Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 18, 1994 TAG: 9411230080
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Tours are scheduled Saturday night, beginning at 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., emanating from the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium.
To truly enjoy the visit, though, you need to get the lay of the land ahead of time.
Well, there is no better guide than Lake Wobegon native son Garrison Keillor:
"Lake Wobegon (1,418 alt., 942 pop.) [seat of tiny Mist County], named for the body of water that it borders. Bleakly typical of the prairie, Lake Wobegon has its origins in the utopian vision of 19th-century New England Transcendentalists but now is populated mainly by Norwegians and Germans who attend Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church and Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Church, neither of which are remarkable. The lake itself [678.2 acres], blue-green and brightly sparkling in the brassy summer sun and neighbored by the warm-colored marsh grasses of a wildlife-teeming slough, is the town's main attraction, though the view is spoiled somewhat by a large grain elevator by the railroad track."
"It is a quiet town, where much of the day you could stand in the middle of Main Street and not be in anyone's way - not forever, but for as long as a person would want to stand in the middle of a street. ... The double white stripe is for show, as are the two parking meters. Two was all they could afford. They meant to buy more, but nobody puts nickels in them because parking nearby is free. Parking is diagonal."
"... [I]ts highest point is the gold ball on the flagpole atop the Norge Co-op grain elevator south of town on the Great Northern spur, from which Mr. Tollefson can see all of Mist County, when he climbs up to raise the flag on national holidays, including Norwegian Independence Day, when the blue cross of Norway is flown. (No flag of Germany has appeared in public since 1917.)''
"In a town where everyone was either Lutheran or Catholic, we were neither one. We were Sanctified Brethren, a sect so tiny that nobody but God and us knew about it, so when kids asked what I was, I just said Protestant. It was too much to explain, like having six toes. You would rather keep your shoes on."
"Sweet corn was our family's weakness. We were prepared to resist atheistic Communism, immoral Hollywood, hard liquor, gambling and dancing, smoking, fornication, but if Satan had come around with sweet corn, we at least would have listened to what he had to sell. ... People have searched the world over for something better and didn't find it because it's not there. There's nothing better, not even sex."
"Other residents come to mind as people who if you were showing a friend from college around town and you saw them you would grab his arm and make a hard U-turn, such as Mr. Berge, not because he might be drunk, but because whether drunk or sober he might blow his nose with his index finger the old farmer way. Farmers still do this in the field, though most of them know that town is a different situation, but not Mr. Berge and his friends, the Norwegian bachelor farmers. ... To them, the one-handed blow is in the same league with spitting, which they also do, and scratching in the private regions. ... When ill at ease, such as when meeting your friend, they are apt to do all three in quick succession, spit, blow, and scratch - p-thoo, snarf, ahhhhh - no more self-conscious than a dog."
Points of interest:
Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery: "If They Don't Have It at Ralph's, You Probably Didn't Need It Anyway."
Bunsen Motors: "Ford - New and Used - Sales and Service." Owned and operated by Clint Bunsen, former mayor, and his brother Clarence
Chatterbox Cafe: where Dorothy presides. "The Place to Go That's Just Like Home." Specialties, tuna hot-dish and Jell-O
Sidetrack Tap: run by Wally and serving Wendy's Beer. Mr. Berge perpetual customer.
The Lake Wobegon Herald-Star, publisher Harold Starr
Pure Oil station
Statue of the Unknown Norwegian
TICKETS
Tickets are still available for ``A Prairie Home Companion'' in the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium.
The warm-up for the first show begins at 5:45 p.m. The second show begins at 9:30 p.m. The box office is open today and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Shuttle buses to the Williamson Road parking garage will not start running until 6:30 p.m. and will run every 10 minutes thereafter.
Special guests will include U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia; Rappahannock County native blues guitarist John Jackson; Augusta County singer-songwriters-recording artists Robin and Linda Williams; and Kate MacKenzie, lead singer for Stoney Lonesome bluegrass band who has just released her first solo CD, "Let Them Talk." The Williamses and MacKenzie, with Keillor, make up the Hopeful Gospel Quartet.
Series regulars include special effects wizard Tom Keith, actors Tim Russell and Sue Scott, and keyboardist Richard Dworsky.
by CNB