Keeping Hope Alive with Garrison Keillor

Hope has been on my mind lately. It keeps coming up in unexpected places, drifting into my thoughts and conversations. I wrote a post about the economics of hope last week. Wednesday my courageous sister the artist wrote a beautiful post about how hope should not put us to shame. All these thoughts reminded me of one of my favorite stories about hope, from the king of Minnesotan nostalgia and host of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor.

I am a huge fan of A Prairie Home Companion, America's last surviving radio variety show. So much so that one summer I listened to two or three episodes a day while I fed architectural documents into a giant scanner during a lackluster internship. The show's signature mix of nostalgia, oddball humor, bluegrass, and storytelling got me through it. I'm a sucker for Guy Noir, the Powdermilk Biscuit break, the Ketchup Advisory Board, Be-Bop-A-Re-Bop Rhubarb Pie, Guy's All-Star Shoe Band (including one of my piano heroes, Rich Dwarsky)... well, you get the idea.

If you're unfamiliar, the central moment of every show is Keillor's monologue, "The News from Lake Wobegon," when Keillor tells a story about his fictional hometown. Of all the many, many Prairie Home episodes I've listened to, the following is my favorite monologue by far; I've probably listened to it thirty times. Partially because it makes light of high school plays, something that were a huge part of my life growing up, but mostly because its humorous messages about hope, life, and perseverance have so much truth hiding beneath the surface.