But what you’re about to read here is a true-blue, heartfelt, genuine tribute.
Garrison Keillor is one of my heroes.
I don’t have too many of them. This is not an era of heroes. We tend to be way too ironic and sarcastic these days, far too eager to find the flaws in people.
And let’s face it, way too many people let us down. They sell out, get corrupted, betray us.
But Keillor carries on a tradition in America that’s been drowned out by a crass and money-hungry corporate culture.
His weekly radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion,” is a delightful two hours of homespun stories, great acoustic music and lots of humor.
Keillor understands the power of storytelling, how a simple story, filled with insights and humor, can take you anywhere.
He’s not interested in pushing the envelope, doesn’t need to be hip or current. Keillor tells stories about everyday life.
Keillor’s favorite destination is Lake Wobegon, the fabled town in Minnesota where, as he states every week: The men are good looking, the women are strong and all the children are above average.
People in Lake Wobegon are a prickly lot. Poor Rev. Inqvist, the pastor of the Lutheran church, knows no end of frustrations, trying to keep his church and his wife happy.
One of Keillor’s most charming qualities is his gentle jokes about religion and how the Lutherans and the Methodists and the Catholics all have their own quirks.
Keillor talks wistfully about Fourth of July celebrations, church picnics and our ties to the land. One of his most moving stories for me was about hog butchering.
He’s never, ever sappy, rarely sentimental and always able to capture something real.
Salt of the earth stuff.
But that’s the way it is in Minnesota, where it starts snowing in October and doesn’t get warm until June. My brother lives in his own little Lake Wobegon world in Minnesota and I’d say, from what I’ve seen, Keillor’s captured things perfectly.
With a few exceptions, Keillor’s humor is always gentle but tart. He’s kind of our modern-day version of Mark Twain.
There are other regulars on “A Prairie Home Companion,” including Guy Noir, the sad-sack private eye, and Dusty and Lefty, two cowboys who bicker endlessly as they ride across the disappearing west.
Our disappearing world is really what “A Prairie Home Companion” is about. It’s a tribute to a way of life that’s slipping away.
Folks in Lake Wobegon head over to the Chatterbox Cafe, not a sterile fat-fried McDonald’s. They come together as a community and don’t stay isolated in their homes playing video games or glued to the TV. They all know each other, even if they don’t always like each other.
The movie version of “ A Prairie Home Companion” is now out on DVD. I caught it a few months ago on the big screen.
While I liked it, I didn’t love it. I think Keillor’s world needs to stay on the radio and in my imagination.
But its overriding message still resonates with me.
Our world today is all about the bottom line. We cut off our past because it’s not making money for us. We watch small businesses disappear, eaten up by endless corporations that are sucking the life out of small towns like Lake Wobegon.
A way of life is disappearing.
But every Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. on WITF-FM radio, that world is still here.
——— Jane Holahan is a New Era staff writer. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
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