I made the grueling drive up to Newark last week with my wife Zipora and band-mate Lynda, to attend Garrison Keillor's “A Prairie Home Companion” radio show. For the uninitiated, Keillor is an author, storyteller, humorist, columnist, musician, satirist, radio personality, and he has the job I want.

His live, nationally broadcast show consists of him doing music and comedy shtick with a cadre of talented regulars and guest stars every week. He's been doing it, with few interruptions, for almost forty years.

It always amuses me when I think about how my tastes have changed over time. Thirty years ago, I hated his show. I thought it was corny, excruciatingly slow-paced, and self-consciously homespun. Now, I think it's by far the most fun thing on the airwaves, and I understand what made the golden age of radio so great - imagination!

Before the show, as I scoped out the crowd at the beautiful New Jersey Performing Arts Center, I saw a lot of well dressed, gray-haired people chatting amiably with each other. What is it about grandparent-aged folks that makes them so willing and eager to talk to complete strangers in public?

When I was a boy, I never knew how to respond to inane questions from strange old men on the street:
“How ya doin', Sonny? What's cookin'?”
I just wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

Now that strange old guy is me, and I must say, I thoroughly enjoy making kids squirm with inane questions. I finally get it - life's a party, and you have to mingle. It doesn't have to be deep or brimming with passion. There's beauty in just connecting with other human beings.

And so there I sat, waiting for the show to begin, talking with a guy sitting next to me in the last row of the auditorium. I told him that my band had auditioned for this very show - Keillor's annual “Battle of the Bands” edition - but that we didn't get picked. “Too bad,” he said. “Maybe next time.”

Just then, Garrison sauntered out on stage and chatted with the audience while he was buttoning up his shirt. He has a marvelous way of always looking disheveled, even in a tuxedo, and his trademark red sneakers only added to his air of eccentricity.

He told a few jokes, sang us a song, and at exactly 5:59, he suddenly stopped talking. There was a very pregnant pause, then a voice out of nowhere said, “From American Public Media,” and the band launched into the show's honky-tonk opening theme. I imagined people all over the country sitting by their radios, listening, just like I do every Saturday, and it felt very cool, very “in tune” - kind of like Woodstock without the mud.

Since this was the Battle of the Bands edition, Keillor invited the audience to come up and dance on the roomy stage if the spirit moved them, and a few folks from the pricey seats hesitantly wandered up. After a couple of musical numbers, he said, “The people in the upper rows want to know if they can come down and dance. Sure!”

With that, I and several others in my row jumped up, climbed our way out to the aisle, and grabbed an elevator. It stopped at every floor on the way down, and more people piled in. By the time we emerged in the lobby, I knew all of their life stories.

We ran for the stage like dance-crazed lemmings and joined the now hundred or so others, wildly jumping up and down on the Prairie Home set. Garrison was in the middle of it all, dancing too, and he pretty much conducted the remainder of the first hour in the midst of this lively, yet well-behaved throng. When I finally returned to my seat, the guy sitting next to me said, “So, you made it up on stage after all.”

The show ended with everyone singing “Good Night Ladies,” and waving their cell phones like candles. It didn't really matter what we were singing, I was just happy to have been a part of it.

On the highway home from Newark, I was quickly reminded of the insane rat race that is real life, but even that couldn’t bring me down, because I knew I was only passing through.


Jim & Lynda, in the last row