I, of course, was familiar with Garrison Keillor from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and from his years of The Prairie Home Companion shows, a few of which my wife and I attended over the years. I was aware of his books, and besides that, he was from Minnesota and had attended the University of Minnesota at about the same time that I did. In fact, after our return to Minnesota after years of sojourn in New York City and a small town in Michigan, it was his description on MPR of a class of the poet, James Wright, at the University of Minnesota, that was so vivid that I was sure I sat in that very class. It also engaged us to become members of MPR.
That was many years ago, and we are still in Minnesota and still members of MPR even after their less than stellar treatment of Garrison Keillor over the last several years.
Now, I find myself suddenly rediscovering Garrison Keillor's books-- a revelation, perhaps arriving at just the right time in my life. As I read more, I began to realize how many parallels existed in our lives. Although I never met him, he was very much a contemporary of mine. He graduated from high school a year after I did. Like me, he attended the University of Minnesota and graduated with an English degree. He moved to New York City to pursue writing, as I did, though I became sidetracked by other aspects of life, starting a family and finding a job that provided a military deferment; i.e., teaching. Only during the last decade or so have I returned to writing, though still in relative obscurity. He had wives and children; I have had only one wife and two sons. He traveled extensively, I have lived on the East and West Coast, as well as the Midwest, and traveled some in Canada, Mexico and Europe.
He went through periods of rejection and betrayal, as I have. And like him, I recovered.
Something about his life deeply resonates with me.
He had experience in Stearns County but much of his early life was in Anoka where he went to high school, somewhat closer to Minneapolis than Stearns County. I grew up and went to high school in a small-town cheek-to-jowl with his mythical town of Lake Wobegon somewhere in Stearns County. The Lake Wobegon Trail meanders through my childhood stomping grounds, and the stories mention many of the towns of my childhood such as St. Cloud, Avon, New Munich and other small towns in the area, including a reference to Charlie's Cafe' in Freeport. (My older sister knew Charlie when she was a student at the University of Minnesota.) Incidentally Charlie's Cafe' appears in a poem I wrote about my father's death, which I have included at the end of this article.
Lake Wobegon was full of Lutherans and Norwegians. In my small town there were only a handful of Lutherans, the town itself being nearly all German and Roman Catholic. In fact, there were two Catholic churches in that small town as well as two Catholic elementary schools. This meant that to have a public elementary school they had to combine two grades to have enough students. The school was made up of the few protestants in the area and perhaps a few of the Catholic families who were out of favor with the church. (Incidentally, one Christmas season the school put on a play about the origins of the German Christmas carol, "Silent Night", written by a Catholic priest in Germany. It is quite ironic that, in a town filled with mostly German-speaking Catholics, somehow, I, a Finnish American Protestant who didn't speak German, was chosen to play the part of the Catholic priest and recite the song in German.)
However, like many other readers, I feel like I grew up with many people like those in Lake Wobegon and I certainly knew the atmosphere of small-town Minnesota and probably small-town America.
I had read some of his books early on and wasn't particularly impressed at the time. Recently, however, I discovered several of his works on Audible.com. The difference? He was the narrator, and that changed everything. As many of us know, his narrative style is almost hypnotic. I fell in love with his writing, which transformed into storytelling through his own voice.
And what a gift he gave us with his storytelling, with his identification of the elemental simplicity and the basic humanity of ordinary people. His humor is mild, but insightful. He is gently Christian. He is accepting. He is even mildly iconoclastic and his interweaving of literature, bits of poetry and songs is endearing. He tells of the inner lives of his characters, their unexpressed dreams, their foibles and eccentricities, all of which were accepted within the community. In many ways his writing is somewhat similar to that of Wendell Berry, another of my favorites.
He also reflects on his own life, chronicling his growth and evolution, including his challenges, regrets, and successes, as he became the person he is today.
Most importantly to me personally, his books gave me an opportunity to reflect on my own life-- my experiences, growth, and development as I've evolved into who I am now.
Of course, he achieved far more fame and celebrity than I ever could. He reached a much larger audience than I could dream of, but throughout his journey, his focus remained on his writing, just as mine has. His writing is a reflection of who he is, and his storytelling became a way for him to communicate with the world. I understand that deeply and appreciate it.
If you're curious to explore Garrison Keillor's work, I highly recommend Audible.com or another platform where you can hear his voice narrating his own stories.
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