December 22, 2024 • 18 mins
A little gift for our Garrison Keillor and Friends subscribers. In the Back Room (paid subscribers) you receive a monologue from the 80’s weekly.12.24.83It was bitterly cold in Lake Wobegon this week. Thirty below and cars wouldn't start. Everyone in Minnesota has jumper cables. Kids even get them in decorator colors as graduation gifts. If cars don't start, they use the cables to spell SOS in the snowbank. In Lake Wobegon it is a matter of pride if your car starts in cold weather, though people stretch the truth about it.Monday morning Lyle woke up feeling extra cold in his bedroom; there was a sheet of ice on the window and his water pipes were frozen. His car wouldn't start and he had the bright idea to light charcoal and place it under his engine. Well, the garage was saved but not the car. Lyle's brother-in-law, Carl, is the one that has the car that starts and is able to fix everything so it's embarrassing to make these mistakes, though he does know that Carl would be there in a moment if needed.
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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown.
It's been a bitterly cold week too. Couple weeks as
a matter of fact, as most of the people here
realize all too well. Got down to thirty some below
one night earlier this week, or it might have been
forty below, I'm not sure, might have set a new
(00:21):
low record up there in Lake Wobegon. They weren't sure.
Nobody stays up all night to watch the thermometer, you know,
rather be in bed when it's coldest. Warning is soon
enough to find out about it, and you certainly will too.
Thirty some below is the temperature at which things tend
(00:43):
to want to slow down and stop and become permanent.
People in beds, for one, have an inclination to stay there.
You know it when you wake up and it's gotten
that cold during the night. In pipes tends to want
to become a permanent attachment and stay there until spring.
(01:07):
And cars, of course too. When it's been thirty some
below the night before, your car is apt to make
just a little click in the morning and then give
out with a low moan, terrible sound like the It's
(01:29):
like the sound of a dying person there under the hood.
It's like the sound that the hero's best friend makes
in the movie, in that scene where the best friend
has saved the hero's life by stepping in between the
hero and the ambush, you know, and he gets shot
(01:50):
and he lies there and the hero says, he says,
don't take it easy, Jim. He says, don't talk, you'll
be all right. But then the best friend lets out
that moan, and you know that he can't talk and
he's not going to be all right. And that's the
(02:11):
same moan as your car sometimes gives out when it's
been thirty some below and you say, take it easy, Henry,
I called for help. You're going to be all right now.
But it's not going to be all right. It's dead,
(02:31):
it died, it's gone. People have jumper cables, of course,
in Minnesota their basic equipment. Everybody has a pair. I
see some people are carrying theirs with them. Kids get
them for graduation presence in Minnesota. Come in all sorts
(02:54):
of different decorator colors, and you get them in the
shoulder bag with the strap or out of shade kit
or so on. What you do with them, I suppose
I should explain some people living somewhere may not understand
the use of jumper cables. Correct me if I'm wrong. Now,
(03:17):
you put the red clamp on the one end on
the positive pole of the battery of the car that's running.
And then you put the red clamp on the other
end of the positive pole of the dead battery. And
then you put the black clamp on the negative pole
of the good battery. And you take the black clamp
(03:37):
at the opposite end and you put it on the
engine mount as a ground. And then if the other
battery is good, it should start up the dead battery.
And if it doesn't, you remove the jumper cables and
you lay them out in the snow bank. You spell
(03:57):
out SOS at the jumper cables, and you go in,
and you go back to bed, and you wait until
you hear the helicopters come in over the house. It's
a matter of pride, though up here, to have a
car that starts in the coldest weather. It's something people
(04:22):
are so proud of that sometimes they lie about it.
It's sort of like having a good kid, you know,
a good kid who's quiet and polite and studious and
hard working and does everything right and doesn't have to
be reminded of anything. You sit around listen to other
(04:42):
people mutter and complain about their kids, and you look
sort of interested, and you say, oh, really have we
never have any problem with that sort of thing in
our house. The same way you'll see guys in Minnesota
off in the corner saying, now, she starts right up.
Coldest morning, I leave her outside and everything. Don't plug
(05:03):
it in, don't even put cardboard in a grill, don't
put a blanket over anything. No, he starts right up. Lies,
terrible lies. It's true of Karl Krepsbach, though back home,
(05:24):
it's always been true. Even on bitterly, bitterly cold mornings.
He goes out to his garage and he gets in
his old Chevy, and he pumps the gas pedal about
eight or ten times, and he just talks to it
a little bit, turns the keys, jumps right up. He
starts right up, big roar every morning, even if it's
(05:47):
forty below forty five below zero, his car starts every morning.
It's a sound, the roar of that engine that has
been depressing his brother in law, Lyle, who lives next
door for years now, Lyle Jansky, I mean Carl's brother
(06:12):
in law. Sitting there in the kitchen, he can hear
Carl's car start right up. Lyle's car is not trustworthy
anywhere below freezing, and when it's colder than ten below,
there's even no point in trying. And Lyle's car is
(06:34):
an old Chevy too, which leaves just one variable in
the equation, and that's Lyle. It can be hard on
a person year after year when your brother in law's
car jumps to life on the coldest mornings of winter,
(07:00):
and you know that when you go out there, you're
just going to get a low moan from your best
friend as your car SAgs into your arms and gives
its death rattle. And then the worst of it is
that Carl always comes over to help Lyle starts, and
(07:22):
sometimes he doesn't even need to use jumper cables. Sometimes
he just reaches in under the hood and he just
fiddles with something in the carburetor, and then Carl gets
behind the wheel of Lyle's old Chevy, turns the key
and she starts right up. That's the maddening part. When
(07:47):
you've got an insoluble problem, an impossible problem, and some
cheerful person reaches over your shoulder and says, here, let's
try this, and Carl, Carl's cheerfulness is pretty hard to take.
Two when it's gotten down to thirty some below. Lyle
(08:09):
is the science teacher up at the high school. He
can explain cold. He can't accept it because he was
born and grew up and spent most of his life
in southern California. He's lived in Lake Wobegon now for
almost ten years. But some of these transplants don't take.
(08:32):
You know, some of these Southerners who move up to
the north, their tissues reject winter. And when it first snows,
even after ten years, Lyle looks out the window and
he says, what's wrong? What is that stuff? And when
(08:57):
it gets down to thirty some below at night, Lyle
thinks this is not right. It's not supposed to be
like this. And then his brother in law, cool Carl
comes over in his big parka and his big boots
and a big smile on his face, and he said, boy,
(09:18):
she's cold one today. Boy, I think she must be
thirty some blow out there. Lyle just liked to shoot him.
So I think it was Monday morning Lyle woke up
that was cold in his bedroom. It's been cold for
a while. There's a sheet of ice about a half
(09:41):
inch thick over that window on the north side where
he didn't put up the storm window. He was gonna
back in October, but there didn't seem to be a
need for it at the time. So cold in bed.
Even his wife felt chilly to him. She's from Minnesota.
(10:05):
Lyle kind of thinks that her temperature drops during the
winter like bears, you know. He got out of bed,
ran into the bathroom, take a hot shower, turned down
the water. Nothing came out. Stood there naked, cold, little
(10:28):
bumps all over. His body, looked all red and blotchy.
Felt terrible. Put on his clothes that didn't make him
feel much better. Went down make some coffee, and about
the time the coffee was just starting to perk, he
heard the roar of Carl's car. He knew that Carl
(10:52):
always goes back into the house and leaves the old
Chevy warm up. Lyle knew he had about fifteen minutes,
so he put on his coat, went out to the garage.
He just praying, Lord, let it be today, got in
behind the wheel, turned the key gave out that horrible mood.
(11:21):
He knew he had about ten minutes left. He was desperate.
He didn't want to be helped again, and that was
why he went and got that whole bag of charcoal
and put it in the garbage can lid and lit it,
(11:42):
and when he got some good coals going, he shoved
it under the engine went in the house to warm up.
Carl is also the captain of the volunteer fire department.
He was the one who made the call. He was
(12:04):
the first one on the scene. The truck came, everybody came.
You kind of think of a car fire as being
like in the movies, you know, a big fireball, which
maybe was what Lyle wanted, But this one just smoldered
and it gave off a stench that you could smell
(12:28):
all over town. Fire department came barreling up the sire
and going. Everybody came from blocks around. They said, how
did it happened? Fireman didn't know how to answer that.
With Lyle standing there, kind of hard to explain, But
(12:54):
there was the answer sitting right there on the floor,
garbage can lid, hot coals in it. People thought that
man is teaching our children about science. He didn't know
how to explain. He didn't have any idea something as
(13:15):
cold as his car would be combustible. They hauled it
out of the garage, managed to save the garage. The
car is gonna need quite a bit of work. And
Carl put his arm around Lyle and he smiled at him,
and he said, he should have called me up, but
(13:35):
would have come over and helped you. What are brother
in law's for. I guess they're still going to spend
Christmas together. I think the Carl is gonna give Lyle
a set of wrenches, and I think that Lyle is
gonna give Carl a book about the Milky Way. But
(14:01):
he did fix the water pipes. He went up that
same afternoon. He got the hair dryer out and he
had to rip off part of the wall in the bathroom.
Gunnis knows how he's going to fix that, but he
took the hair dryer and he blew hot air on
the part of the water pipe that seemed the coldest,
while his wife was standing right behind him. Marlus stood
(14:22):
back there and she said, why don't you just call Carl,
Why don't you give Carl a call. He'll come over
take care of this boy. Lyle was happy when that
water ran. He felt so good. She was just starting
to say, why don't you, and then the water came
(14:43):
right out and she said, honey, you did it. That
was Christmas for him right at that moment. He didn't
need any more. And now there's just the storm window
to fix. And he's doing that at night, after dark,
(15:07):
so that Carl won't see him and offer to help.
In fact, he's doing it right now, getting that extension
ladder out from the garage and he's put it up
against the side of the house, all bundled up, and
he doesn't even dare use a flashlight. Little guy all
(15:28):
bundled up in a big park hauling this heavy storm
window out of the garage. This is not one of
your aluminum storm windows. This is a forty pounder holding
it up in front of him. As he climbs up
that ladder in the dark and the cold, and the
wind kind of comes up a little bit and catches
(15:50):
the glass a little better and he can't hold on.
He's got a hold on to the window. So he
goes up step after step and there's one rung missing
up there and he's not sure which one, and he
(16:13):
gets to the top and in order to get those
little watch McCall it's at the top of the storm window,
onto those little do hangies on the frame. Lyle's got
a lean way back so that he can lift this
(16:34):
window up and get it up over his head. He's
got a lean way back. What a hero like a
sailor on a ship tossing in a North Atlantic. But
what he doesn't see. What I can see is that
(16:58):
the feet of the la ladder which he put in
the snow, are actually resting on clare eyes underneath the snow.
Just the back edges of the feet of the ladder
(17:21):
are holding on to that eyes. Boy, I could bring
him down real easy right now. We could have that
(17:41):
ladder fall right now. He'd break a leg at least,
and then Carl would be the first one over. Carl,
let's say, hey, what you doing? But now he's pushing
the storm window in tie and now he's on his
(18:02):
way down. I wonder if he knew what a close
one that was. I wonder if he knew what a
dangerous deal that was there for just a minute. He's
a lucky guy, so am I? So are you? Maybe
(18:27):
Merry Christmas. That's the news from Lake Wolbegon, where all
the women are strong, all the men are good looking,
all the children are above average. Yes,
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown.
It's been a bitterly cold week too. Couple weeks as
a matter of fact, as most of the people here
realize all too well. Got down to thirty some below
one night earlier this week, or it might have been
forty below, I'm not sure, might have set a new
(00:21):
low record up there in Lake Wobegon. They weren't sure.
Nobody stays up all night to watch the thermometer, you know,
rather be in bed when it's coldest. Warning is soon
enough to find out about it, and you certainly will too.
Thirty some below is the temperature at which things tend
(00:43):
to want to slow down and stop and become permanent.
People in beds, for one, have an inclination to stay there.
You know it when you wake up and it's gotten
that cold during the night. In pipes tends to want
to become a permanent attachment and stay there until spring.
(01:07):
And cars, of course too. When it's been thirty some
below the night before, your car is apt to make
just a little click in the morning and then give
out with a low moan, terrible sound like the It's
(01:29):
like the sound of a dying person there under the hood.
It's like the sound that the hero's best friend makes
in the movie, in that scene where the best friend
has saved the hero's life by stepping in between the
hero and the ambush, you know, and he gets shot
(01:50):
and he lies there and the hero says, he says,
don't take it easy, Jim. He says, don't talk, you'll
be all right. But then the best friend lets out
that moan, and you know that he can't talk and
he's not going to be all right. And that's the
(02:11):
same moan as your car sometimes gives out when it's
been thirty some below and you say, take it easy, Henry,
I called for help. You're going to be all right now.
But it's not going to be all right. It's dead,
(02:31):
it died, it's gone. People have jumper cables, of course,
in Minnesota their basic equipment. Everybody has a pair. I
see some people are carrying theirs with them. Kids get
them for graduation presence in Minnesota. Come in all sorts
(02:54):
of different decorator colors, and you get them in the
shoulder bag with the strap or out of shade kit
or so on. What you do with them, I suppose
I should explain some people living somewhere may not understand
the use of jumper cables. Correct me if I'm wrong. Now,
(03:17):
you put the red clamp on the one end on
the positive pole of the battery of the car that's running.
And then you put the red clamp on the other
end of the positive pole of the dead battery. And
then you put the black clamp on the negative pole
of the good battery. And you take the black clamp
(03:37):
at the opposite end and you put it on the
engine mount as a ground. And then if the other
battery is good, it should start up the dead battery.
And if it doesn't, you remove the jumper cables and
you lay them out in the snow bank. You spell
(03:57):
out SOS at the jumper cables, and you go in,
and you go back to bed, and you wait until
you hear the helicopters come in over the house. It's
a matter of pride, though up here, to have a
car that starts in the coldest weather. It's something people
(04:22):
are so proud of that sometimes they lie about it.
It's sort of like having a good kid, you know,
a good kid who's quiet and polite and studious and
hard working and does everything right and doesn't have to
be reminded of anything. You sit around listen to other
(04:42):
people mutter and complain about their kids, and you look
sort of interested, and you say, oh, really have we
never have any problem with that sort of thing in
our house. The same way you'll see guys in Minnesota
off in the corner saying, now, she starts right up.
Coldest morning, I leave her outside and everything. Don't plug
(05:03):
it in, don't even put cardboard in a grill, don't
put a blanket over anything. No, he starts right up. Lies,
terrible lies. It's true of Karl Krepsbach, though back home,
(05:24):
it's always been true. Even on bitterly, bitterly cold mornings.
He goes out to his garage and he gets in
his old Chevy, and he pumps the gas pedal about
eight or ten times, and he just talks to it
a little bit, turns the keys, jumps right up. He
starts right up, big roar every morning, even if it's
(05:47):
forty below forty five below zero, his car starts every morning.
It's a sound, the roar of that engine that has
been depressing his brother in law, Lyle, who lives next
door for years now, Lyle Jansky, I mean Carl's brother
(06:12):
in law. Sitting there in the kitchen, he can hear
Carl's car start right up. Lyle's car is not trustworthy
anywhere below freezing, and when it's colder than ten below,
there's even no point in trying. And Lyle's car is
(06:34):
an old Chevy too, which leaves just one variable in
the equation, and that's Lyle. It can be hard on
a person year after year when your brother in law's
car jumps to life on the coldest mornings of winter,
(07:00):
and you know that when you go out there, you're
just going to get a low moan from your best
friend as your car SAgs into your arms and gives
its death rattle. And then the worst of it is
that Carl always comes over to help Lyle starts, and
(07:22):
sometimes he doesn't even need to use jumper cables. Sometimes
he just reaches in under the hood and he just
fiddles with something in the carburetor, and then Carl gets
behind the wheel of Lyle's old Chevy, turns the key
and she starts right up. That's the maddening part. When
(07:47):
you've got an insoluble problem, an impossible problem, and some
cheerful person reaches over your shoulder and says, here, let's
try this, and Carl, Carl's cheerfulness is pretty hard to take.
Two when it's gotten down to thirty some below. Lyle
(08:09):
is the science teacher up at the high school. He
can explain cold. He can't accept it because he was
born and grew up and spent most of his life
in southern California. He's lived in Lake Wobegon now for
almost ten years. But some of these transplants don't take.
(08:32):
You know, some of these Southerners who move up to
the north, their tissues reject winter. And when it first snows,
even after ten years, Lyle looks out the window and
he says, what's wrong? What is that stuff? And when
(08:57):
it gets down to thirty some below at night, Lyle
thinks this is not right. It's not supposed to be
like this. And then his brother in law, cool Carl
comes over in his big parka and his big boots
and a big smile on his face, and he said, boy,
(09:18):
she's cold one today. Boy, I think she must be
thirty some blow out there. Lyle just liked to shoot him.
So I think it was Monday morning Lyle woke up
that was cold in his bedroom. It's been cold for
a while. There's a sheet of ice about a half
(09:41):
inch thick over that window on the north side where
he didn't put up the storm window. He was gonna
back in October, but there didn't seem to be a
need for it at the time. So cold in bed.
Even his wife felt chilly to him. She's from Minnesota.
(10:05):
Lyle kind of thinks that her temperature drops during the
winter like bears, you know. He got out of bed,
ran into the bathroom, take a hot shower, turned down
the water. Nothing came out. Stood there naked, cold, little
(10:28):
bumps all over. His body, looked all red and blotchy.
Felt terrible. Put on his clothes that didn't make him
feel much better. Went down make some coffee, and about
the time the coffee was just starting to perk, he
heard the roar of Carl's car. He knew that Carl
(10:52):
always goes back into the house and leaves the old
Chevy warm up. Lyle knew he had about fifteen minutes,
so he put on his coat, went out to the garage.
He just praying, Lord, let it be today, got in
behind the wheel, turned the key gave out that horrible mood.
(11:21):
He knew he had about ten minutes left. He was desperate.
He didn't want to be helped again, and that was
why he went and got that whole bag of charcoal
and put it in the garbage can lid and lit it,
(11:42):
and when he got some good coals going, he shoved
it under the engine went in the house to warm up.
Carl is also the captain of the volunteer fire department.
He was the one who made the call. He was
(12:04):
the first one on the scene. The truck came, everybody came.
You kind of think of a car fire as being
like in the movies, you know, a big fireball, which
maybe was what Lyle wanted, But this one just smoldered
and it gave off a stench that you could smell
(12:28):
all over town. Fire department came barreling up the sire
and going. Everybody came from blocks around. They said, how
did it happened? Fireman didn't know how to answer that.
With Lyle standing there, kind of hard to explain, But
(12:54):
there was the answer sitting right there on the floor,
garbage can lid, hot coals in it. People thought that
man is teaching our children about science. He didn't know
how to explain. He didn't have any idea something as
(13:15):
cold as his car would be combustible. They hauled it
out of the garage, managed to save the garage. The
car is gonna need quite a bit of work. And
Carl put his arm around Lyle and he smiled at him,
and he said, he should have called me up, but
(13:35):
would have come over and helped you. What are brother
in law's for. I guess they're still going to spend
Christmas together. I think the Carl is gonna give Lyle
a set of wrenches, and I think that Lyle is
gonna give Carl a book about the Milky Way. But
(14:01):
he did fix the water pipes. He went up that
same afternoon. He got the hair dryer out and he
had to rip off part of the wall in the bathroom.
Gunnis knows how he's going to fix that, but he
took the hair dryer and he blew hot air on
the part of the water pipe that seemed the coldest,
while his wife was standing right behind him. Marlus stood
(14:22):
back there and she said, why don't you just call Carl,
Why don't you give Carl a call. He'll come over
take care of this boy. Lyle was happy when that
water ran. He felt so good. She was just starting
to say, why don't you, and then the water came
(14:43):
right out and she said, honey, you did it. That
was Christmas for him right at that moment. He didn't
need any more. And now there's just the storm window
to fix. And he's doing that at night, after dark,
(15:07):
so that Carl won't see him and offer to help.
In fact, he's doing it right now, getting that extension
ladder out from the garage and he's put it up
against the side of the house, all bundled up, and
he doesn't even dare use a flashlight. Little guy all
(15:28):
bundled up in a big park hauling this heavy storm
window out of the garage. This is not one of
your aluminum storm windows. This is a forty pounder holding
it up in front of him. As he climbs up
that ladder in the dark and the cold, and the
wind kind of comes up a little bit and catches
(15:50):
the glass a little better and he can't hold on.
He's got a hold on to the window. So he
goes up step after step and there's one rung missing
up there and he's not sure which one, and he
(16:13):
gets to the top and in order to get those
little watch McCall it's at the top of the storm window,
onto those little do hangies on the frame. Lyle's got
a lean way back so that he can lift this
(16:34):
window up and get it up over his head. He's
got a lean way back. What a hero like a
sailor on a ship tossing in a North Atlantic. But
what he doesn't see. What I can see is that
(16:58):
the feet of the la ladder which he put in
the snow, are actually resting on clare eyes underneath the snow.
Just the back edges of the feet of the ladder
(17:21):
are holding on to that eyes. Boy, I could bring
him down real easy right now. We could have that
(17:41):
ladder fall right now. He'd break a leg at least,
and then Carl would be the first one over. Carl,
let's say, hey, what you doing? But now he's pushing
the storm window in tie and now he's on his
(18:02):
way down. I wonder if he knew what a close
one that was. I wonder if he knew what a
dangerous deal that was there for just a minute. He's
a lucky guy, so am I? So are you? Maybe
(18:27):
Merry Christmas. That's the news from Lake Wolbegon, where all
the women are strong, all the men are good looking,
all the children are above average. Yes,
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