“Did I ever tell you about the time I met Garrison Keillor at a writing conference?” I wrote on a friend’s Facebook wall.

She had linked to a blog post which had linked to an article written by the iconic humorist and storyteller himself. In his article, Keillor recalled the bygone days of writing when authors typed manuscripts on paper and sent them away in fat manila envelopes to a publisher for acceptance or rejection. Mr. Keillor lamented the current practice in which anyone can sit on the other side of a computer screen, type words, and declare one’s self a writer.

You know, people like me.

I first met Garrison Keillor as a young newlywed. Back in the day when our household income consisted of bimonthly checks just north of five hundred dollars, one of which was committed to the mortgage on our converted summer cottage, Saturday nights spent listening to A Prairie Home Companion provided a cheap date night for the beloved Swede and me. On occasion we listened together with our friends Steve and Nancy, another newlywed couple who, like us, sometimes scrounged through the change in their car’s ashtray just to buy milk. If we’d budgeted carefully we were able to splurge on a $9.99 bottle of Charter Oak Red wine, one produced by a local Connecticut winery and which we considered to be not half bad. As our only prior exposure to the fruit-of-the-vine had come from bottles labeled Riunite, we began to fancy ourselves connoisseurs of the good stuff.

Steve and Nancy had descended from strong Nordic stock and, together with my Swedish husband and me, we reveled in Keillor’s tales of Norwegian bachelor farmers and Lutheran covered hot-dish suppers. Raised on classic rock from the seventies, we grew to appreciate the music of his weekly bluegrass and folk artists. And we learned that Powder Milk Biscuits, heavens they were tasty.

We tuned in each week on the refurbished stereo receiver the Swede had purchased with earnings from his summer job in a sewage treatment plant the year before we were married. If it weren’t such a cliché, I’d say something about us being poor but happy.

Ten years later when we had a few more nickels to rub together, I gave the Swede a collection of Keillor’s tapes as an anniversary gift. I thought it a fitting way to commemorate our early years together. Sadly, the vineyard which had produced Charter Oak Red was no longer in business.

Our increased fortunes at that time allowed us to purchase a used Volvo station wagon—a sturdy, reliable vehicle designed by Swedish engineers—in which to haul our kids and their belongings to things like school, soccer practice, and the public library. Or so we thought. Although I had descended from the house and lineage of Donaldson, evidently the car viewed my dark brown hair with suspicion and questioned the authenticity of my Swedish roots. It conspired against me, rising up in mutiny and forcing me to replace nearly every highly expensive part manufactured in Sweden, but for its windshield wiper blades.

Unable to appease the Volvo’s evil spirits, or exorcise its demons, we finally traded it in or sold it for scrap, I can’t quite recall which. Some months later, I realized I must have left one of the Swede’s Lake Wobegon tapes in the car’s player, the one which contained a favorite story of ours of Pete Peterson’s Memorial Duck Blind and the building of giant decoys.

Several years ago I noticed The Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest-continually published newspaper and paper of record here in Connecticut, was hosting a writing conference. Garrison Keillor was scheduled as keynote speaker.  I signed up thinking I might possibly, someday, maybe be going to write something. And though stalk may be too powerful a verb to describe my desire to meet the minstrel of Lake Wobegon, I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity.

Keillor arrived on stage, dressed in a dark, conservative suit and tie, having taken the train from New York City. But for the shiny red sneakers on his feet, he could have passed for a Republican. After Keillor spoke I waited in line to meet him, asking him to sign the CD I had purchased to replace the tape left behind in my car. Trembling as I stood before him in the entirety of my five-feet, eleven inches plus heels, I relayed the tale of my missing Lake Wobegon tape carried off by the evil Volvo. And I’ll never forget his words to me:

“My, my, my, you’re one long, cool drink-of-water,” he said.

It is precisely this astute power of perception which, I believe, contributes to Mr. Keillor’s success as a storyteller.

At one time I had pictures of me standing next to Mr. Keillor, evidence of our meeting, but those disappeared a couple of hard drive crashes ago. I do, however, have his autograph on the inside cover of the replacement Lake Wobegon CD:

For Swede, have mercy.
Garrison Keillor
American Federation of Ducks

I’ve been thinking I’d like to return to those sweet days of listening to Prairie Home on the radio. A girl can learn a thing or two about storytelling from listening to Mr. Keillor. Perhaps I’ll splurge and treat myself to a $9.99 bottle of wine.

I’m not sure my ancient stereo receiver still picks up any stations which carry A Prairie Home Companion, but that’s alright. I’ve discovered I can listen to archived stories and stream the show online. Despite its reputation for bullying the written word off the printed page, there remain a few things worth reading and listening to on the internet.

And that’s the news from this side of the computer screen.

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Update: Can’t believe I forgot to mention this! If you’re a fan of good storytelling and the spoken word, might I suggest checking out my friend Sam Van Eman’s project, A Beautiful Trench it Was? Sam is a gifted storyteller, and he’s got some powerful, redemptive stories to tell.

Sharing long-ago playdates with Laura @ The Wellspring:

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