(GK: Garrison Keillor; FN: Fred Newman; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
GK: It's good to be with you New Yorkers, probably a bigger deal for me than for you, because I didn't have friends when I was a kid, but I appreciate your coming even if a lot of you probably will leave at intermission so you can make your dinner date at Le Place des Moins Cher --- but it's a huge deal for me, because I grew up in the middle of vast cornfields, and Saturday afternoons when you were relaxing in your parents' apartment, 12 rooms and terrace overlooking Fifth Avenue, I was picking rocks in the fields ----- how many of you here ever did that? Picked rocks in the field? Not many. How many of you came into trust funds when you were twelve? let's see a show of hands--- hold em up there --- incredible, almost every hand is raised --- I used to fantasize about having rich children as friends back when I was growing up in a sod hut in Minnesota. I dreamed that a rich child came to visit who looked exactly like me, and we got switched, and he had to stay in Minnesota and I got to go to New York......How many of you dreamed that you'd change places with somebody in Minnesota? Not many.
WB (MOM): Oh, it was hard, that's for darn tootin. Spring was a regular nightmare. Mud everywhere. Animals in the house. (CHICKEN) Get off there! Git! (CHICKEN FLIGHT, PANIC) And get that pig out of the pantry. (PIG SQUEAL) But at least we had enough to eat. And your father and I never had a single argument. Never. Because he didn't speak English. (TR SWEDISH) Such a hard worker he was. Boy, when you're milking 400 cats a day (IRRITABLE CAT, TR SWEDISH) --- that is what I call hard work. But what could we do?
GK: Mama saved her egg money in a jelly jar and she used that to put me through school, the New York School of Broadcasting Arts & Sciences, Box 142A, Ansonia Station, New York City.
WB (MOM): Talk for me, Buddy. Cup your hand behind your ear and talk --- I love to hear you talk in that deep rich radio voice of yours.
GK: You're tuned to WLT, the Voice of the Great Northwest, broadcasting from studios on fashionable Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis.
WB (MOM): Oh I love it. Those rounded tones. Talk some more.
GK: Back with more Midday Merry-go-round after this word from Mrs. Weill's Homemade Pickled Parsnips---- you know when it comes to choosing a condiment for your family, you naturally want the best, and so you choose parsnips, loaded with vitamins and natural goodness----
WB (MOM): You're so good at that. You sound so professional, honey. It's a shame you couldn't find a job.
GK: I'm still trying, Mom. I'll make it. I'm young.
WB (MOM): I don't call forty-seven young, honey. No, I'm afraid that despite that lovely voice you got from broadcasting school, people can still tell that you grew up in a house with dirt walls and that your best friend was a Leghorn chicken.
GK: I don't think so, Mom. I go around New York and go into cafes and order and buy the paper at the newsstand and nobody ever mentions Minnesota to me.
WB (MOM): They probably talk about it behind your back. They say, Get a load of that guy ---- bet he knows his way around a manure pile. That's why you're unemployed.
GK: I have a job, Mom.
WB (MOM): Part time. Saturdays. I don't call two hours on Saturday afternoon having a job. You have an office? Huh?
GK: No.
WB (MOM): You have a big walnut credenza with a picture of me and Dad in silver frames?
GK: No.
WB (MOM): You have a secretary named Megan?
GK: No.
WB (MOM): You have a cellphone? One of those dangly ones with the headset and the microphone hanging down? Huh? Do you? Do you walk down the street talking to somebody in the Cleveland office? No, you do not.
GK: I'm sorry I let you down, Mom.
WB (MOM): Why don't you listen to Howard Stern honey?
GK: Howard Stern!
WB (MOM): There's so much you can learn from him. I love Howard Stern! I watch him on cable every day. There in his little studio with his dark glasses and his shaggy hair and his little friend Robin ---- she's so much fun ---- and O my the stunts he pulls. What a card. The man is just plain outrageous. That's why we got two TVs. Your father sits there glued to the Swedish language channel. (SWEDISH TV AUDIO)
GK: Do you and Dad ever talk?
WB (MOM): Never and I love him with all my heart. Yes, I do. He is such a sweetie pie.
TR: SWEDISH (SWEDISH TV AUDIO)
GK: Did you ever think of learning Swedish?
WB (MOM): Well, why would I go and do that?
GK: So you could converse?
WB (MOM): Conversation in marriage is a recipe for trouble. Besides, your father's Swedish is some dialect from some tiny island up north and all the people there are gone and no Swede can understand that dialect
GK: So Dad speaks a language that nobody in the world can understand.
WB (MOM): Yes. But he seems happy. So who can say? Well, for pity's sake ----- Howard Stern has a couple of those Lebanese women on and he's trying to get them to lift up their shirts. Isn't that something. LOOKIT THAT, SIGURD!
TR: (SWEDISH)
(SWEDISH TV AUDIO)
WB (MOM): Forget about that and lookit here, Sigurd! Naked people on the radio! What will that man think of next?? (CHICKENS) Get off there.Get offa that TV! (CHICKEN FLURRY) Darn chickens.
GK: Anyway, it's good to be here with you New Yorkers. (ORGAN)
TR: Can a fellow from a rural background make his way in midtown Manhattan without committing terrible fox paws that reveal only too clearly his rustic origins? Find out today as Mrs. Weill's Homemade Pickled Parsnips presents ----- THE RESTLESS QUEST......(ORGAN OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2002