"In this photo, Circa, 1934, you see the women of the St. James
Lutheran Women's Auxiliary.
It is easy to see they are German--
short, squat, with big noses.
The sadness of the Dakotas in their sullen mouths.
These are exceptions--
Mrs. Kyte, English, who hated me.
I hated her and her husband.
Mrs. Noraine, Russian, kind.
She saved me once from a certain whipping.
Mrs. Hillborn, Swedish, I think.
Cheerful.
Her husband was a cop.
None of them seem young.
Perhaps the way the picture was taken.
Looking back, I never recall a young face, a pretty one.
My eyes were like this photo--
old.
This one is grandmother this my Aunt Sarah, still living.
That one, I forget her name.
The one with maladjusted sons.
That gray in the picture was actually their faces.
On gray days, we reflected whether color.
Lutherans did that.
It made us children of God.
That one sang so loud and bad, I blushed.
She believed.
She believed the words.
She turned me forever off hymns, even the good ones,
the ones they founded jazz on.
Many of them have gone the way wind recommends.
Or if you're religious, God.
Mrs. Noraine, thank the wind, is alive.
The church is brick now, not the drab board
frame you see in the background.
Once I was alone in there, and the bells,
the bells started to ring.
They terrified me home.
This next one in the album is our annual picnic.
We are all having fun."
[LAUGHTER]
Well--
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
I don't know if you caught the irony, the subtle irony.
[LAUGHTER]
Actually, we weren't having very much fun.
Those weren't fun people back there.