Lake Wobegon

Posted by Fivecard on October 2, 2010 at 6:04pm
A Misc. of Stories from Lake Wobegon I have found. No titles, just labeled by date aired.

Lake Wobegon is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Minnesota, said to have been the boyhood home of Garrison Keillor. Keillor reports the News from Lake Wobegon on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, broadcast live every Saturday afternoon over Minnesota Public Radio and public radio stations throughout the US and other stations around the world. (Keillor was actually born and raised in Anoka, Minnesota.)

Name
On the show Keillor says the town's name comes from a fictional old Indian word meaning "the place where we waited all day in the rain [for
you]." Keillor explains, "Wobegon" sounded Indian to me and
Minnesota is full of Indian names. They mask the ethnic heritage of the
town, which I wanted to do, since it was half Norwegian, half German."[1] The English word "woebegone" is defined as "affected with woe" and can also mean "shabby, derelict or run down."


Businesses and organizations

  • Jack's Auto Repair, including Jack's School of Thought (correspondence), Warm Car Service, Dry Goods Emporium, Jack's Fountain Lounge and Jack's Home, "a rest spa for people of all ages".
  • Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery; "If you can't find it at Ralph's, you can probably get along (pretty good) without it"
  • Bertha's Kitty Boutique
  • The Sidetrack Tap, run by Wally and Evelyn; "The dim little place in the dark where the pinball machine never tilts, the clock is a half-hour slow, and where love never dies"
  • Chatterbox Cafe; "The place to go that's just like home"
  • Art's Baits & Night o' Rest Motel (Art got sick of people being around, so you can't rent rooms there these days)
  • Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church; Father Emil (retired), Father Wilmer (current)
  • Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church; Pastor Ingqvist (Forced to leave), Pastor Barbara Ham (Interim Pastor)
  • Bunsen Motors (Ford dealer), run by Clint and Clarence Bunsen, local Lutherans
  • Moonlight Bay Supper Club
  • Buck's Rent-a-Tux
  • Krebsbach Chevrolet, run by Florian Krebsbach, local Catholic, and his son Carl.
  • The Herald Star, town newspaper run by Harold Star
  • Skoeglin's 5 and Dime
  • LuAnne Magendanz's Bon Marché Beauty Parlor and Salon
  • Co-op Hardware
  • Clifford's (also known as "The Mercantile," which many residents still call it.)
  • The Sons of Knute Temple, Norwegian fraternal organization
  • The Whippets, town baseball team
  • The Herdsmen, champion church ushering team
  • The Curl Up and Dye, Another local Salon
  • Tentative Point
  • Lake Wobegon Piles ("twin 18-foot-high islands in the center of Lake Wobegon" created in 1956)
  • Mist County Historical Society Museum
  • Wally "Old Hard Hands" Bunsen Memorial Field
  • Lake Wobegon Leeches (baseball)
  • Lake Wobegon Loons (five-man football)
  • Powdermilk Biscuit Plant (on the road to Worthington)
  • Lake Wobegon High School
  • Municipal Sanitary Landfill
  • Statue of the Unknown Norwegian
  • Farmer's Union Grain Elevator
  • Bob's Bank, in the green mobile home
  • World's Largest Pile of Burlap Bags (created by Earl Dick-Meyer to fund his and his wife's move to Fort Myers, Florida, and the centerpiece for a mysterious cure to ailments, such as kidney stones.)
(Wikipedia)

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