What Garrison Said

I can't say I ever really listened to Garrison Keillor. But I most definitely heard him.

Editorial note: Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.

I’ve been regularly listening to National Public Radio (NPR) for more than 20 years. Our weekday alarm clock is set to it and I will listen to the station during my morning commute. Throughout the weekend our family will catch snippets of “Car Talk,” “This American Life”  and ” Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” during errand runs. Both kids are adept at copying Peter Sagal’s impish “This is NPR” sign-off.

While I get my news from a variety of print and online sources, the segments I hear on NPR tend to resonate with me the most. Part of it is the medium itself – I will digest the information differently when I’m driving alone. But a key part of it is the delivery – the mellifluous announcer voices and exceptional production that is an NPR hallmark, and the source of some derision.

Now I can’t with a good consciousness overlook NPR’s cultural imprint and related affectations. NPR connotes a certain class, knowledge; a level of sophistication but also snobbery, elitism. I have no illusions; I recognize the station for what it is and know when it’s o.k. to laugh at myself. And others, as the case may be.

Beyond the aforementioned shows, “A Prairie Home Companion” has long served as one of NPR’s anchor programs.  It’s produced right here in the Twin Cities, across the river from me in St. Paul. Garrison Keillor, the show’s avuncular host, is held with the same kind of regional esteem as Bob Dylan, Prince and Paul Westerberg. But unlike those others, whose genius I wholeheartedly embrace, I can’t seem to get Garrison Keillor, or “A Prairie Home Companion,” for that matter.

It’s not for lack of trying. I often will attempt listening to the show, although never from the beginning, while on my way to pick up the kids from Sunday school. The audience, whether at home in St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater or one of the multiple on-the-road locations, seems to think Garrison Keillor is some kind of comic genius. They roar at his home-spun anecdotes and witticisms, hanging on his every droll word, but I stare silently at the road ahead of me, wondering what I’m missing.

Garrison Keillor will be stepping down from hosting “A Prairie Home Companion” this July and has been relatively circumspect about his future plans.  In a recent interview Keillor was asked how he measured success.  He responded “Success is when you get up early in the morning and you feel ambitious, and you go and you sit down at your computer with a cup of coffee and you’re still in your pajamas and there is something you urgently want to do. And that’s, that’s the good life. Work.”

I read Keillor’s quote two or three times. Beyond resonating with me, it helped me appreciate and respect him, despite not being enamored with his material.  We collectively discuss the live to work/work to live duality and striving for the ever-elusive balance. But to be energized and passionate for the craft of creativity, the waking up every morning and slogging it out, one word at a time, and seeking pleasure in that – beyond remuneration and accolades … well that is something worth treasuring.

Best of luck to you, Mr. Keillor. I can’t say I truly ever listened to you. But I most definitely heard you.