Journal
No. 93, May, 2009
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Garrison Keillor:
A Prairie Home Companion to Lake Wobegon
By Delores Miller
One of our favorite authors, writers and humorists is Garrison Keillor whose home is in our neighboring state of Minnesota.
He is our age, so many of his comments and jokes we can understand. We were fortunate to get tickets to see him during his live PBS radio broadcast at our Appleton Performing Center. $45 a piece and we were in nose bleed country in the third balcony. Sell out croud, tickets six months in advance of 3000 fans. Broadcast on 580 radio stations across the country at 5 P.M. on Saturday nights, and has more than four million listeners. 35 years he has been doing this. Two hour show, with no break. This was his 1209th telecast.
Garrison paid tribute to our Fox River Valley and Appleton which is 15 miles down the pike from us here in Hortonville, Wisconsin. Weeks before the show, he gathered information about our area. Comedy and monologue sketches include detective Guy Noir, music by homegrown and local musicians and his signature speech 'The News from Lake Wobegon'.
Keillor paid tongue-in-cheek tribute to area businesses, churches, Lawrence University, College Avenue drag strip, the Green Bay Packer Football Team, Lambeau Field, blizzards, cheese curds, bratwurst, beer. Naming all our local small towns and villages, our highway problems. The powers-that-be want round-abouts on our roads, which we German Lutherans will never understand.
Russell, of course with his hearing problems and because we were so far up in nose bleed seats, missed most of the punch lines in his jokes.
While most of his radio shows are broadcast from St. Paul-Minneapolis, he did say he was off to New York City for his next Saturday night show. He has been married three times, has grown children who are his managers and producers and an eleven year old daughter. He also has a second home in New York.
A show we enjoyed and well worth the $90 we spent. It was entertaining and exciting to see a live show like this.
copyright 2009 by Russell and Delores Miller