Garrison Keillor does his last Prairie Home Companion tonight. And across the great American landscape, circled around the 3.5 million radios in homes and cars, you just might sense a fading of the light as Keillor’s Lake Woebegone, the town that time forgot, goes dark.
Until, of course, the seasons change.
That’s when Keillor, called by some “our Mark Twain,” was at his summer wind spectacular best. When the seasons changed, he’d get recharged and the stories would tumble out in pictures so powerful you could feel the autumn leaves crunch beneath your boots. You could listen in as a snow woman and snowman spoke, you could be in the basement of the church, at the Sidetrack Tap or in on the planning of the big July 4th celebration.
And yeah. I know. If you’d never been to Lake Woebegone, all the references in the world wouldn’t draw you in, wouldn’t let you feel that dimming of the American light when Keillor steps away from the microphone, wouldn’t let you feel it in your very bones.
But if you listened over these past 40 some years. If you loved all the traditions like we did. If when you heard, “my sweet old someone, coming through the door” and then shouted out loud, “everybody’s here!,” if you were part of this family, you’ll miss it hard.
Till of course you read one of Keillor’s books, till you remember that you were part of that town, or even till you hear a song like this one. And you hear Keillor saying “It’s spring! It’s spring!”
And then some bright morning. . . .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNIXVa9hBe8