American Radio Company of the Air; 1991-11-23; Part 3

<v Garrison Keillor> ...Slender woman who had tremendous intensity and nervous <v Garrison Keillor>energy that kids love to see an adults because <v Garrison Keillor>it's like our own energy. <v Garrison Keillor>And Thanksgiving was a great day for her. <v Garrison Keillor>It was sort of her English Channel. <v Garrison Keillor>It was-it was like her Mount Everest [Light audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>And she brought to the making of this meal a passion, <v Garrison Keillor>and a drama, and a dedication that was hard to believe <v Garrison Keillor>if you didn't see her every year. <v Garrison Keillor>She worked so intensely hard at it to raise <v Garrison Keillor>this meal to her own very high standards. <v Garrison Keillor>Every event in the competition must somehow <v Garrison Keillor>attain a perfection that would be worthy of <v Garrison Keillor>us. <v Garrison Keillor>She worked away in the kitchen with my mother, serving as a consultant on <v Garrison Keillor>certain things [Light audience laughter], and the rest of us went down to the basement <v Garrison Keillor>where my Uncle Earl kept his television, down in the family

<v Garrison Keillor>room with a knotty pine paneling [Light audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>And my Uncle Earl sat and lived and died with the Green Bay <v Garrison Keillor>Packers on television Thanksgiving afternoon. <v Garrison Keillor>He was a big man, my Uncle Earl. <v Garrison Keillor>He'd been a tackle in high school, and then he'd added some to his figure <v Garrison Keillor>since then [Light audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>And he really got into a game in a big way. <v Garrison Keillor>We let him-we let him have the couch all to himself [Light audience <v Garrison Keillor>laughter] because he tended to get carried away and sometimes he'd move laterally with <v Garrison Keillor>the play [Audience laughter] watching. <v Garrison Keillor>He was a big man, but he was quick to get up to his feet when the Packers <v Garrison Keillor>were betrayed by inept or corrupt officiating, take your choice, <v Garrison Keillor>or, or shot themselves in the foot with bonehead <v Garrison Keillor>plays or poor strategy. <v Garrison Keillor>He'd be up on his feet. He'd be talking to the referees on the screen. <v Garrison Keillor>"Holding!" He'd say, "Holding! They've been holding all afternoon.

<v Garrison Keillor>And now you call him. He just put his arm out and that guy walked into it" [Light <v Garrison Keillor>audience laughter]. And he'd explain to us the difference between holding <v Garrison Keillor>and just holding your arm out as a guy walks <v Garrison Keillor>into it [Audience laughter]. He explained this to us carefully so that we'd be able to <v Garrison Keillor>understand this. <v Garrison Keillor>And he sat and watched them as my Aunt Myrna upstairs <v Garrison Keillor>was whipping this dinner, whipping this dinner towards the goal line, moving <v Garrison Keillor>it ahead. Each unit, the candied yams down on the right <v Garrison Keillor>wing and the mashed potatoes on the left as this phalanx of food was <v Garrison Keillor>moving down the field [Audience laughter] towards paydirt. <v Garrison Keillor>And somehow she always made it right at the beginning of halftime. <v Garrison Keillor>So we all trooped up and we sat down around the table for this amazing <v Garrison Keillor>feast. My Uncle Earl at the end, and my dad next to him, <v Garrison Keillor>and my cousin Earl Jr., and my cousin Bud, <v Garrison Keillor>and Aunt Myrna had a chair at the other end, though she never sat down

<v Garrison Keillor>or ever used it, and my mother sat next to her on her right, and then <v Garrison Keillor>all of our family. There were 6 of us. <v Garrison Keillor>The, um, the baby in my mother's lap, and the twins, <v Garrison Keillor>and my sister Phyllis, and my brother Rudy and I. <v Garrison Keillor>And we sat around the table as she brought out this amazing <v Garrison Keillor>feast. And Uncle Earl bowed his head, and he <v Garrison Keillor>gave thanks for it. <v Garrison Keillor>And despite terrible officiating, <v Garrison Keillor>terrible coaching, and some real <v Garrison Keillor>weaknesses in the lineup, still, there was a lot to thank the Lord for <v Garrison Keillor>[Light audience laughter]. And he thanked the Lord for it in a quiet voice, <v Garrison Keillor>and we set in to this amazing feast--the dinner of all <v Garrison Keillor>dinners. And it always was magnificent. <v Garrison Keillor>Completely predictable.

<v Garrison Keillor>Everything exactly the same from the watermelon pickles and the cranberry, <v Garrison Keillor>the potatoes, the candied yams, the turkey. <v Garrison Keillor>The same every year. The same dressing. <v Garrison Keillor>And yet, perfection. <v Garrison Keillor>Perfection is always surprising. <v Garrison Keillor>Always, when you find it. <v Garrison Keillor>And we found it in this dinner. <v Garrison Keillor>We ate in complete silent bliss and delight <v Garrison Keillor>as my aunt hovered over us, making sure that we would not starve [Audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>Hovered over us mercilessly, criticizing her own work [Audience laughter], <v Garrison Keillor>grieving for the dressing that somehow, somehow had <v Garrison Keillor>turned out too dry. Somehow the turkey who knows <v Garrison Keillor>why or how, it just had not quite measured up. <v Garrison Keillor>We understood this. We understood that this was her way of expressing humility, <v Garrison Keillor>and it was also her way of keeping up her interest in a game

<v Garrison Keillor>she had won a long time ago [Audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>She laid out the table for us and dinner always extended <v Garrison Keillor>past halftime, of course. <v Garrison Keillor>And so it was sort of a struggle to keep Uncle Earl there at the table [Audience <v Garrison Keillor>laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>Even though we were sitting up in the dining room, he could hear very clearly the tiny, <v Garrison Keillor>tinny voice of the announcer on the TV set down in the family room in the <v Garrison Keillor>corner of the basement, so that in the midst of the hubbub of dinner, <v Garrison Keillor>he might suddenly leap to his feet and say, "Passing third down, <v Garrison Keillor>two yards, he throws a pass! <v Garrison Keillor>I can't believe it!" [Audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>We'd have to settle him down and hold onto him until we couldn't hold any <v Garrison Keillor>longer. And then he was down in the basement for the rest of it. <v Garrison Keillor>That's Thanksgiving to me. <v Garrison Keillor>Always be Thanksgiving. That beautiful dinner and all of that chaos.

<v Garrison Keillor>And then the lethargy that follows, the aimlessness and wandering around in <v Garrison Keillor>the backyard [Light audience laughter], tossing a ball around, and killing time, and <v Garrison Keillor>then a second sort of listless attack on <v Garrison Keillor>the leftovers [Audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>Endless goodbyes. <v Garrison Keillor>Endless goodbyes in the kitchen, and again on the porch, <v Garrison Keillor>and again in the driveway, leaning on the car <v Garrison Keillor>in the dark. More goodbyes after we get into the car. <v Garrison Keillor>All of us getting into the car. My dad driving, my mother in the front seat, <v Garrison Keillor>the baby on her lap. <v Garrison Keillor>The twin sitting in between the two of them. <v Garrison Keillor>The twin with the large head that I love to reach over <v Garrison Keillor>the front seat and bonk on the top [Audience laughter] 'cause it makes an interesting <v Garrison Keillor>sound [Audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>Like a watermelon [Audience laughter].

<v Garrison Keillor>And the four of us in the backseat. <v Garrison Keillor>My sister sits by the window, which is her privilege, and I sit next to her, <v Garrison Keillor>and next to me sits the other twin, the one who gets easily carsick [Audience laughter], <v Garrison Keillor>and then my big brother sits by the other window, which is his privilege as the <v Garrison Keillor>oldest. And we start the long drive home, <v Garrison Keillor>the 8 of us wedged into this car [light audience laughter] in our heavy <v Garrison Keillor>wool coats. <v Garrison Keillor>After saying interminable goodbyes through the open windows, <v Garrison Keillor>we back out and we head up the highway back to Lake Wobegon, <v Garrison Keillor>full of food. <v Garrison Keillor>Sometimes squeezing into the car <v Garrison Keillor>with everybody, you feel a little nervous and you know there's gonna <v Garrison Keillor>be trouble. <v Garrison Keillor>But leaving Uncle Earl and Aunt Myrna's after Thanksgiving, we <v Garrison Keillor>all feel so easy and so sleepy.

<v Garrison Keillor>I lean against my sister's shoulder to see if she will <v Garrison Keillor>allow this [Light audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>And she does. And it's so nice all tight <v Garrison Keillor>in there, like dogs in a nest, sort of easing <v Garrison Keillor>our way into a more comfortable position. <v Garrison Keillor>Eight people in as tight as we can be driving North. <v Garrison Keillor>Oncoming cars, their headlights make this brief <v Garrison Keillor>light inside our car like ghosts passing <v Garrison Keillor>through it. <v Garrison Keillor>We drive North and my mother reaches down and turns <v Garrison Keillor>on the radio. <v Garrison Keillor>One of her favorite shows, "Golden Years," is on <v Garrison Keillor>every Thursday night: <v Garrison Keillor>The story of New York multimillionaires Edna and-and <v Garrison Keillor>Elmer Hetland, who tired of the giddy social whirl

<v Garrison Keillor>and the empty values of the big city, move to a small <v Garrison Keillor>town called Nowthen [Light audience laughter] and-and hiding <v Garrison Keillor>their vast wealth, they open a coffee shop called the Golden <v Garrison Keillor>Rule, where they serve their community and <v Garrison Keillor>enjoy the life of Nowthen and anonymously give away immense <v Garrison Keillor>gifts to friends and neighbors. <v Garrison Keillor>This is the show. <v Garrison Keillor>I'm more interested in the giddy social whirl [Light audience laughter] than I am in <v Garrison Keillor>this show. But this is my mom's show, and-and <v Garrison Keillor>my mom controls the radio. Children did not have tuning rights back then [Light audience <v Garrison Keillor>laughter]. So we sit and listen to it, and it's an episode <v Garrison Keillor>in which a young man has come into the coffee shop. <v Garrison Keillor>His name is Jim and he's complaining about what a dead end Nowthen <v Garrison Keillor>is. 'What a-what a end of the road.

<v Garrison Keillor>It's just a backwater here, and nothing's ever gonna happen to anybody who lives in <v Garrison Keillor>Nowthen, and he can't wait to get outta here, but nobody'll lend him the train <v Garrison Keillor>fare to get out. Nobody'll give him the money,' and there's Edna, she's saying, "Ya want <v Garrison Keillor>a little more coffee, Jim?" She pours some more coffee. <v Garrison Keillor>He has no idea that she is the great benefactor of this town. <v Garrison Keillor>He's sitting there and he's complaining that nobody's ever done anything for him. <v Garrison Keillor>His parents never gave him piano lessons, and he knows that he's got talent, but <v Garrison Keillor>he never had piano lessons, and now it's just sheer frustration. <v Garrison Keillor>He feels this music inside him trying to get out. <v Garrison Keillor>And what can he do? Nothin'. <v Garrison Keillor>He sits there and there's Elmer saying, "Ya wanna little more coffee, Jim? <v Garrison Keillor>You wanna little more coffee?" And Jim says, "Yeah. <v Garrison Keillor>Might as well drink more coffee. Nothin' else to do in a town like this." <v Garrison Keillor>And you listen and you just know that Jim is not going to <v Garrison Keillor>get today's bequest [Light audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>The large sum of money that Edna and Elmer give out on every broadcast anonymously

<v Garrison Keillor>to a deserving person is not gonna go to this guy, although I do <v Garrison Keillor>sympathize with him [Light audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>As we ride North to Lake Wobegon in the dark, squeezed in tight, I sympathize with him. <v Garrison Keillor>You know that the money is instead going to go to the cheerful, <v Garrison Keillor>and friendly, and patient waitress, Tina, whose father needs <v Garrison Keillor>a back operation and who has simply put all of her trust in the Lord <v Garrison Keillor>and is-knows that everything will turn out for the best. <v Garrison Keillor>I listen to this show as we drive North. <v Garrison Keillor>Thinking about the...unfairness of this, <v Garrison Keillor>that somebody who needs something so badly, <v Garrison Keillor>and wants it so bad, wants it so bad <v Garrison Keillor>is not gonna get it. <v Garrison Keillor>And the person who's cheerful, patient could be <v Garrison Keillor>all right without it [Audience laughter].

<v Garrison Keillor>She's gonna get it [Audience laughter]. This seems to me like <v Garrison Keillor>a terrible dilemma in life, and I have an idea <v Garrison Keillor>which side of this great divide I am going to fall on <v Garrison Keillor>[Audience laughter], but I'm too tired <v Garrison Keillor>to think too hard about this. <v Garrison Keillor>I lean against my sister and then, <v Garrison Keillor>to see if she will permit this, I lay my head in her <v Garrison Keillor>lap. <v Garrison Keillor>And she does not push me away. <v Garrison Keillor>And this is so sweet. <v Garrison Keillor>Listening to the radio, riding down the highway, <v Garrison Keillor>flashes of light come through the car and my father's <v Garrison Keillor>sure swift driving that I would recognize <v Garrison Keillor>even without looking at the road.

<v Garrison Keillor>I can feel him steering the car as I drift off to sleep. <v Garrison Keillor>And awaken briefly later, hearing <v Garrison Keillor>my parents talking quietly in the front seat about <v Garrison Keillor>Earl and Myrna and some other relatives and some relatives <v Garrison Keillor>and something about an elopement and a secret marriage <v Garrison Keillor>that I never had heard about. <v Garrison Keillor>In our family, a kid always learns more if you keep your eyes shut [Audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>But I'm too tired to stay tuned, and I drift off, <v Garrison Keillor>and I'm carried into my bed and put to sleep again. <v Garrison Keillor>That's the news from Lake Wobegon. <v Garrison Keillor>[Applause] Where all the men are good lookin', all the children are above average, and, <v Garrison Keillor>uh, all the women are strong.

<v Garrison Keillor>I've gotta hear some more of this guy at the piano here and his brother <v Garrison Keillor>playing the bass, the Doky Brothers, Niels and Chris Mihn, <v Garrison Keillor>are gonna give us another tune, here. <v Speaker>[The Doky Brothers playing on string bass and piano] <v Speaker>[Applause] <v Garrison Keillor>What beautiful music--the Doky Brothers, Chris Mihn and Niels.

<v Garrison Keillor>There's a young man in Chicago who sent us the lyric for a <v Garrison Keillor>Thanksgiving song; he wrote this himself. <v Garrison Keillor>Ivy Austin is gonna come out. This came in the U.S. <v Garrison Keillor>Mail. Feel so lucky to have it--Jeff Baulch is his name. <v Garrison Keillor>Jeff Baulch, and this is his Thanksgiving song: <v Ivy Austin>[Singing] Thursday in November, rainy and gray / <v Ivy Austin>sort of homey, kind of corny holiday. <v Ivy Austin>/ You're a little bit bitter. <v Ivy Austin>Life's a bit of a curse. <v Ivy Austin>/ But for today, consider all the ways it could be worse. <v Ivy Austin>/ <v Ivy Austin>You know that a smile takes fewer muscles than a frown. <v Ivy Austin>/ You can give thanks for ?wide floor puzzles?

<v Ivy Austin>When you're feeling down. <v Ivy Austin>/ You can be thankful that your eyeballs are set in your face. <v Ivy Austin>/ You'd bump your head a lot if they were set any other place. / <v Ivy Austin>[Male voice joins in to harmonize; country flair] You can give thanks to our Creator, or fate, or just to chance / that made the gases that you exhale be inhaled by the plants. / <v Ivy Austin>You can be grateful that the food you eat can sometimes taste okay, / and that your elbows do not bend the other way. / <v Ivy Austin>There are only two sexes. <v Ivy Austin>We should be thankful, no doubt. / If there were five or six, <v Ivy Austin>we'd very quickly all flip out. <v Ivy Austin>/ Got some ozone above you, some top soil below. <v Ivy Austin>/ You can be thankful that the continental drift is slow. <v Ivy Austin>/ <v Ivy Austin>On this little blue planet, solar eclipses are fun / <v Ivy Austin>'cause by coincidence the full moon looks the same size as the sun.

<v Ivy Austin>/ And just think how unfairly we would all be impaired / if <v Ivy Austin>gravitational attraction weren't reciprocally proportional to distance squared. <v Ivy Austin>/ <v Ivy Austin>[Male voice harmonizes] You can give thanks to our Creator, or to fate, or just to chance <v Ivy Austin>/ that made the gases that you exhale be inhaled by the plants. / You can be thankful that the food you eat can sometimes taste okay, / and that your elbows do not bend the other <v Ivy Austin>way. / <v Ivy Austin>You may be a believer and say that life is so fine-- <v Ivy Austin>/ you may call that self-deceivin' and say it's not all that divine. <v Ivy Austin>/ <v Ivy Austin>But no matter the reason for your fingers and toes, / you can be grateful that your fingers fit inside your <v Ivy Austin>nose. / <v Ivy Austin>[Male voice harmonizes] You can give thanks to our Creator, or to fate, or just to chance / that made the gases that you exhale be inhaled by the plants. / You can be thankful <v Ivy Austin>that the food you eat can sometimes

<v Ivy Austin>taste okay, / and that your elbows do not bend the other way. [Band gives a flourish]. <v Speaker>[Applause] <v Garrison Keillor>That's Ivy Austin, song by Jeff Baulch for Thanksgiving. <v Garrison Keillor>The line in there just I mean, you're saying it very clearly. <v Garrison Keillor>But I do- <v Ivy Austin>Thank you, I've been waiting all season. <v Garrison Keillor>I do want you to repeat "And just think-" <v Ivy Austin>[Interupting] Oh! Not that one, but I'd be happy to say this one. <v Ivy Austin>Um, "If gravitational attraction weren't reciprocally proportional to distance squared." <v Garrison Keillor>To do that in that tempo was- <v Ivy Austin>Yeah. <v Garrison Keillor>That was very nifty. <v Ivy Austin>But-but my-my favorite is you can be grateful that your fingers fit inside your nose <v Ivy Austin>[Audience laughter]. There, I said it. <v Garrison Keillor>Glad you pointed that out to us [Light audience laughter]. <v Garrison Keillor>Thank you so much. We've got four wonderful, uh, bass players on

<v Garrison Keillor>our show tonight, four terrific bass players and, uh, wanna <v Garrison Keillor>do a song with all four of them. <v Garrison Keillor>We got John ?Bealle? Back here in the Coffee Club Orchestra, Dave ?Bargeron? <v Garrison Keillor>Back here in the-in the tuba section. <v Garrison Keillor>And, uh, we have, uh, Chris Mihn Doky and his <v Garrison Keillor>bass over here. And Mr. Vince Giordano is going <v Garrison Keillor>to play yet another bass--three bases and a tuba. <v Garrison Keillor>Let's do "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" with these four. <v Garrison Keillor>And Richard and I sing a little bit and-and you join us, won't you? <v Garrison Keillor>Sing a little bit with the bases. <v Garrison Keillor>

<v Speaker>["Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" Performed by Garrison Keillor, Richard Muenz, Chris Mihn Doky, Vince Giordano, John Bealle, and Dave Bargeron with solos by each bass between verses]. <v Speaker>[Applause] <v Garrison Keillor>Thank you, bass section.

<v Garrison Keillor>That's our show for tonight. <v Garrison Keillor>Thanks to Bob Elliott, the Doky Brothers, Vince Giordano, and thanks to Rob Fisher, our <v Garrison Keillor>music director, and the Coffee Club Orchestra. <v Garrison Keillor>Ivy Austin, Richard Muenz, and Tom Keith, our program written by a manual transmission <v Garrison Keillor>with Bob Elliott, produced by Christine Cheetham, Janice Keizer Technical <v Garrison Keillor>Direction by ?Inaudible? With Brian Killian. <v Garrison Keillor>Thanks to the crew and thanks to the staff from Symphony Space, the American Radio <v Garrison Keillor>Company's principal sponsors, the American Booksellers Association, and thanks to <v Garrison Keillor>Northwest Airlines, our tour sponsor and official airline. <v Garrison Keillor>Funding provided by this American public radio station. <v Garrison Keillor>OK. Take us out boys. <v Speaker>[Band plays; Audience claps along] <v Garrison Keillor>That's our show for tonight. Thank you and good night.

<v Speaker>APR: American Public Radio.