(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
GK: Tim Russell was hired for our show as a result of winning the Talent from Towns Under Two Thousand Contest - a little known fact -
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