WLT by Garrison Keillor Read Free Book Online Page B

“Introduce paid advertising into broadcasting and you will carry us down a road from which we will never return.” She advised the high path, but then she always had. She was a Methodist, the daughter of a minister who kept a box of discussion topics at the dinner table. The box was passed around before the food, and you took a card, and when it came your turn, you were supposed to sit and expound on, say, the Role of Women or the Prospects of Amity among Nations. Vesta took to radio like it was her church. After her debut, reading William Cullen Bryant, and then her success with The Poetry Corner (Vesta held to the If-I-can-help-but-one-person-out-there standard of success, a standard that leaves little room for failure), there was no stopping her. She took charge of Current Events, which leaned heavily on The New Republic and other gasbag magazines, and The Classroom of the Air , where University instructors she knew from Chautauqua gave lectures about The World and How I Would Save It If Only People Would Listen. Vesta thought WLT should stand for World Leadership Today. “If you introduce advertising,” she said, “it will send a message to the audience that WLT is not to be trusted or believed.”

    Roy said, “Introduce advertising, and we’ll be selling jars of Cholera Balm and liver pads and Sagwa Resurrection Tonic made from healing herbs and elm bark and sacred buffalo tallow. But we won’t be able to get out of town like the medicine show does. We’ll have to sit and be sued for every hair restorer that doesn’t, every cake of soap that won’t cure dandruff, every jar of Wizard Oil that doesn’t cure rheumatism, dyspepsia, constipation, and sexual neurasthenia.”
    But advertisers were waiting, hat in hand, to get into the temple. People approached Ray at the Minneapolis Club, inquiring about sponsoring a show. One day, Mr. Pillsbury spoke to him. Not one of the flour-mill Pillsburys but a second cousin named Paul Pillsbury who was in the pie business. He told Ray that many of the other Pillsburys got their ideas from him, that he was the forward thinker in the family, and that if Evelyn Pies (named for his wife) came to WLT and did well, then Pillsbury’s Best XXXX would not be far behind.
    At last! A Pillsbury! Ray accepted his check on the spot, and that week Let’s Sing became The Evelyn Pie Hour —
    You can serve soup that spills in our laps
And sirloin steak like old skate straps
With sawdust sauce on a sautéed shirt-—
You can make it up to me with an Evelyn dessert.

    And once the dam broke, the river poured in. There was a deluge of money.
    Almicus Whole Bran Flakes and Hot Bran Beverage picked up Organ Reflections , and The Rise and Shine Show briefly became The Blue Ribbon Shoe Polish Show and then The North Star Tooth Powder Program. Adventures in Home-making was picked up by Crystal Bottled Water (“When neighbors drop in . . . nothing shows you care more than a big cold glass of Crystal Spring Water”), and Elsie and Johnny were sponsored by Hummel Hardware and The Noontime Jubilee became The Green Giant Pea Shelling Party and then The Wheaties Jamboree and then The Bisquick Whoopee and finally The Wadena Beanfeed Jubilee sponsored by Wadena Canned Beans and Cabbage, with The Corn-shuckers Quartet to sing:
    Everybody’s here and gussied up,
Yup!
We’ve all got a plate with beans and slaw,
Ja!
It’s time for singin’ so grab a seat,
Lots of songs and plenty to eat.
The boys are ready and the fun’s begun—
And there’s plenty of beans for everyone.
    Today’s Good Citizen was brought to you by Munsing-wear Wool Work Socks (“One size for all makes a comfortable fit, / Three nice colors and they’re hand-knit”) and there was The Excelsior Bread Show with sweet Alma Melting and her Bakery Boys singing “Excelsior! Excelsior! It rises ever higher! It’s white, you see, for