How many of you remember Garrison Keillor and his stories of Lake Wobegon Days on his radio and TV show, A Prairie Home Companion? He would tell stories about life in a small Minnesota town out on the edge of the prairie. For example, how the Lutheran church discouraged any excitement in life, small town gossip at the Chatter Box café, Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery store, the Side Track Tavern, tales of some of the town residents and the Norwegian bachelor farmers, who were pure mostly. He describes how people are trained early in life not to complain about the long cold winters, going ice fishing on Lake Wobegon when it was 20 degrees below zero to escape all their worries and not to express any emotions.
One of his Halloween stories is about how some the local boys from good Lutheran families would go around on Halloween night tipping over outhouses. They would wait for a farmer to come out of his house with a lantern to use in the out house. The boys would turnover it over from the back onto the door making the farmer having to escape from the hole he had sat on after the lantern caught fire, then falling in the pit.
I have been watching some of these old programs on YouTube during the recent wet days. If you need a good laugh during these upcoming winter months this is the program to watch.
Always loved hearing "A Prairie Home Companion" on the radio. Garrison Keillor's voice drew you right in, and he was quite the storyteller. The eclectic musicians, directed by Peter Ostroushko (RIP), was always a joy to hear as well. APHC presented some of America's best folkloric traditions ... storytelling, music and more ... sad that some of these traditional art forms are struggling for performers, advocates, patrons and support today!
ReplyDelete