APHC: Saturday, May 3, 1997

Lindbergh
Saturday, May 3, 1997
Listen

(A FOGGY DAY)

(THUNDER, LIGHTNING. RAINFALL)

SS: May, Nineteen twenty-seven. In a hotel room in New York City, a 25-year-old aviator from Little Falls, Minnesota, stood at the window, watching the rain come down. His name was Captain Charles A. Lindbergh.

GK: What's the forecast, Sparks?

TR: More of the same. Maybe some clearing tonight. Hard to say.

GK: If I could just get up over the clouds, I could make it. I've got half a mind to go.

TR: Tonight?

GK: Tonight.

TR: What's the rush?

GK: If I wait until June, Paris will be full of tourists.

TR: You're right. ---Boy, Paris. I am looking forward to that. Never been there. Quite the place, huh?

GK: It's completely unlike the Midwest, Sparks. There's this complete sense of freedom there. A sense of discovery --- that nothing can hold you back. That's why Picasso's there. James Joyce. Gertrude Stein. They're all there. Isadora Duncan.

TR: You're still crazy about her, aren't you....

GK: It's over. Okay? It's all in the past.

TR: You've never forgotten her.

GK: I don't want to talk about her. It's ancient history. Why don't you call the Weather Service?

TR: I called em five minutes ago.

GK: I'm going to go. Tonight.

TR: For sure?

GK: I'm going. I'm going to fly to Paris, the first one to ever do it non-stop, and I'm going to use the $25,000 prize to start my own company. The Charles A. Lindbergh Dance Company.

TR: You're crazy.

GK: Dance. That was all I ever wanted to do, Sparks. But it was Minnesota. Boys couldn't go into dance. So instead I took up aviation. So I could get out of Minnesota. And now I'm going to dance again. Just like I did when ---- when I was with Isadora.

TR: You never got over her, did you. (REMEMBER)

GK: They laughed at me for being ahead of my time. For dancing barefoot in a loose flowing silk gown instead of tights. For dancing modern dance instead of classical. For dancing ----

TR: For dancing in nothing but a leather flight helmet.

GK: That too. But I'm going to show them.

TR: Are you going to meet her in Paris?

GK: I don't know. That's up to her.

TR: I can't wait to see it. Montmartre. The little bistros. The Folies Bergere. The Louvre. How long you think it'll take?

GK: The flight? Once we're airborne, about twenty-eight hours. Depends on the tailwind.

TR: What do we have to eat other than sandwiches and fruit?

GK: That's about it.

TR: Mind if I bring a few books?

GK: Go ahead.

TR: Thought I'd bring Hemingway's new book.

GK: Hemingway! Not on your life.

TR: What's wrong with Hemingway?

GK: Hemingway came to see me dance once. I was wearing the costume with the feathers. The bird costume. I was running in a circle with my cape flowing behind me and my goggles and aviator's helmet. And he laughed. Out loud. Cruel laughter.

TR: Hemingway?

GK: He laughed. Isadora was there. I never forgot it.

TR: That was the night---

GK: Yes, it was. That was the night she left me.

TR: And all because---

GK: Yes, I think so.

TR: And so--- this flight to Paris---

GK: Yes. It is. My attempt to show Hemingway that just because I'm an artist doesn't mean I can't be a real man.

TR: But do you think----

GK: No, I don't. And I wouldn't take her back even if she came back on her knees. But I am going to start my company. And we're going to tour. By airplane. And it's going to be a new era for dance in America.

TR: I can't wait.

GK: Let's go. Call the airfield and tell them to fill the gas tanks and check the oil.

TR: I'll get the sandwiches.

GK: And you better use the toilet too. It's a long flight.

TR: You're right. (FOOTSTEPS. OPEN, CLOSE DOOR)

(FOOTSTEPS TO WINDOW. THUNDER, LIGHTNING)

GK: Courage. Le courage de l'improviste. (FOOTSTEPS TO DOOR. LOCK DOOR)

(TR SHAKES DOOR FROM WITHIN)

TR (MUFFLED): Hey!! Hey, what are you doing!

GK: I'm going alone, Sparks.

TR (MUFFLED): But I'm your navigator!

GK: I'm going alone. One man against the Atlantic. It sounds better. And I'm an artist. Artists are soloists. So long, Sparks. (FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPEN, CLOSE. TR SHAKES DOOR.)

TR (MUFFLED): Hey---- open up! Hey!

(MUSIC)

SS: And the rest is history. Charles A. Lindbergh flew to Paris on May 20, 1927, and landed at Le Bourget airfield where he was mobbed by thousands of admirers. He became a national hero. He and Isadora Duncan never saw each other again. He met Hemingway for a drink at La Coupole and punched him in the nose. He sailed for the United States and was given a tickertape parade in New York City, and while stepping out of the car, he twisted his left ankle and suffered a leg injury that brought his dancing career to an end.

(AMERICAN IN PARIS/SHAKING THE BLUES AWAY PLAYOFF)

In Garrison Keillor's latest book, Lake Wobegon native Margie Krebsbach dreams up the idea of a trip to Rome, hoping to get her husband Carl to make love to her — he's been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why. She finds a patriotic purpose for the journey. A Lake Wobegon boy, Gussie Norlander, died in the liberation of Rome, 1944, and his grave, according to his elderly brother, Norbert, is in a neglected weed patch near the Colosseum...

It's a story of Wogegonians in a strange land, telling stories of kinship and self-revelation — all delivered with Keillor's trademark humor.

Ordering Information >>

From Garrison Keillor:
“When I was 16, Helen Fleischman assigned me to memorize Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 29, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state’ for English class, and fifty years later, that poem is still in my head. Algebra got washed away, and geometry and most of biology, but those lines about the redemptive power of love in the face of shame are still here behind my eyeballs, more permanent than my own teeth. The sonnet is a durable good. These 77 of mine include sonnets of praise, some erotic, some lamentations, some street sonnets and a 12-sonnet cycle of months. If anything here offends, I beg your pardon, I come in peace, I depart in gratitude.”

Order now >>