Something I Found on Wikipedia

Keillor identifies the original founders of what became Lake Wobegon as New England Unitarian missionaries, at least one of whom came to convert the Native American Ojibwe Indians through interpretive dance. A college was founded at what was then called New Albion, but the project was abandoned after a severe winter and numerous attacks by bears. The project had only one survivor, a very practical woman who married a French Canadian fur-trapper who fed her in exchange for her help with the chores. This pragmatic couple were the founders of the current settlement.

The founders of New Albion decided to settle at Lake Woebegone because they had gotten very lost and did not know how to get back to where they had last been. To celebrate this, the colony's motto was Ubi Quid Ubi (Latin > "We're Here!...Where are we?"). Later the motto in the Lake Woebegone incorporated town seal is described asSumus Quod Sumus (Latin > "We Are What We Are").

Most of the current population is made up descendants of German immigrants, who are mostly members of the Catholic parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, and descendants of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants, who comprise the Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church. Keillor describes his family as members of the Sanctified Brethren.

The 800 residents (1950 Census: 728) are proud of the Statue of the Unknown Norwegian (so called because the model left before the sculptor could get his name). Lake Wobegon is in competition with its rival, St. Olaf, for having the most descendants of the same common ancestor. Lake Wobegon became a secret dumping ground of nuclear waste during the 1950s.

The town is the home of the Whippets baseball team, tuna hotdish, snow, Norwegian bachelor farmers, ice fishing, tongues frozen to cold metal objects, and lutefisk - fish treated with lye which, after being reconstituted, is reminiscent of "the afterbirth of a dog or the world's largest chunk of phlegm."^[7] But it is also the home of the Mist County Fair, old-fashioned show yards with flowers "like Las Vegas showgirls", sweet corn, a magnificent grain elevator, and the pleasant lake itself.

Shame

Vicky's lying wild with her hands between her thighs,
I'll say don't worry baby, we're gonna be just fine.
Used to live in the city before she found that pretty
kids play with broken toys and blonde-haired boys.

Vicky babe, come home, says her mother on her throne,
but by then her daughter's grown
and she's just passing round her smiles.
Just another kooky thing to get high off.

Her friends lift up their eyes
and judge her as she tries
to measure the downward capacity of spirals
and how to flat-line without dying.

And she thinks that ruts are for those without imagination
and for those who can't appreciate the temptation in this prickly nation,
Stationed in life to be back-seated,
Dated and understated without a twist of
Bottlecap understanding.

She lands heavy with both feet
on the ground, and the dust that rises sends them blindly
crying to their corners.
She wears things that fit her slim,
and lie mostly flat on heavenly skin,
but pucker in the most perfect of places.

And some would shame her to be out at night,
some sad, noctural songbird.
As if she might be cheapened by a lack of sunlight
or exoticised by a fearful lack of brightness.

I guess the truth is she truly isn't catchable,
that beautiful eye-snatcher.
And while her friends get moneyed and milked
of their enthusiam, she continues to believe that optimism
isn't a glass half-full but rather
waiting to be filled.

Perhaps, she sometimes thinks,
the people to whom she used to offer smiles
spent their childhood growing old,
while she wasted time,
with her hands between her thighs.