WLT by Garrison Keillor Page B

and cue the commercials, and a big fat man behind a podium with a green gooseneck lamp on it, who talked over a microphone mounted on a brass ring around his neck to the sound effects man in the studio. The studio was small, with green walls like a lavatory and the actors had to squeeze around each other to get to the microphone, where they made terrific faces, reading their lines, and then stepped back, went slack, yawned, drank coffee, glanced at the morning paper. Jo and Dad looked about like he had imagined, but Frank was much younger, and Becky, of course, was not little. She was an ungainly teenage girl with big feet, smoking a Camel and rolling her eyes. But she looked like fun and he still intended to give her the letter.
    â€œDo you know Little Buddy?” he asked Art during a commercial for Milton, King medicated mulch. Sure, of course he did. Little Buddy was eight, he and his dad Slim Graves sang on Friendly Neighbor , they lived next door to the Bensons. Jo and Frank and Dad—Art knew all those people. “Dad and I play cribbage every Friday night,” he said. Really?
    â€œYep. Dad even had me on the show once playing the town cop, Rudy. Didn’t you hear that one? Where Dad’s dog Buster gets into the Jensens’ garbage and finds Mrs. Jensen’s wedding ring in the coffee grounds?” Really? That was you?
    â€œYep. And that man there—that’s Dad’s brother Wilmer who plays his old Negro fishing buddy Tiny.” Really? The sad-faced man in the little brown fedora and the brown suit?
    And a minute later, they were back on the air, and the sad-faced man grinned and said, De nevah help to worry much, Mistah Dad. Ain’t no use. Dat’s what I sez. I say, just do de best you kin do, dat’s all. An’ fine you a real good gal. And don’t nevah fo’git to go fishin’. Hee hee hee hee .
    â€œYep, that’s Dad’s brother who plays Tiny. Even Dad’s wife Beatrice, she’s on sometimes, she plays Mildred, Dr. Goodrich’s nurse.”
    â€œI thought Dad’s wife was named Katherine.”
    â€œNope. You’re thinking of Katherine Doud. She’s the actress who plays Mom, or used to, but then she turned into a lush. Just lies around her apartment at the Antwerp, fried to the gills. Good looker but a real stewball.”
    The show was ending. Francis wrote “lush” and “stewball” in the notebook where he kept new words. He was trying to learn five a day. “Let’s go in and say hi,” said Uncle Art, his hand on the studio door. “No,” said Francis, stricken with unbearable shyness. “Please, no.” So Art went in alone. Francis heard them laughing in there, and Art came out. They took the elevator down to the lobby, which was full of Friendly Neighbor fans. “Look at the deer flies,” Art muttered. “Place is full of them.” The people were waiting, twenty Or thirty, standing modestly behind a rope, quiet, smiling, hopeful, like job-seekers, or orphans. Some of them held gifts, hand-knit socks or bags of vegetables. They waited, almost motionless, as the minutes ticked by, and then suddenly the elevator opened and there was Dad. They all clapped, and he ducked under the rope and walked into the midst of them. Hi Dad . “Hi. How you doing?” Fine. Real good. “That’s good.” Mighty good show today . “Thanks.” You got a minute? “Of course. I’ve always got a minute.”
    â€œHow is your back doing?” a woman asked.
    Dad looked puzzled. She said, “You strained it last week pushing Pops Simpson’s car out of the snow.”
    â€œ Oh ,” he said. “My back . Yes, it’s fine. Just a strain. Thought you said my ‘bag’ and I was trying to think what you meant.”
    An old man shook Dad’s hand gravely, looking deep into his eyes. “Don’t you think Eunice is ever going to come