On The Road to Barrett, Minnesota

Minnesota Girls are Halfway Decent
By Tom Obert
Entertainment Reporter
Autumn is the transitional season between summer and winter here in Lake Wobegon - the transition generally begins with boat out in late September or early October, as soon as possible thereafter comes dock and lift out, then lake pump out, then the final lawn mow, and finally, which happened yesterday, rounding up the outdoor furniture, putting it under the deck, and wrapping it in a tarp as protection against the winter weather to come. Oh, and putting the lawn mower away in the garage - which Ruthie later painfully discovered when she forgot it was there and received a major bruise (or owwwie!) on her shin.

We are also moving from the outdoor season to the indoor season. Football, soccer, and cross-country are giving way to basketball, hockey, and wrestling; and I probably played my last round of golf on Thursday - they're talking snow flurries next week. And moving indoor also means the start of the concert/play season - for some reason, Lake Wobegoners seem loathe to go inside for such events in the summer when you have daylight at the lake until 10:00 pm.

So last night, we trundled off for, embarrassingly enough, our first ever visit to Barrett, Minnesota (population 355) to see Skilly & Duff (our friend Mikko is one or the other, can never remember which) and the Uff-Da Mountain Boys at historic Roosevelt Hall, home of the Prairie Winds Theatre, where the Kingston Trio performed about eight years ago. Barrett is about 25 miles directly west of Alex - go another 25 miles and you're in the treeless plains of South Dakota - on County Road 8.

Befitting its status as a county road, Co. Rd. 8 is a country road and driving it at night on the first day of deer hunting season made us nervous wrecks - we drove all the way there at about 10 mph under the speed limit, scanning the shoulders for signs of skittish deer. Once there, however, the packed house was treated to a marvelous 2 1/2 concert by both groups, who combined for a grand finale.
The Uff-Da Mountain "Boys," incidentally, are composed of three older guys . . . and two ladies (one of whom could not be there last night) - their big hit was "Minnesota Girls are Halfway Decent," an homage to the romantical shortcomings Minnesota boys, with their passion-deprived Scandinavian heritage. (Being Lake Wobegoners for some six years now, we have really come to appreciate the local talent around here. Maybe it's because they are friends and "neighbors." It's just comfortable to go to a local venue where you know the performers - and where you can sit close enough to actually see and hear them. At our age, major dinero to see Springsteen from the nosebleed seats isn't as attractive as it used to be - plus it would require a major (over 1/2 hour) road trip!)

Anyway, we picked up a passenger after the concert to guide us to an after concert party at a lovely home (with at least a 1/4 mile long driveway winding through the woods) on Lake Chippewa. She became the third Alexandria metro-area person this week to tell us they were going to Antarctica this winter - apparently the winters really are getting too mild around here!