That Time of Year

by Garrison Keillor

  I rambled around doing shows and included more and more a cappella audience singing, which the audience loved, a singing intermission and an encore that lasted as long as they wanted, starting with My country ’tis of thee. I sang O beautiful for and they were all there with the spacious skies. Once in Little Rock, I got a crowd that was predominantly liberal Democrats, judging from their discomfort singing I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, but they sang it, in standard dialect, not minstrel, which was good for them, an exercise in history. Some sing it as good times are not forgotten, but it’s old times, and why forget them? Of all the Prairie Home shows, one that moved me deeply was at the old Methodist tabernacle (capacity 7,000) at Ocean Grove, NJ, dating back to Civil War days when the Methodists pitched tents and held prayer meetings and revivals and enjoyed the fellowship of kindred believers. It was August, we were on a tour, I walked into the crowd, sang the first notes of “America” and 7,000 people joined me on “sweet land of liberty.” I sang the line, “When peace like a river attendeth my way,” and the crowd picked it right up—And sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul”—and there we were, Christians gathered, some fallen, some strays, some Jewish brethren, but they were all there on the chorus, It is well—(It is well)— with my soul—(with my soul). People were weeping, moved by the mass vocal symphony around them, surrounded by souls who knew the same words. They had not come here for this; it was a revelation. White hankies came out, men wiped their eyes on their shirtsleeves. We segued into the Doxology and two verses of “How Great Thou Art,” also overwhelming, and I walked up the aisle and saw a slight fellow in brown leather jacket and recognized Bruce Springsteen. I nodded, he nodded. And then the Battle Hymn and a quiet Glory, glory, Hallelujah and an even quieter In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, and you could feel the spirit of the crowd floating in the air. I hummed a G, or something close to it, and sang O say can you see and the crowd rose to its feet. The national anthem is nobody’s favorite song, but once you get into it and hear the voices around you, you feel it take off, and when we hold the note on “free” and the sopranos go high, it’s opera. I looked over and saw Mr. Springsteen standing, singing home of the brave, and I added an Amen chorus. It was twenty minutes of Methodist fervor on public radio, and then a Powdermilk Biscuit commercial. I was shaken. Schismatic politics have beset the beloved country, but here we were under one roof, 7,000 individuals united in singing the peace of our souls, a rock star anonymous in our midst. I was only the prompter, and the power was tangible to all, a vision of union triumphant.

  In the grand sweep of Prairie Home history, the Fox and the Flynn and Ryman and Palace and Radio City, the hills of Tanglewood and Hollywood and Chautauqua and Ravinia and Blossom, the Starlight and Ocean Grove and Yellowstone, the Greek and the show from Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, the ones I am fondest of were the twelve broadcasts from the Minnesota State Fair grandstand, the very stage where I’d seen the great Buster Keaton do his stepladder routine years before, his stooge holding the ladder horizontal and suddenly turning, knocking the old man on his keister. I had loved the Fair since I was a small child, and there I was with a microphone walking into the crowd as they all sang “Minnesota, Hail to Thee” on coast-to-coast radio. The Fair is the old Minnesota, which is disappearing and yet here it is and you can get corn on a cob and pork chops on a stick and admire pigs and chickens. And then there was the broadcast from Anoka High School in October 2015, when the school band played and a famous alumna, Metropolitan Opera soprano Ellie Dehn, sang, and my guests were two of my best teachers in whose classes I had done my worst, Stan Nelson and Lyle Bradley. Stan taught phys ed and that included chin-ups and the rope climb, which I couldn’t do but he required me to try. Lyle taught biology. Both of them had served in World War II. Lyle served on a carrier in the Pacific, and his excellent bird-watching skills enabled him to spot kamikazes aimed at the ship, and he spotted forty of them in one day and they were duly shot down. Stan was also in the Navy, a lieutenant and deck officer on a landing craft in the first wave to hit the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Neither of them made a big thing of their military service, both were dedicated teachers, Stan coaching football, baseball, and golf. Both remembered me and my cool indifference; it was poetic justice for their worst student to come do them honor.

  I was moved to update Dylan’s “Times They Are A-Changin’” to remind his old fans how old they are getting to be:

  Come gather round people wherever you roam

  My daughter just called me up on the phone

  And said she’s been looking for a good nursing home

  That I need help with bathin’ and shavin’

  She said that she doesn’t dare leave me alone

  And the times, they are a-changin’.

  My house is a mess, and my stories are stale,

  I buy all my clothes at the church rummage sale

  I can’t figure out how to answer email,

  Despite her constant explaining.

  I’m bald but I still have this long ponytail

  And the times they are a-changing.

  No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe.

  It ain’t me who’s getting old, babe.

  Time was passing. In 2013, WNYC in New York made noises about maybe dropping the show; young staffers there thought the Lake Wobegon stories were “parochial,” which, literally, they were, and I took that as a signal not to be ignored. On a book tour the next year, during the Q&A, inevitably people asked, “How long are you going to keep doing the show?” A question that can be taken as a suggestion. And then the National Association of Broadcasters tried to induct me into the Radio Hall of Fame. I declined but it felt like a death knell, the invitation to become a statuette. In the winter of 2015, I heard the Muse of Maturity suggest that the next season should be my last. “Your numbers are down, from four million to slightly below three. Don’t wait too long,” she said. “Don’t wait until stations start dropping you. Stop when people regret that you’re stopping.” This made sense to me.

  The show was still drawing a crowd, howbeit older and heavier, as we could tell from the applause, the claps sounded more like clops or clumps, the whooping got wheezy, the standing ovations became slow-rising, leaning ovations, people trying to restore blood circulation, and some customers headed for the exits early so as to avoid traffic. The fan mail was more and more about shows of long ago, the story of Myrtle Krebsbach being left at the truck stop or Bruno the Fishing Dog, “The Finn Who Would Not Take a Sauna,” the pontoon boat story, and other historic items. I was happy to be in harness and still got the jitters as I sang, “O hear that old piano from down the avenue, I smell the onions, I look around for you.” I wanted to keep going, wanted to do a show in Rome, maybe Copenhagen, on forever, I still felt capable at 72 and 73 and loved singing duets, loved the stunning young talents and the old reliables. The Muse said, “The time to go is while you’re still having fun—just as you’d leave a party while everyone is still upright and not stay until the fights start.”

  I wasn’t inclined toward Bob Altman’s Die in action philosophy. I wanted to have a long retirement and disappear into the sunset and outlive everyone qualified to give my eulogy. I wanted people to read my obit on page B47 and have to google me to find out who I was. I wanted to drift into anonymity and spend years with Maia and Jenny and reconnect to friends and family I’d neglected out of over-scheduling.

  Front row: Maria Jette, Vern Sutton, Mary DuShane, Joe Newberry, David Rawlings, Gillian Welch, Prudence Johnson, GK, Iris DeMent, Heather Masse and The Wailin’ Jennys (Nicky Mehta and Ruth Moody), Robin and Linda Williams, Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele. 2014, singing “Just a Little While to Stay Here.”

  On the other hand, the show sounded better than ever, though I couldn’t say that, being a Minnesotan, but it was true. Kate Gustafson was the manager—whatever you needed to know, she k
new—and the staff was tight, no wasted motions, and our tech guys were the best in the business. You can write a fine show and book all-star talent but if your mixing board melts or a squirrel chews the transmission line, you are six ways from nowhere. We’d started in 1974 with a mixer the size of a hatbox and now we had a souped-up Mercedes and two guys, Sam Hudson and Thomas Scheuzger, who could take it apart if necessary. They were the backbone of the show—I had known this for years. I think back to 2007 and the annual Rhubarb Festival in Lanesboro before 2,000 people on blankets and lawn chairs on the ballfield. The sky turns black and rain pours down just before airtime and the power goes out, so I stroll into the crowd and we all sing the national anthem and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as I walk through the crowd of umbrellas, declining an umbrella; it is good showbiz for the host to get drenched, for some reason it makes everyone feel good. Our tech guys, Sam Hudson and Thomas Scheuzger, hook up a generator, the storm moves off to the east, and the show goes on, the crowd quite proud of themselves for having stuck it out, and the near-disaster casts a warm glow on all that follows. The theme “Tishomingo Blues” and the opening marquee, the Creation story in which Adam eats rhubarb instead of the apple, a conversation with Orval and Marie Amdahl who’ve been married sixty-five years and for whom Rich Dworsky has written a lovely waltz. A brief homily on bravery for a Powdermilk commercial. On “The Lives of the Cowboys,” the cattle have been feeding on rhubarb and were feeling good and independent. A sixteen-year-old girl named Yvonne Freese sings (beautifully) an Italian aria, “Pur dicesti, O bocca bella” and knocks it out of the park. We learn that she sings in ten different choirs around the area. In Lake Wobegon, Florian Krebsbach is bitten by a walleye and infected with a fishy virus that causes gabbiness and restlessness for which rhubarb juice is the cure. The Rhubarb Sisters inform me that rhubarb is a metaphor for finding happiness in your own backyard. It’s a good show, we honor young talent, old matrimony, a common vegetable (or is it a fruit?). Five million Americans get an impression of the town of Lanesboro as a place where people aren’t afraid of being rained on, plus which the great Joe Ely from Texas sings four of his songs. Ten years later, people still recalled that Lanesboro show to me. It was memorable.

  There were numerous shows where during the warm-up I noticed feverish activity around the mixing board, and I was glad nobody told me what was going on. Our guys are the best in the business, and they don’t need an English major leaning over them and asking questions so I didn’t. There was the Avon show on a ballfield where traffic was backed up for a couple miles on I-94 due to a lack of parking in town and the power generator was slacking off, which made the Hammond organ a half step flat. There were numerous shows before which Thomas was on the phone with the telephone company trying to get an installer to come to the site and hook up the lines we needed. We used high-tech ISDN (integrated services digital network) copper lines; fiber-optic lines were coming in but copper was more reliable at the time and offered the bandwidth you need to broadcast music with good fidelity. Ma Bell, however, is not interested in broadcast lines: she gets her wealth from your teenage children, not live radio. In Honolulu, for a New Year’s Eve show, the phone company sent two installers on bicycles who were seriously stoned, and an hour’s job took most of a day. In Town Hall, a few minutes before airtime, I once saw them working feverishly with screwdrivers—the stage manager, Albert Webster, said, “They’re trying to reset the codec box.” Which sounded like Kotex box to me, but wasn’t. It got fixed. For a broadcast in San Francisco, the phone company sent six trucks, one after another, to set up the lines, and only one guy knew what to do with ISDN: the other five ate lunch.

  Sam was our mixer, a man with a great ear who could make a live show sound as good as a studio recording—better, with audience added—and Thomas was the man who solved problems and dealt with the phone company, spent a lot of time on Hold and saw a great many basements of theaters. Sam made the show sound good; without the two of them, there wouldn’t have been one.

  At Tanglewood, after a rainstorm, the power went out shortly before airtime and the power company sent an electrician out who got a police escort through the crowd and went up in a cherry picker to check the power pole, and he tossed down a dead squirrel whose electrocution had blown a fuse. We named him Sparky and he joined the Yellowstone bison, the Interlochen bats, the coyotes who howled during the monologue at the Greek in LA, the cicadas who maintained a steady throbbing during a Wolf Trap show, Murray the sea lion, and Freckles the singing dog.

  Sam Hudson at the mixing board, Thomas Scheuzger at the broadcast rack, monitoring the quality of the signal.

  Around the office, we were all business, intent on not letting the others down. Nobody told the tech guys how crucial they were; they already knew. Nobody said, “That was a great idea, walking out in the crowd when it poured and we lost power.” I was only doing my job. Others did theirs. It was my job to make Lanesboro happy, rain or shine. The crew handled the rest. Steve Koeln, the stage manager, needed no guidance from me, and when he went off to become a furniture maker we acquired Albert Webster, who stayed to the end—between the two of them, forty years of good spirit and dedicated competence. As an unreliable boss, I know when I’m around competence.

  And then, as the 2015–16 season was about to launch, the Muse spoke more clearly. One night I was awakened by bright lights—I had been metamorphosized into a patient in a hospital bed, a bad dream with real people in it. A man in blue and a woman in white were studying me up close, and Jenny sat at the foot of the bed, prepared for the worst. She’d been awakened a couple hours before by my convulsive thrashing in bed and called 911. The ambulance took me down the hill to United Hospital. I didn’t remember a thing. I’d had a brain seizure.

  I had no headache, no visual aura, and I still knew my birthdate and my mother’s and could recite the eighty-seven counties of Minnesota, but I felt groggy and my legs were rubbery, like joke legs, and they put me on an anti-seizure medication, a big pill, the size you’d give a Percheron. I went home and sat out back on a reclining lawn chair and looked at the Mississippi below, my old tranquilizer, a body of moving water, and the Muse said, “This is your cue, my son. Don’t ignore it. You have faithful listeners who’ve listened since college, now they’re on the verge of retirement. They’re not fans so much as they are cousins. Don’t make people who love you watch you go to pieces in public view. Enough is enough. Respect your limits.” It was similar to the speech she gave me back in 2002 when I quit drinking. The show started in 1974; I’d be 74 if I retired in 2016. The symmetry appealed to me. My hero Steve Cannon left WCCO at the age of seventy. The station planned a big to-do for his last day, invited the governor and so forth, and Steve got wind of it and called in sick. A classy guy. No Lucite plaque for him, no speeches about his iconic stature in Minnesota. He loved his work, and he left and hid out in his mansion on Lake of the Isles. I’d disappear too. I come from separatists, I’m good at quitting. So I told Jenny that 2015–16 would be my last hurrah. We were spending a weekend in northern Wisconsin, at the historic Nilsson lake cabin, built by her dad, Ray, and Grandpa Nils-son in the Forties, her grandpa’s World War I bugle and helmet on the wall and the vest he wore at the battle of Verdun. She hugged me and said she would miss the show and so would Maia, but she was in agreement. “It’s time,” she said. “The show has never been better.” The next week, I told the Prairie Home staff. Nobody begged me to reconsider.

  It was a good show, even I had to admit: Fred, Sue, Tim, and Rich were syncopated and symbiotic, intuitively copacetic at turning simple cues into works of audio art. Sam and Thomas, Todd Behrens, Albert, Tom Campbell, and Alan Frechtman, the whole tech staff, was the best ever, a championship team, you could’ve written a textbook on positive group dynamics from observing those people in action.

  Having been raised by women, I had naturally hired women to run the show—three of them over a period of forty years, Margaret Moos, Christine Tschida, and Ka
te Gustafson. That’s why the show lasted so long. A male producer would’ve needed to call meetings so he could sit at the head and demonstrate authority; the women were not about authority but empathy—they accepted the confusion of impromptu changes and last-minute inspirations, they understood who does what. Kate ran the place for twenty-five years, knew every single person, from the newest intern to the old veterans, their history, family situation, ambitions, phobias, irritants, favorite beverages, musical tastes, and this familiarity encouraged people to give their best. Meanwhile, the host of the show sat in a dim room staring at a computer screen and seldom spoke to anyone unless messages were slipped under his door. If he walked into a room, the room got quiet, so he stayed in his quarters. The workers in the vineyard enjoyed socializing, enjoyed backstage life with performers, and Old Stone Face stuck to his stitching and was tolerated. It was a good arrangement. The comedy on the show leaned heavily toward senseless violence, man vs. whale, man vs. volcano, mutant dinosaur vs. attack pigeons, souped-up cars carrying crates of ducks at high speed across frozen lakes, men solving complex problems by blowing up stuff. But Lake Wobegon was about women—the observers, the gossips, the jury, the attendants at birth and illness and death, and the men were, like me, dogged hard workers in need of direction and desperate for affection.