Memories mooched from fellow columnist

Woodworking Column, by Dave Wood

Two weeks ago on these pages, I mourned the loss of one of my favorite radio programs. It was the old WCCO morning show starring Roger Erickson and Maynard Speece, in which these very sophisticated guys played the role of rubes for hundreds of thousands of us listeners who, if we weren't born in a barn spent a lot of time in one.

Early in the morning, on this pure-as-the-driven-snow station, Maynard would even try a few slightly risqu‚ jokes that had Lutheran farmers chuckling all over the Midwest.

"Now we'll play a waltz," he'd say, "for all of you guys out there milking your three-quarter-teated Holstein."

Wow. And Roger would do August the Janitor. Do it so well that he should have been hired to coach the actors who butchered the Norwegian dialect in the runaway hit movie "Fargo."

They were great, but they had a predecessor on WCCO that was just as great. His name was Cedric Adams.

Soon after I filed the story about how insipid WCCO is these days, I ran across a book given to me by Al Sicherman and Catherine Watson, two colleagues at the Star Tribune, on the occasion of my retirement last year.

The book was "Poor Cedric's Almanac," by Cedric Adams. It doesn't belong in Dave Wood's Book Report which appears each week in the Journal's second section, because it was published more than half a century ago by Doubleday and is long out of print, so don't run out and try to buy it.

Al and Catherine found it at a rummage sale and gave it to me because I share Cedric's rural roots, and we both wrote columns for Minneapolis newspapers.

Browsing through "Almanac" was a delicious retreat into our collective past.

Adams talks about growing up in Magnolia, in western Minnesota, about his returns there and how things had changed -- how threshing machines, formerly powered by steam engines belching black smoke, were now powered by sleek tractors.

Adams was a master of the teeny-weeny detail that hits the reader where he lives. The smell of the apple barrel in your mother's basement, the towel nailed to the tree by the wash bench provided for the threshing crew.

No wonder he was so popular. No wonder an old Northwest Airlines pilot once told me that when he flew over Minnesota, he knew it was 10 p.m. on the dot when all the lights went out in a town he was flying over.

"That was," he explained, "when Cedric Adams signed off on his evening news show."

Cedric Adams was a guy who loved life, burned the candle at both ends and probably liked alcoholic beverages better than most.

At the peak of his career, he appeared 12 times a week on WCCO, wrote a longish column Monday through Saturday for the Minneapolis Star and on Sunday for the Minneapolis Tribune, and even had a network variety show on CBS.

Besides that, Adams spoke at anniversaries of farm co-ops and creameries and church gatherings, as well as hosted a traveling show that appeared in a different small town every week and emceed a talent show called "Stairway to the Stars."

Once a kid from my hometown of Whitehall won the contest by singing "Yohn Yohnson's Vedding." The applause meter just about went off the charts.

Cedric said to the kid, "You're really wonderful, young man. Where did you learn to do the Norwegian dialect so brilliantly?"

"Vhut dew yew mean vhen yew say dialect?" replied the kid from Whitehall.

I was in 5th grade, but I can still hear Cedric's laugh.

How did Adams keep such a terrific pace? For one thing, he maintained a bedroom at the Minneapolis Star.

My friend Mary Hart, longtime food editor at the Tribune, which is housed in the same building, said when she got her job there in 1945, she decided to sneak down there on a Saturday to get a leg up on her assignments.

She's typing like mad in the empty newsroom when she looks up to see Cedric Adams, in pajamas and slippers and a dressing gown. "Hi, I'm Cedric Adams. Welcome to the Star and Tribune."

The most interesting thing in his 1952 book is how he managed to write so many columns for so long without running out of gas.

One way was to involve his readers. After World War II, for instance, he used his column as a clearing house to help war widows find new husbands.

He also helped a Hungarian countess find an American husband after she had been tempted over here by a GI who got married while she was on her way.

"Somebody once asked me," he writes, "how column writers worked, how columns are put together..Well, columns are born. They're the gleam of sun on a lily pad, the dew on a petunia..They're sheer gossamer fancy. Columnists don't work. They depend largely on inspiration. Most of us are shy woodland creatures dwelling under ferns.

"Another practice in columning," he continues, "is what we refer to as the mooch. You spot one of the other newspaper staff members and mooch from him a paragraph.."

That's what I've been doing today, Cedric, you shy woodland creature. In fact, I mooched an entire column from you and you've been dead for almost 40 years. Thanks for the memories.

Questions? Comments? Call Dave at 426-9554.