Life in Lake Wobegon Under Social Distancing

By Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website

20 March 20

e have been getting some questions about life in Lake Wobegon under social distancing. Here, Garrison answers a few from Tony & Toni in South Rockwood, MI.

Q. Is the Sidetrack Tap closed?

A: It is not closed. It is a refuge for skeptics and radicals and a place that offers Freedom of Speech, all the more so as the night wears on. It is a sweat lodge for men. Women run the schools and run the church, women uphold the ideals, and the Sidetrack Tap is where men are free to express ridicule and contempt. There are fewer customers in there now, many fewer. And they are all sitting six feet apart.

Q. Are services cancelled at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibly?

A: Services are not cancelled at Our Lady but church is cancelled at LW Lutheran. No wine at communion, just wafers. Pastor Liz is relieved of the need for a homily that explains this plague. Father Wilmer’s homilies have always been short and inscrutable. It’s a solemn Mass with everyone sitting seven feet apart.

Q. Can you still get a piece of rhubarb pie at the Chatterbox Cafe?

A: Rhubarb season is still months away. You need fresh rhubarb to make good rhubarb pie. No need for mediocre — we’ve got pumpkin pie for that. Dorothy keeps the Chatterbox open as a civic duty, it’s a social center, the town hall. But everyone wary of course. Some people maintain that rhubarb has medicinal power beyond antibiotics but they have their own rhubarb, canned, in big jars in the basement, and they take it straight, no crust.

Q. How do the Norwegian bachelor farmers practice social distancing?

A: The bachelor farmers are fatalists. They’ve been isolating themselves most of their lives. They sit on the bench in front of Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery and nobody sits down with them except fellow bachelors. Nobody. They keep their own counsel. They show no signs of Christian faith whatsoever — for all we know, they may be Hindu or Zoroastrian — but they’re still ours, our distant relations who keep their distance.