At the Prairie Home Companion

My love of National Public Radio started way back in high school.  When I started driving myself to piano lessons, about 40 miles away from the farm I lived on, I started tuning into NPR in hopes of hearing classical music.  If my lessons were on Saturday morning, I heard classical music in the car.  If my lessons were rescheduled to a week night, I became acquainted with what is now my favorite news source:  NPR news.  All  of the reasons that I love NPR news could fill a blog post on their own.

In high school I would move vehicles for my dad, and turn the radio up as loud as I could, tuned into North Dakota Public Radio.  I’d turn off the ignition and when my dad started the vehicle the next time he’d have a wonderful surprise!  My dad hated that.  He’s not a classical music fan.  The rebellious me loved doing that.  It never got old.  Ha!

When I started teaching I always had a medium sized commute to and from work, and NPR become my good friend again.  We moved to Wisconsin, and then Minnesota, and I have loved public radio even more in both of those places.  I love the news.  I love the classical music broadcasts.  But perhaps the very best part of public radio is The Prairie Home Companion,  broadcast live every Saturday evening.

When we were first married, I listened to The Prairie Home Companion every Saturday.  I’d take a break from school preparations and turn it on.  Since I can’t do any intellectual work when I’m listening to something, I’d clean the whole house, moving the radio from room to room while I listened.  By the time the show was done, my whole house was clean, and there were no kids to mess anything up.  Dr Peds has always loved the show too, and we always wanted to see a show live.

A few years ago The Prairie Home Companion was broadcast from Duluth.  We went, and it was one of our favorite dates ever.  When we learned that it was coming back to Duluth this fall, we got tickets right away.  We aren’t always able to listen to the radio show these days because 5:00-7:00 is a very difficult time with kids in the house, and we don’t usually remember to turn it on.  When it is on, we sometimes feel frustrated because the kids won’t be quiet and we miss things.  We loved being at the show on Saturday, and we had terrific seats in the packed auditorium.

One of the best parts about getting to see a radio show live is getting to see all the activity that happens onstage that you otherwise wouldn’t get to know about.  It’s also fun to see all the people behind the voices, and the movements they make while reading the script.  It’s always interesting to watch Garrison Keillor stand too close to the guests he’s speaking to.  I love watching the musicians in the All Star Shoe Band.  Wow.  The piano guy is amazing.  I’d say pianist, but it’s a word that doesn’t seem to fit with the style of this musician.  He can do anything, and switch gears incredibly fast.  Of course, watching the sound effects guy is super fun.  I want to bring my kidlets sometime just to watch the sound effects guy.  We also were intrigued by the job the stage manager does, and how the order of the script changes spontaneously and how he lets everyone on stage know what is happening.  It was pretty interesting to watch the tech guys come to life too, when there was an incredibly loud beeping noise from the back of the auditorium at one point.  We were so busy watching the tech guys that we forgot to listen to what was happening on stage!

Our popular and beloved mayor was a guest on the show, and that was really fun.

I loved that Garrison Keillor (who also narrates and reads “A Writers Almanac”) read four poems from four local poets.  He remarked about our city’s ability to produce so many remarkable poets, which is so true.  There are so many amazing local poets, and he picked four good choices (one was one of my favorite poets ever, Connie Wanek).  It’s always great to hear him read poetry, and it was fun that I had extensively read all four of these poets.  I loved that he included the poetry culture on the show.

I love all the details that you get to see and watch when you are in a live audience, but it was also interesting that my brain was not used to so much visual stimulation, and because there was so much to see, it was so much harder to imagine the scene for the skits.  Sometimes I was tempted to close my eyes so I could concentrate better.  I guess that’s the bottom line about why this radio show has been so successful for so many years.  It makes listening to the radio fun, and it can go anywhere you are, transporting you to another world.  It’s kind of like a good book.  Because really, who doesn’t like hearing a good story?