April 29, 2006
Life in America (1)
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If you want a picture of a country, buy the local paper. But look not at distant wars or preening politicians but the small stuff down by the tractor sales and changes of ownership at the lawnmower shop. That's where a country bares its soul.
I'd been looking forward to that when a friend called Peter Nye beat me to it. He has just returned from Whalan, in Minnesota.
"The sign on the road informs motorists that the population is 64," he said. "Whalan's on a meandering bank of the Root River, in a picturesque valley. On weekends the population surges past 100 residents, many fishing for trout. Since Whalan's too small to hold a holiday parade, they celebrate with a Standstill Parade. Musicians and people on floats, including Miss Minnesota, are stationary and wave to spectators who visit and walk around the parade."
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It's on the third Saturday of each May. It also turns out that the town has 63 residents - according to a web site about the Root River Trail, anyway - which shows the dubious value of giving precise population figures on signposts. Not without using stick-on numbers, anyway.
All this reminded me of Garrison Keillor's lovely story from Lake Wobegon, "where the women are strong, the men are good-looking and all the children are above average."
Lake Wobegon may be fictional but the radio series that spawned it, the Prairie Home Companion, began in Minnesota in the very real town of St Paul. There, Keillor told of stolid and bickering residents who did their best to make their lives more interesting while being burdened by war between what the humorist Frank Muir summed up as "the strict, low church of the Protestants - the young author and his family belonged to a particularly bleak sect called the Brethren - and the much jollier and more colourful religion of the Catholics."
The division went deep.
"In Lake Wobegon," Keillor intoned, "car ownership is a matter of faith. Lutherans drive Fords, bought from Bunsen Motors, the Lutheran car dealer, and Catholics drive Chevies from Main Garage, owned by the Kreugers Pastor Tommerdahl knew for a fact that the Kreugers spent a share of their Chevy profits to purchase Asian babies and make them Catholics."
To bring joy to this argumentative community, someone decided to create a Living Flag. Everybody would be given a red, white or blue cap and be organised so that, from above, they would look like the Stars and Stripes. The essential words, however, were "from above" and those who were under rather than over the caps could see nothing of the marvel they had created.
Solving this conundrum wasn't easy. When someone suggested a mirror above the assembly, all that happened was that everyone looked up at the same time and saw nothing but their faces looking back down at them. Instead, they had to take it in turn to run up the stairs of a neighbouring building, look down and then hurry back to the ranks and let the next man run up.
All this, naturally, took time and even the most stolid Lutherans grew cross. The day was not rated a success.
Well, you may think life never gets that good. Except that the story is true. The idea, anyway. In 1917 thousands of American soldiers were lined up on a sports field to form the Liberty Bell. And that done - as photographs show - other crowds created the American flag, the Statue of Liberty and even the face of the president, Warren G. Harding.
I do hope it happens again. I shall be reading the local papers of America with enthusiastic attention.
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