he coveted ticket to a live performance of A Prarie Home Companion. It was ours. I had to personally beg Garrison Keillor for it.

I wonder if he gets many requests from fans as determined as me.

Anyway, he turns out to be quite a nice fellow. And the show was every bit as rewarding as we expected it to be. The News from Lake Wobegon, the Lives of the Cowboys, a funky rhythmic piece on Jack Kerouac, cowboy singer Skip Gorman, camp songs, park employee appearances... and the highpoint of the show, The Hopeful Gospel Quartet singing "Bright Morning Stars" while we listened to the sound of Old Faithful erupting outside.

I guess you have to be a big fan of radio to get the full appreciation of a live broadcast. Our voices singing "America the Beautiful" reside forever in the archives of Minnesota Public Radio, and the sound of Old Faithful is on that same tape with us, connecting our analog remains to the point on Nature's timeline when water came shooting out of this geological phenomenon, as it does every 80 minutes or so.

At the same exact moment, our friends listening over in the Eastern Time Zone could hear Old Faithful doing its thing a few hundred feet from where we sat. From Yellowstone, Atlanta is a continent away. But to the satellite bouncing Garrison Keillor's voice around, Atlanta was just a little down and to the right.

Here's a menu of the show: Features RealAudio clips of Lives of the Cowboys, Jack Kerouac tribute, camp songs, the News from Lake Wobegon, and Old Faithful erupting.

And here's a review of GK's new book Wobegon Boy. I just read the book and it had me laughing out loud.