In about a month we head north to Lake Minnewaska. Again, this year I hope to drive over the hill to Lake Wobegon. Some of you sceptics tell me there is no Lake Wobegon. You are wrong. I have seen the signs along Interstate 94 pointing out "Lake Wobegon Trail". How could there be a trail if there is no Lake Wobegon at the end of the trail? How much more proof do you need?
When I drive over the hill and into Lake Wobegon this summer, I will take some pictures just to prove you nay-sayers are wrong.
Need more proof that Lake Wobegon exists? Please read the letter to Virginia below.
I rest my case.
Gene
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus Lake Wobegon. He It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus Lake Wobegon. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus Lake Wobegon! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus pour over the map of Minnesota, but even if they did not see Santa Claus Lake Wobegon coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus Lake Wobegon, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus Lake Wobegon. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus Lake Wobegon! Thank God! he it lives, and he it lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he Lake Wobegon will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Note:
A special thanks for that memorable exchange between Virginia O'Hanlon and Francis Church which was posted a century ago in a newspaper, the Sun, of New York City. It is the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language.
