time that Clint Bunsen had lost track of them. There were motions to adjourn. There were motions to table those motions. There were motions to reconsider. There were three points of order. He asked Yalmer to take the chair. He said the chair excuses itself for one moment. He walked down the aisle. He looked out the window as the woman walked out the door and onto the sidewalk down below and walked towards a small red car. It wasn't a Ford. It wasn't a Chevy. It wasn't anything that he recognized. Who was she? Who was she? Then he thought, Ah, the key, the key to the town. Where is it? It was downstairs. It was in his desk, and his desk was locked, and he couldn't remember where he had put that key, the key to open his drawer. She stood by the door of her car and looked up and smiled, one last smile. Who are you, he thought, as she got in, started the car, and drove down the street, passed the the one stoplight, which was green, and turned and headed up towards the green elevators. Numbering streets and numbering houses has been tabled for the indefinite future, so far as anyone can remember. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above us.
Letter from Jack about PHC on TV.
Archival contributors: Ken Kuhl