When the storms of life assail you
And you hit a stretch of bumps
And your children chew your arms and legs to little bleeding stumps
And you're feeling so depressed
And weird thoughts cross your mind
And you dare not take a Rorschach test
For fear of what they'd find -
Before insanity strikes
Let us go and ride our bikes
On the Lake Wobegon Trail
With the wind at our backs we will sail
Straight on ahead
Down the old railbed
Past the pond and field and peaceful homestead
Through St. Joe and Avon it goes
Albany, Freeport, Melrose -
Past hog farms and dairy
Across the wide prairie
Along the Wobegon trail.
When you want to leave the hustle
And get out of your car
And go where there's no cruelty, no cares, no Kenneth Starr -
And you're tired of the blather,
The rat race and the grind
And you keep getting farther and farther behind,
Let us preserve our faculties
And ride as slowly as we please
On the Lake Wobegon Trail
Through farm and valley and dale
In the autumn sunshine
Oh what is so fine
As a ride with your pals on the Great Northern line
In downtown Avon we will enter
And go all the way to Sauk Centre
Get your bike and let's ride
Twenty miles side by side
On the Lake Wobegon trail.
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor