Victorian Modern Day Story Teller

A Modern Victorian type Story Teller

Prairie Home Companion – Garrison Keeler


Tonight had the good fortune to watch a PBS American Masters from a station in the US that can Broad cast across the Border. Garrison Keeler was getting some of the recognition he deserves. He alone brought back a form of Old Time Radio live broadcast that faded out when television became available to the masses back from the grave in the 1970's during one of the most controversial times in Americas history.


One could easily compare him to a modern Mark Twain with his tales centered round a fictionary town in remote Minnesota called Lake Wobegon. The stories and events that take place in this small town are done in a manner that one can easily relate to. Most towns have had someone who was the great story teller, that in the evening when the sun would go down would gather near the hearth or by the wood stove and be amused and educated long before there was electricity radio, moving pictures or television and computers that are so common place today.


During the Victorian times we could encounter something similar at one of the many theatres in towns like Toronto, or Montreal. Those of us who did not live near such cites could gather at a neighbors on a visit and after the evening meal could be entertained with stories and tales from a elder. Some could spin a good yarn better than others. The good ones could pull your leg and have you believing their story. This was a big deal when one is young, and open to adventure from far a way places, that its easy for one's imagination to travel to these foreign lands, meet new and different people from different cultures and towns than your own.


I was fortunate to have had a mother who was our story teller learning from her uncle that on those cold winter nights or snow days would amuse us with many of the similar stories told by Garrision Keeler, and his prairie home companion show. One time on a visit back home from college found my mother glued to the radio listening to one of his show broadcasted from my college a few hundred of miles away, she was a regular fan never missing a show every Saturday evening, then telling me all about in the next morning at 5am when it was quiet at her place and I was just going to bed to catch two or three hours of sleep before classes, and work into 4am the next day.


I have had the fortune to see his show once and the movie, and before I got married was a avid listener depending on the part of the US I was if the Public Radio carried the show. With the internet today and streaming broadcast that can even be down loaded it is surprising that Garrision has not made this available especially to those of us living on the otherside of border which the Canadian Broasters do not subscribe to his show to share with Canadians, who could easily relate to the many characters of lake Wobegon.

For anyone wanting to know where to find Garrison Keeler and his Prairie Home Companion there web address is: prairiehome companion at public radio.org

Garrision if you read this or hear about this posting please share your prairie home with those of us who live in the Great White North. I am glad that you are receiving the respect that you and your staff have worked hard to earn. In the 21st century so many do not know about story telling, simple life, old time radio broadcasted live, or how to use their imagination as those of us who have experienced the theatre of the mind.


The Victorian Housewife
Tags: victorian, storytelling, prairiehome, garrisionkeeler