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family—you learn these things when times are hard. Spoken on the radio, carried to distant places instantly , these truths seemed even more permanent, like the light of the sun.
    Even the WLT regulars considered the idea of broadcasting pretty amazing. They could not quite believe it. They never got used to it. To think that their voices were heard by thousands all over Minnesota! Leo LaValley would tell his wife Leola in the evening about a particularly good joke he had told on the radio that day, “You should have heard it!”
    â€œI did hear it, as clear as day,” she would say. Of course Leo knew this, and yet, never having heard it himself, he couldn’t be sure.
    One day, unable to bear the mystery, he backed away from the microphone as he was telling the story about Ole Torvaldson’s horse. Ole got drunk as a skunk one night and his friends turned the saddle backwards on his faithful horse Henrik and Ole climbed on board and rode away home to Lena and burst in the door, weeping—Leo edged toward the door to the linen closet as he told the joke, the microphone in hand, and he cracked open the door just as he came to the punchline—Ole said, “They cut Henrik’s head off but I stuck my finger in his windpipe and he ran faster than ever”—and recognized his own voice on Roy Jr.’s receiver inside, and cried, “I have heard it!” Sensing that the home audience might not grasp the meaning of his remark, he quickly added, “I am on the radio!” Ray was not tuned in for the windpipe joke. He was on Whitefish Lake, with Mavis Feezer, fishing, splashing water on her long brown legs.

    By June, the broadcast schedule reached six hours daily, and by November, they were up to twelve, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mornings were Organ Reflections with Patrice Duval Paulsen, The Rise and Shine Show with Buddy and Bob and The Lonesome Ramblers, Dad Benson’s Almanac, Elsie and Johnny, Adventures in Homemaking, Current Events with Vesta (who returned in the afternoon with The Poetry Corner ), Morning Musicale, Scripture Nuggets with the buttery voice of the Rev. Irving James Knox (“May the good Lord hold you in His loving hands and keep you until we meet again—and remember: keep looking up, friends!”), The Classroom of the Air, and Let’s Sing! with the Hamburg Quartet,
    It’s the one, it’s the one,
it’s the one with the fun in the bun.
When you eat a Hamburg, you always clamor
for just another doggone one.
    And Today’s Good Citizen, and Your Health and Hygiene with Dr. Dan Jensen discussing measles or back pain or blood in the urine, followed by In Memoriam (“As we make our earthly journey, / Let us take some time each day / To remember friends and neighbors / Who have helped along the way”), and the Jubilee and Leo and his dreadful jokes and all the amateur acts, Miss Stephanie and Her All-Boy Autoharp Band and Lance and Marilyn, the Sweethearts of Song, and The Jolly Chums and Little Kathryn and Her Court of Canaries and Ray’s Uncle Albert reciting “Under the spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands,” and one day they even had a dog named Freckles singing “Indian Love Call.” And there was Avis Burnette, Small Town Librarian , an actual show with actors , starring Marcia Rowles as the ever-patient Avis, the woman who sacrifices her own happiness in the service of others.
    Radio leaped the miles and came to every home with a bounty of cheerful information—what a boon! said Roy —radio was the remedy for isolation, which was the curse of the farmer. Now he had a friendly neighbor to sit down with at any hour of the day and tell him interesting things. Roy set up a farm bureau, and sign-on crept forward to 6 a.m. and then 5 for The Farm Hour , and he plumped for a late sign-off, but Ray opposed broadcasting at night. And even after he gave in and WLT stayed on the air until 8:30 and then