So I went to
hear Garrison Keillor last night. He was at Samford University which hosts the
Tom and Marla Corts Distinguished Authors Series. Garrison Keillor has a way of
drawing you in. He is a writer who tells stories laced with humor and insight that
reflect Americana. He appears to be talking about himself, but then you realize
that you have been there, too. You laugh out loud at times, you are gently moved
at times, and you know he is telling our story
as well as his.
“Garrison Keillor:
A Brand New Retrospective” That’s how the event was billed. Keillor, the host
of A Prairie Home Companion, is a
writer who also loves music and he likes to sing. He had described the program
earlier in a press release: "A man
at 70 relives the good times - and the music that brings it all back: hymns,
jingles, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, pop tunes, limericks, rock 'n roll, Beethoven,
love sonnets, rags, blues, rousers, with Richard Dworsky, Rob Fisher, and
Christine DiGiallonardo."
The evening
began with some jaunty piano music from Richard Dworsky and Rob Fisher. Then
Keillor walked onto the stage singing a jingle that he made up talking about
how things were “back in the day” when there were no gadgets such as iPods and cell phones and
a man could leave the house and actually be alone. He continued with a long
list of “how things used to be,” and even worked into the number a bit about
how he first came to Birmingham in 1993 when the big snow storm hit “and made
us feel right at home.” After the light incidental music, he was joined onstage
by Christine DiGiallonardo who accompanied him in some duets. When he
introduced the young lady he said that when picking a duet partner, it is
always helpful to pick someone who is younger, more talented and knows music
better than you do. “Always pick a superior partner,” he added, “as I look out
at the audience I see that that is what most of you have done.”
Here’s What
You Need to Know about Life
After a
couple of more songs, Garrison began to rattle off a list of ten things. They were
ten things that he felt like we should all know, most of them were
laugh-out-loud bits of insight. For example, he said, “Make sure you marry
someone with a good sense of humor,” he paused briefly as he examined the thumb
and fingers of his left hand, “because they are going to need it! After all,
this is the person who will have the most access to the details of your life.”
He went on with his list, until he got to the notion that we should lighten up
and be cheerful. Keillor turned 70 this year. He told us that when you reach
the biblically allotted number, you learn that it’s best to accept life and be
cheerful. You learn to be grateful.
With that
Keillor told a story of his trip to the Mayo Clinic for an MRI to try to figure
out why he was having headaches. He described in great detail a near accident
on the snowy drive up to the Mayo Clinic. After the medical tests, “they were
able to see that there was no tumor – which was great news, I was elated. But I
would have missed out on that wonderful news if I had died in an accident on
the highway, which could have happened – you learn to be grateful.”
The
storyteller then went on to describe meeting an elderly couple when he was in
the cafeteria of the Mayo Clinic. The wife was in a wheelchair and the husband
had obviously suffered a stroke as some point, his right arm hanging downward
like a dead weight and his face drooping so that he looked constantly displeased.
His wife was saying things like “you just have to take one day at a time; you
gotta have faith; doctors don’t know everything, you know, my uncle lived
longer than his doctors said he would.” Keillor then said the audience, “That’s
the problem with surviving catastrophic things like a stroke – you have to
endure words of encouragement from other people. They mean well, but you want
to just shoot them…except you don’t have the coordination in your right arm to
handle a gun.”
Reminiscence in Story and Song
As the
evening continued, we heard the host of A
Prairie Home Companion tell about events throughout his life. We heard
about his witnessing a baptism in the creek near their house when he was five
years old and his father had just come back from the war. He told of not being
allowed to play football in the seventh grade because his doctor noted his
mitral valve prolapse and how that led to his first job as a writer when he
began to report on the games for the local paper. We learned of the first girl
he fell in love with in high school, and how she so casually left him the night
of the school prom, thus giving him understanding of what those blues songs
were about that he had been singing, but didn’t really understand until that
moment.
Christine
DiGiallonardo and Garrison Keillor |
All in all, it was a delightful evening. We
were given some insight into life, but not so much as to get either bummed out
or overly elated. Mr. Keillor kept any insight balanced by humor and the simple
fun of sharing music together. As we were walking out of the performance hall,
I heard a lady humming the tune of the last gospel hymn that had closed the
evening. What is that they say in show business? If they leave humming the
tunes, the show has been a success.
[Photos are from the AL.com news release]
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Great post, Charlie!
ReplyDeleteThanks Greg, and thank you for stopping by. It was a fun evening and I enjoyed writing about it.
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