.....brought to you by Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie and Rhubarb Pie Filling.
Here in the mountains of Colorado, where the growing season is about twenty-one days and not always consecutive either, rhubarb is a major crop. Rhubarb is a hardy plant, it doesn't need to be coaxed, once you've got it it's hard to get rid of it, and it has many uses. Let's say you go out on a summer evening (BIRDS) and you pop open a cold one (POP TOP CAN) and sit down in your lawn chair (CREAK, TR SIGH) and you're filled with a sense of manliness and well-being (TR TARZAN CRY) and then suddenly (MOSQUITO CIRCLING) ---- radar picks up incoming enemy insects at two o'clock high (SLAP. MOSQUITO CONTINUES) and you send up some anti-aircraft fire (SLAP. SLAP. SLAP. MOSQUITO) and then you reach for the Bomb (HEAVY BLAST OF AEROSOL. MOSQUITO RESUMES.) and now you see another one coming in at six o'clock and (DEEPER INSECT BUZZ) this is a horsefly ----- people get bit by those, they have to get plastic surgery ---- (TR: Get away---- get away! SWISHING OF DEFENSIVE WEAPON, INSECT BUZZ DOING AERIAL ACROBATICS) and you try to fend him off with a barbecue fork and he gets you on the back of the leg (HORSEFLY ASSAULT, TR CRY OF PAIN) and now he smells blood (MORE INSECTS. DRONE BUILDS IN PITCH) and there is a swarm of them over you and you go into a fetal position (TR WHIMPERS, SLAPS) as large black birds circle high overhead (DISTANT BUZZARDS) and your own cat ---- it's Puff ---- (FERAL MEOW) she is crouching, crawling toward you, her teeth bared ---- your own cat ----- (TR: No---- Puff) -- --- and now a shadow falls over you ---- (SS: Hi, Dad. Something wrong?) ---- it's your beloved daughter. (TR: Cynthia---- help. Please. SS: I'm leaving home, Dad. I'm running away with Gonzo. TR: No!) They're closing in around you. (DEERFLY. MEOW. DISTANT BIRDS) And now there's a guy standing over you. (TK: Hi, Jim.) It's Cal. From the office. (TK: They told me to clean out your desk.) and the cat is getting ready to pounce (MEOW) and you've got incoming at three o'clock (DEERFLY) and the birds are sitting on the fence rail (BUZZARD SHRIEKS) --- and now you remember what your old Scoutmaster Mr. Tibbetts told you (TR OLD MAN: Rhubarb, Timmy. That's what keeps the flies off you. You eat raw rhubarb.) (RHUBARB THEME) Yes, the powers of rhubarb are well-known ---- nothing gets rid of horseflies or gets the taste of fear and dismay out of your mouth like rhubarb.... Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
But one little thing can revive a guy, And that is home-made rhubarb pie. Serve it up, nice and hot. Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought.DUET: Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb, Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb, Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor