News from December 24, 1983

Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

Society & Culture, Fiction, Comedy Fiction, Improv, Comedy

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2024

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.

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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobagon, my hometown. It's been a bitterly cold week too.
0:06.7	A couple weeks, as a matter of fact, as most of the people here realize all too well. Got down to
0:13.2	30 some below one night earlier this week, or it might have been 40 below, I'm not sure.
0:19.5	Might have set a new low record up there in Lake Wobagon.
0:23.5	They weren't sure.
0:24.3	Nobody stays up all night to watch the thermometer, you know.
0:29.0	Rather be in bed when it's coldest.
0:32.0	Warning is soon enough to find out about it.
0:35.4	And you certainly will too.
0:38.8	30-some below is the temperature at which things tend to want to slow down and stop and become
0:45.6	permanent.
0:48.2	People in beds, for one, have an inclination to stay there.
0:53.9	You know it when you wake up, it's gotten that cold during the night.
0:59.6	Water in pipes tends to want to become a permanent attachment and stay there until spring.
1:07.8	And cars, of course, too. When it's been 30 some below the night before,
1:13.6	your car is apt to make just a little click
1:18.6	in the morning and then give out with a low moan,
1:24.6	terrible sound.
1:26.6	It's like the sound of a dying person there under the hood. It's like the
1:35.1	sound that the hero's best friend makes in the movie in that scene where the best friend has
1:43.4	saved the hero's life by stepping in between the hero and
1:47.0	the ambush, you know, and he gets shot and he lies there and the hero says, he says, don't,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Prairie Home Productions, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Prairie Home Productions and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.