(AFTER POLKA BAND FEATURE)
SS: A Prairie Home Companion coming to you live from the Gibbon Ballroom in Gibbon, Minnesota.....it's our polka show.....(IMPROV HERE) It's our first show in a long time in which men are actually trying to pick up women, and it's our first show using our personalized sound system. Instead of the big speakers over the stage, we have little speakers in each booth and beside each chair, and every five minutes, you have to put in another quarter......Guy Noir, Radio Private Eye, will not be heard this week, but he will return soon.
GK: That's correct, Sue. I'll be back with another exciting adventure in the very near future. Nice dress, by the way.
SS: Thank you.
GK: You look really fabulous tonight. You care to dance?
SS: Not especially. Where are you going for Thanksgiving, Guy?
GK: I'll be heading out to my sister Norma's in Waconia --- she does Thanksgiving, and Ma Noir will be there, and Norma's borderline husband Matt and their semi-demented children.
SS: Sounds festive.
GK: I was going to spend it like I usually do, at the YMCA Cafeteria ---- they put out a nice turkey dinner for $5.95, you know, with all the trimmings, but Norma insisted, so---- I'll be taking a cab out to Waconia and be with her and her family. It kinda helps me appreciate my own life as a bachelor more, you know.
SS: That's nice. You're taking a cab to Waconia?
GK: Yeah.
SS: I don't think there are cabs in Gibbon.
GK: No? Well, things are looking up already.
SS: Happy Thanksgiving, Guy. Dusty and Lefty could not be here today either ---- due to the fact that they are fugitives from justice --- but we do have a special Thanksgiving greeting on tape that they made in their secret hideout and here it is now. (CLICK. VOICE AT VERY SLOW SPEED. CLICK) Just a moment. (CLICK. VERY FAST VOICE. CLICK.) Stand by. (REWIND. CLICK.)
(EQ FOR CHEAP TAPE RECORDER)
TR: This thing, working?
GK: The red light is on....
TR: Does that mean it's working?
GK: You supposed to press Play and Record together?
TR: I donno.
GK: The tape is going around....
TR: How come the needle ain't moving?
GK: I donno.
TR: Here. (A COUPLE DULL WHACKS) There. Now it's working.
GK: Go ahead.
TR: You go first.
GK: Me?
TR: Go ahead.
GK: OKay. Uh....hi, this is Lefty, and I'm here with Dusty, and we're in an undisclosed location, and we just want to wish everybody out there and especially you little buckaroos a very happy Thanksgiving. Me and Dusty are probably not going to have much more than just a vending machine sandwich and a can of Pepsi for our Thanksgiving, but when you've escaped from justice and committed a couple of felonies in the process, I guess a person can't expect too much.
TR: That is correct, all you little buckaroos, and you remember to always obey the law and don't do as we have done. And I hope that your Thanksgiving is real nice compared to ours here in a cheap motel room in southern Indiana with stained carpeting and very poor TV reception and semis in the parking lot behind us and no mini bar and no room service.
GK: No shampoo or conditioner either. So I hope that all you little cowpokes out there can see that running away from the law is definitely not a good idea.
TR: That's right.
GK: I knew that, and so when Dusty made a run for it, I shouldn't have gone along with him, which I did do only because we are pals and I was worried about him, but I shouldn't have done it, and I regret it.
TR: What do you mean, I made a run for it?
GK: Well, you did.
TR: It was all I could do to keep up with you.
GK: Anyway, we're on the run from the law right now, and I don't know what's going to happen, but it'll all work out, I'm sure. And I'd just like to sing you a little song for Thanksgiving.
TR: Oh boy. I shoulda known. (CHORD, OFFKEY) Oh that hurts. (TUNING) Lord, put me out of my misery now.....
GK: This is a song my mama taught me when I was just a little boy....
Over the river and through the woods,
To Grandmother's house we go,
Dad knows the way
In his Chevrolet
Throught the white and drifted snow.
Over the river and through the woods,
With a can of Ocean Spray,
With the pies in a box
And a jar of Maalox
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river and through the wood,
But what if grandma's not there?
What if she fled
To a hotel instead
To sit in her underwear?
Over the river and through the wood,
Heading for grandma's home.
I hope she's there
In her rocking chair,
Playing her saxphone.
Over the river and through the wood
To grandmother's house we get---
It's her, I guess
In that low-cut dress
The uncles are sitting like Bumps on a log
The aunts are weird--but hey--
The family's odd, but the turkey's not thawed,
But it's still Thanksgiving Day.
(MUFFLED BANGING ON DOOR, MUFFLED SHOUTING) What's that?
TR: They discovered us, pardner.
GK: Who is it?
TR: Let's go! Out the back!
GK: Bye, kids. (CLICK)
SS: Dusty and Lefty, from their hideout -----
© 1997 Garrison Keillor