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T-TUTT History TR: Teetotal, Wisconsin. Population 8. GK: On the Temperance River. Tim won the contest that year, 1974, by playing "Tico Tico" on a beer bottle. TR: I'm amazed at your memory. GK: It's not often a six-year-old boy can master the beer bottle well enough to play a tune as tough as Tico Tico. TR: There was a lot of time to practice in Teetotal, Wisconsin, believe me. GK: I imagine they were pretty proud of you when you won. TR: I have no idea. Whole town disappeared that summer. Went back for a visit, there was nothing there. Gone. GK: Gone where. TR: I have no idea. There were just big circular patterns in the cornfields. And scorch marks. GK: Interesting. So Tim joined our show that spring. And Sue Scott came a few years later from a town in northern Minnesota called Wistful Prospect to win the Talent from Towns Under Two Thousand Contest. SS: That was the year the gigantic mutant walleyes came out of the swamp. GK: Sue did a tap dance on the show that year. SS: Walleyes who hatched near nuclear plants - GK: She wore Mary Janes and a pinafore and her hair in braids and she had braces on her teeth. SS: It was really something. Walleyes the size of bass boats. GK: She was a real crowd pleaser. She tap-danced to "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound" I'll never forget it. SS: They ate sixteen people. Town was never the same after that. GK: Funny. I never read about that. SS: The Defense Department came and made people promise not to talk. GK: You still tap dance? SS: Of course. GK: Let's hear it. (AMAZING GRACE, TAP) Sue Scott. Anyway, the year after Sue won, Tom Keith won the contest with a performance of Danny Boy on a chain saw. TK: That's right. GK: Tom comes from a little town in western Minnesota called Fetlock. No trees in Fetlock, just prairie. TK: Out there we use chain saws mainly for musical purposes. GK: Fetlock is just north of Marshall, I believe. TK: Used to be but it's gone now. GK: Gone? TK: Disappeared. I came to St. Paul to be in the contest and when I went home, it was gone. GK: How could it be gone? TK: Well, that's what I wondered. There was just this strange guy with revolving bright green eyes wandering around. Spoke a strange language. I didn't understand a word he said. GK: What did you do? TK: Went someplace else. GK: It was pretty amazing, Danny Boy on the chain saw. Play them a little bit of Danny Boy. TK: Okay. (STARTS CHAINSAW, PLAYS THE FIRST FEW NOTES OF DANNY BOY. CHAINSAW DIES) GK: What happened? TK: Chainsaw got choked up. GK: I see. TK: Always happens with Danny Boy. (c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor |
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Now Available:
A Christmas Blizzard
GK's New Holiday Story
A comic novella about a Hawaii-bound holiday traveler who ends up stranded in his North Dakota hometown.
Audio edition also available»
The Prairie Home cruise has become legendary on two of the Seven Seas and now is setting sail on a third, a weeklong spring break cruise of the western Caribbean along the Mexican coast, and it leaves March 14 from Tampa.
Stories of a Wobegon romance far from home, all delivered with Garrison Keillor's trademark humor.
Read the first chapter»Signed Copies Available»
The latest collection of Lake Wobegon short stories gathered from live broadcasts include Confirmation Sunday, the church directory photos, Pastor Ingqvist's leather bound sermons along with song lyrics and the "95 Theses," among others. Companion audio also available.
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