Lake Wobegon Summer 1956

by Garrison Keillor

—Well, I suppose Mother is anxious to get going, says Eva. She tells me to come and collect some tomatoes before they get mealy.

  —I’ll see you soon.

  —I’ll believe that when I see it, she says.

  I feel bad about her, thinking how lonely it must be on the farm with only Grandma to talk to and how good to me Eva always was and how close we were in that bed with Mother gone to New York to ride the roller coaster and walk around Brooklyn at midnight. The people slept on blankets in the park and I lay curled up against my Aunt Eva.

  I get out clean paper after dinner and write a poem to her, which I type up cleanly on the Underwood, double-spaced, on my best white vellum.

  On August days when I was young

  My aunt and I in bright sunshine

  Took the pail from where it hung

  And walked among the leafy vines.

  And reaching down, she quickly drew

  One red tomato from its nest,

  The finest one that ever grew,

  And wiping it across her breast

  She gave it to me to enjoy—

  And O the juices hot and sweet—

  And on that day the happy boy

  Tastes where earth and heaven meet.

  Of food or love, if ever I should be in want—

  I’ll think of that bright day and you, dear aunt.

  I sent it to her on Rural Route 1, Lake Wobegon, and a few days later received a note saying, “Thank you very much and I hope we get to see you in person before the summer is too far gone.”

  21

  The Glorious Fourth

  On the Fourth of July, Roger drove Kate and me in his pink Pontiac in the parade, pulling a haywagon with other Whippets riding on it, and throwing taffy to kids in the crowd. The parade started at the grain elevator and went down Main Street all the way to the end of the bathing beach and turned around and came back, three marching bands and six floats and contingents of Scouts and a Scout fife-and-drum corps that didn’t play their fifes at all and a haywagon full of 4-Hers with their dogs on leashes and the American Legion honor guard, a bunch of old barflies in campaign hats slumping along shouldering white ornamental rifles and Florian Krebsbach slumped in the back seat of a brand-new Chevy convertible with Grand Marshal on the side and little flags flying from the fenders. The Knights of the Holy Nimbus came behind him, the Catholic fraternal lodge, men so decrepit and footsore it was painful to look at them. They wore admiral hats with floofy white plumes and crimson tailcoats and knee breeches and pink sashes with swords hanging down. You would think it was Halloween.

  The Sons of Knute rode on a hayrack, drawn by four white horses. There were thirty or so, waving little Norwegian flags and wearing all their medals and ribbons and odds and ends of uniforms, and marching alongside, holding bright-blue ribbons tied to the hayrack, members of Luther League, classmates of mine, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  They were followed by the Doo Dads.

  The Doo Dads were late arriving and the parade was held up for their benefit. They were six or seven units behind our car and we didn’t see them until we’d made the turn at the end of Main Street and were headed back. The four Doo Dads wore dazzling white jackets and white Bermuda shorts and pink shirts and socks and white shoes, and of course dark glasses. They stood arm in arm in the back seat of a white Ford convertible with two loudspeakers on the hood playing “My Girl” at very high volume and they waved and waved, even to upper-story windows where nobody was. Their hair was slicked back and they were grinning like this was all in their honor, Doo Dad Day.

  “My brother,” said Roger. “What a character.” He pulled the wire under the dashboard that honked the horn, a special horn that made a low mooing sound. And Jim Dandy grinned at us and did a little dance, making milking motions with his hands. I was in the front seat, by the window, Kate between me and Roger. She wore a tiara, pink, the color of cotton candy. He had won this for her by breaking plates at a carnival booth in Holdingford until the booth operator gave him the tiara and $5 to go away and not come back. His right arm was around her, his big hand, the little black moons of dirt under his nails. He drove with his left, except when he swept back his long blond hair or freshened his breath with a mint. His sleeveless T-shirt revealed a tattoo of a dragon on his left shoulder. He smelled fresh and happy.

  We were poking along behind the DeMolay drum corps and a big-butt kid thumping boom boom boom on a bass drum, following the Knights of the Holy Nimbus, and Roger said, out of the blue, “When we go off to New York next spring, I think I’ll have Gar take care of the car for me.”

  Gar. That was me.

  “Need somebody to start the engine every day and take her for a spin. Can’t leave a car sit all summer or they go to pieces on you. Gar could keep it in shape, and then you and me’d come back after the World Series and drive it out to California.”

  Nobody ever called me Gar in my life. I would remember it if someone had. Someone called me Specs once, and I was Doc, and someone called me Foxfart until Daryl Magendanz beat him up, but Gar was new to me.

  The parade made the U-turn and then came back past the Chatterbox and Skoglund’s Five & Dime and the Mercantile and Lucky’s Hardware and the Sidetrack Tap. Daddy stood on the steps of the bank in his dark-blue suit, behind Hjalmar, his snowy locks fluttering in the breeze, and Uncle Sugar was there, and Miss Lewis. The Pontiac crawled along behind the bass drummer, who was perspiring heavily now and losing the beat.

  “Next February, when everybody’s freezing their butts off, I’ll be in training in Florida,” said Roger. “I’ll practice in the morning and the afternoon and then we’ll head for the beach, Katie, you and me. And in April we’ll take the train up to New York City.” He said New York City like it was the name of a favorite song of his. “All these other guys, they’ve gone about as far in baseball as they’re going to, but I’ve got a lot left in me. A lot. The best is yet to be, Katie. Next spring I’m walking into that locker room and there’s Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra ...” and his voice trailed off at the very thought of it, the audacity.

  The Legion’s Fourth of July program took place on a haywagon parked on the grass by the swimming beach. The schedule said it’d begin at one o’clock sharp, and around one-fifteen the crowd began to gather. They knew about Legion events. No matter how well organized an event was, with committees and assignments and lists of things and regular meetings and official badges for everyone and the coordination of watches, the moment the event was about to get under way, it was plunged into darkness and chaos, thanks to the Legion guys’ penchant for standing around and discussing the pros and cons of things. You couldn’t tack up a three-foot swatch of red-and-blue bunting without three Legion guys stepping in to wonder if maybe this was a middle swatch or an end swatch and wanting to compare it with other swatches in the box, and one of them worrying about the wind tearing the bunting loose, and another thinking about whether carpet tacks might serve the purpose better than these little roofing nails, and another reminiscing about the time in St. Joe when the bunting flapped so hard on a float that one of the horses bolted and hauled six Benedictine nuns at a terrific rate of speed for three blocks straight into the millpond, horse and nuns and wagon, a lovely story, but now a ten-minute job has stretched into half an hour and no bunting has been hung. This happened at the Fourth of July program—knots of Legion guys here and there pondered where to put the microphones and where the Gold Star Mothers should stand and how to chock the wheels of the haywagon to secure it and whether the mayor would speak before Commander Krebsbach and if the honor guard should stand in front of, beside, behind, or on the wagon. And then someone figured out that the microphones didn’t work because the electric cord wouldn’t reach all the way to the warming house, so they’d have to get Bud down here to hook it up directly to a power pole, and it took up another twenty minutes to comb the neighborhood for Bud and not find him, and finally the Doo Dads parked their Ford convertible in front
of the haywagon and Jim Dandy hooked up one microphone to the loudspeakers on the hood, which were powered by the car’s battery, and a Legion guy stood and blew into the microphone, and we seemed to be almost ready to start at 2 P.M.

  I had staked out an excellent position on the grass in the shade. I was holding a spot next to me for Kate, but she had disappeared. As time wore on, however, my shade moved to the east and I was left in scorching sunlight, behind two old men and an old lady in green-striped canvas camp chairs.

  “You want to go or you want to stay?” one man said, around 2 P.M.

  “Whatever you want,” the woman said.

  “Well, what do you want?” he cried.

  She didn’t know.

  The second man said that anything they wanted was fine with him, he could go either way, stay or go. The woman said she hated to come all this way and then miss the show, that’s all. “But what if the damn thing doesn’t start for another forty-five minutes?” said the first man.

  “If you want to scoot along,” she said, “that’s fine, but you know that the moment we get up and leave, that’s when they’re going to start the show. Same as what happened in Bemidji with the Paul Bunyan Pageant.”

  “I suppose I’ll be hearing about that damn Paul Bunyan Pageant for the rest of my born days,” said the first man in disgust. He turned his head and looked in the opposite direction. He wore a blue denim jacket with HAPPY HOOFERS embroidered on the back.

  The second man said that maybe she should stay and wait for the show and he and Bob could go get a beer or something. No, she didn’t think they should split up and then have to wander around trying to find each other: “I’ve spent half my life looking around for people.” Man No. 1 was irked. “Forget it. Forget that I ever mentioned it. It’s not worth the aggravation,” he grumped. “I’m sorry I brought it up. We’ll just sit here in the sun and roast and wait for the damn show to start—anything to keep you happy.”

  “Oh, now you’re mad at me,” she said. “I knew this would happen! I knew it! Now I’ve gone and ruined the whole day!”

  The No. 2 man said, “Let’s not get all worked up over it.”

  The first man sat with his arms folded. “I’m not worked up over anything. Have it her way. We’ll just sit here until we burn up.”

  “Okay, I give up,” she said. “We’ll forget the whole thing. I’m sorry I ever suggested we come. It’s the last suggestion I’ll ever make. Let’s go and you can have your beer and I’ll sit and wait in the car.” She looked around as if searching for allies. “Doesn’t make sense to me, drive all the way from St. Cloud to see the Doo Dads and then miss them. But whatever you want.”

  The No. 1 man threw up his hands. “I give up!” he yelled. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I’ve had about all I can take.”

  “If you are going to curse and cause a public scene, then I’ll just go sit in the car,” she said.

  I guessed No. 1 was her husband and No. 2 was her brother. He said to the husband, “Let’s discuss this like reasonable people.”

  “Oh, go stuff it,” said the husband. His face was red. He was steaming. He glared at his wife, who was now folding up her camp chair. “I came to your show, so the least you can do is sit your fat butt down and we’ll wait for the stupid thing to start.”

  She said, “I’m going to go sit in the car. You can stay as long as you like. I’ll be in the car waiting whenever you want to go home.” She headed toward Main Street. She didn’t stop and neither of them tried to stop her. She disappeared beyond the trees. No. 2 said, “She’s upset. She’ll get over it.”

  The husband glared at him as if he’d like to stuff him in a corn chopper. The brother turned around and said, to nobody in particular, “Looks like it’s starting.”

  And then the Gold Star Mothers traipsed out, and the Pledge was said, the honor guard horsed around for a few minutes, the mayor and Florian took turns honking about our town and our country, a little girl read part of the Declaration at a painful deliberate pace, word by word, and finally the Doo Dads came bounding out in their same white Bermudas but with bright-pink sportcoats.

  After the long wait, the applause was not as warm as it would have been an hour and fifteen minutes earlier, but it was warm enough. “Thank you,” said Jim Dandy. He said it was a great honor to be chosen to sing at the Fourth of July and he hoped we’d all sing along with them, and then Earl the Girl sang Mine eyes have seen the glory in his high tremulous tenor, hanging on the glory, pulling it like taffy, and then the four of them did of the coming of the Lord and the Lord came out foursquare with falsetto icing on it, and then the grapes of wrath, and the lightning was loosed of the terrible quick sword, and the Doo Dads let loose a big gorgeous Glory, glory hallelujah, slow and sweet, with Easter and Christmas in it and Washington’s Birthday too, every syllable hung with lights and covered with gravy and when His truth went marching on, Jim Dandy’s voice descended to the ocean depths and Earl the Girl flew into the stratosphere, and they held on to that last big chord and then modulated up to the next key—and if the crowd had not been so Scandinavian, they would’ve leaped up and screamed and gone to pieces, but being the sensible folk they were, they clapped lightly for the principle of modulation, and they waited for the Doo Dads to finish the song, and then they clapped again, it being the end and the time to applaud.

  The “Battle Hymn” wore the Doo Dads out. You could tell it. They were all dripping wet and mopping their brows, and those nice pink sportcoats had big dark spots under the arms. It was time to say thank you and goodbye and get off the stage and let the Legion guys come up and read about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But when Jim Dandy heard that tepid Scandinavian applause for their killer-diller “Battle Hymn,” it got his back up.

  “You’re a great audience,” he yelled. “It’s great to be here with you.” More tepid applause. “You make us want to sing you another song!” Even more tepid applause. “Okay, darn it, we will!” And the Doo Dads swung into “My Girl.” It was an okay performance but not after the “Battle Hymn,” even this crowd could tell that.

  My baby holds my hand

  I feel so doggone happy and

  When I hold her close and tight

  The moon and stars come out tonight,

  My Girl

  After you have lived to make men holy and died to make men free and been transfigured by a glory in Christ’s bosom and all, it does not feel right to right away start mooning over a girl. This is just a fact known to most in show business, surely, and the Doo Dads finished “My Girl” to very light applause indeed.

  Jim Dandy grabbed the microphone. “How many of you here from Millet?” he hollered. Not that many. About five. “How many of you here who went to Lake Wobegon High?” More whistles and whoops and applause, but still no big hullabaloo. “Well, so did I, and let me tell you something. I’m darned proud that I went to Lake Wobegon High. Proud to be a Leonard!” A little more light applause. “I don’t care what happens with us Doo Dads. If we wind up digging ditches or we go on to national fame and someday find ourselves singing on The Ed Sullivan Show—how many of you here watch Ed Sullivan on Sunday night?” Light, dutiful clapping. “—If we sing on Ed Sullivan, and if Ed asks us, ‘Boys, where you from?’ I personally will be very proud to say, ‘Lake Wobegon!!!!’ ”

  The problem now was sunlight. The sun had been beating down on the crowd for an hour while the Legion guys decided who should stand and say what and where to seat the Gold Star Mothers and the disabled vets and the kiddie choir and got the honor guard straightened out and the flags and buglers and the Youth Citizenship Award winners and so forth, and it was a Scandinavian and German crowd and these folks do not take to sunshine. Exposure to the sun’s rays makes them dopy and sullen and eventually turns them toward violence. If the sky had darkened and rain fallen and turned to sleet, the crowd would’ve perked up and felt refreshed, but the onslaught of sunshine deadened them. The Doo Dads did not seem to realize this. Bec
ause Jim Dandy announced that, since the crowd had been so warm and generous to them, the Doo Dads would like to sing one more song. The crowd slumped down at the very thought; if he had called for a vote, the additional song would’ve gone down like Wendell Willkie. And then Earl the Girl hummed a high note, and the Doo Dads filled in the chord, and off they went into “The Star-Spangled Banner”—well, it was too weird for words. No other way to describe it. Our national anthem is supposed to be sung the very first thing, and if it’s tacked on later in the program, it doesn’t feel right at all. Some people jumped to their feet and others didn’t. And the way the Doo Dads sang it—the broad stripes and bright stars sounded like a neon sign, and then Jim Dandy tried to get the crowd to clap along in time—and you do not clap along to the national anthem—it simply is not done—and they came to the rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air and you could feel what was coming—they got very warbly and loud and grabbed the mikes and leaned way back and gave the land of the free and the home of the brave everything they had, 150%, a big purplish splay-footed chord, and the chord died out, and there was dead silence as far as the eye could see, nothing, not a clap, not even one person waving a hanky. They’d never heard the national anthem sung so freely and didn’t know what to think and didn’t want to clap until the others clapped, which nobody was doing, so nobody did.

  Jim Dandy looked out at the crowd, the other Doo Dads lurking behind him, sweaty, grinning their big stage grins, and I wanted in the worst way for him just to say thank you so much and get off the stage, but he didn’t do it. He stared out over the sea of heads. Walk off, walk off, I thought. I was feeling pretty agitated. I liked the Doo Dads and this was not a good place for them to be right now, standing in front of five hundred sun-dazed Scandinavians, and it was not going to get any better. I knew this. I knew it.

  “It means an awful lot for us Doo Dads to sing for you folks today and I hope you know that,” said Jim Dandy. “You’re wonderful hardworking God-fearing people. Salt of the earth! I look out across all these faces and I see so many folks who have meant so much to me and my family all the years we’ve lived here.” This was dreadful humbug and everybody knew it and it didn’t improve the crowd’s disposition. “I know that many of you have been concerned about my family and about my beloved younger brother Ricky, who left us a few weeks ago and went west. I know that you’ve had Ricky and me and my mom and dad and my brother Roger in your prayers.” The crowd was now sullen and resentful. It wanted him to go away and the show to end and everybody go find some shade and a cool drink. “And I want to thank you for your prayers and your good wishes. I think that families are the most important natural resource we have in America today.”