The News from Lake Wobegon

I saw that Garrison Keillor posted an old News from Lake Wobegon segment online for today. It is from October 3, 1981, but I suspect life there is pretty much the same on like October 3, 2022. 

People are taking down window screens and putting on storm windows. 

People get ready in their own ways for winter even though it's just the start of autumn. It's a transitional time of year.

At the Sons of Knute lodge, they start their work session with some beers and that leads to nothing getting done.

For the Feast Day of St. Francis, Father Emil will bless all types of animals.

I can't believe that I probably listened to this news 41 years ago and that its till sounds right today.

The News segment of the radio show - which now exists in a very different format and without Keillor - was one of my favorite parts going back to a time when I had to listen to it live or miss it. I actually bought a radio with a cassette recorder combination unit so I could record his show and Terry Gross' Fresh Air since I wasn't always around at the broadcast time. It was my VCR for the radio.

Of course, now radio programs are usually podcasted too (or maybe only podcasted) and the VCR has been replaced by a DVR or on-demand streaming. Listen and watch whenever it pleases you.

I like Keillor's writing method for these News segments.

I always wrote the monologue on Friday evening, four or five pages, and looked at it Saturday morning, and then not again. I never read it. I never memorized it. I felt that I’d naturally remember the memorable parts.

I tried that method with my poetry a few times inspired by a writing prompt given by a poet in a workshop. Write the first draft. Read it through a few times. Destroy it. Then try to write it again - a few hours later or perhaps the next morning. The "memorable parts" should remain. Sometimes they do remain. Sometimes most of it is gone. Tough lesson.