It's always been a thrill, driving the family in the Santa Fe on North Rock Road in Wichita on a Saturday night in between going to some place like Kohl's, Payless Shoe Stores or Fazzoli's and hearing that husky voice on my local public radio station KMUW 89.1, Wichita.
"I thought that old man was gonna retire," Maria would say. "When's he going away? He said he was gonna retire five years ago."
She can't stand the sound effects.
"It's one of the best parts," I'd tell her.
Alas, Garrison Keillor finally taped his last episode of A Prairie Home Companion. This time he was serious about retiring. Periodicals like the New York Times and Atlantic Monthly have written about him doing his last show which is funny because APHC was inspired by Keillor writing an article for the New Yorker in 1974 about the last radio taping of the Grand Ol' Opry. The experience inspired Keillor to create his own musical variety show on public radio, which was, if not an infant, then a toddler at that time.
The show will go on with new host Chris Thile, of Nickel Creek, (a band that's appeared on APHC numerous times) taking over in October. But I understand there's going to be more music and fewer comedy sketches.
That sucks.
And the guests Thile plans to have on the show -- Beyonce', Dave Chapelle, Sarah Silverman? That's not homespun, Americana, corn pone.
I was driving in the car with my son, Max, on a Sunday afternoon, listening to a re-run of the Saturday Night APHC show.
"Yeah, I know this show has its corny parts," I said.
"The whole thing is corny," he answered.
"I know, but that's what I like about it. It's like old time radio before television when families would gather around the radio and listen to Jack Benny or Bob and Ray. The sound effects are like on Fibber McGee and Molly where you'd hear Fibber open his closet and all his junk would come crashing down." (We'd heard those old shows on Radio Classics on Sirius Radio when we took rented cars on vacations.)
Keillor is 74. He remembers old time radio. It's like he told Pres. Obama, who called in to the last show, "I go back to Harry Truman."
There will be no more Lake Wobegon stories on the revamped show. That's the best part of the show. "Well it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown," Keillor would say and go into a monologue about the denizens of his make believe town. These were stoic people who sang "Abideth With Me" at the Lutheran Church, went hunting and fishing, drank beer, surreptitiously smoked cigarettes, made love and died.
I love those recurring bits from the APHC world. Pastor Liz and the Norwegian Lutherans. German Catholics and Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church. English majors. Guy Noir Private Eye ("On a dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets one man searches for the answers to life's persistent questions.") Life With the Cowboys. The Ketchup Advisory Board and all those fictional sponsors like Powder Milk Biscuits and Rhubarb Pie. Even Maria would sing along with the jingle. "Be bop a re bop rhubarb pie."
My theory is Maria secretly likes the show. Maybe she didn't at first but I sense it grew on her. I mean, Garrison had on musical guests she likes like Iris DeMent. Maria absolutely loves her version of "Everlasting Arms" from the movie True Grit.
She would complain rather accurately that Keillor, who sang on every show, was not a good singer. So what? That was part of his appeal.
I don't think I'll be able to listen to the new show. If Maria doesn't like the new young host, it won't be as funny as her not liking the old guy. Since Thile is a musician, he probably has a good singing voice. That's no fun. And what -- there's gonna be some hip, urbanized, diversified, attract-the-younger-audience version of A Prairie Home Companion. It just won't be Midwestern Minnesota prairie anymore, and I won't be able to torture my family with cornball humor. It's like how I stopped doing those silly Michael Jackson impressions on the phone with my mom after MJ died. It wasn't the same.
I've read that Garrison Keillor is public radio's past and they need to look to the future. I don't think it's so great.
It feels like old time radio has died a second time. But the good thing is you can download podcasts. So it will never really be gone. And maybe I can play a CD of Garrison's Prairie Home Companion when I'm with the family on trips.
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