Garrison Keillor rocks Purdue, Indiana

Halloween is upon us. Last weekend was time for a road trip out of town before the first snow flakes fall.  This year, we haven't even had a really hard frost yet, but may soon as tropical storms threaten the eastern U.S.

That being said, it's also not that easy to get to places such as West Lafayette, the home of Purdue University, from Fort Wayne.  Although there is much to love about sparsely populated, rural farmland, driving over it on two lane roads takes lots of attention and can be tiring.  But it is great to see the new wind farms popping up; not so great to see the decimated small towns reeling from the changing economy.

But the ever-flowing, peaceful Wabash river showed its lovely self often along the way, as a beacon of a trail; one that the Native Americans, trappers and traders followed.  We passed historic Indian war battlefields:  was that a win for the 'white man'?  Really?

But I digress.  Out of the lowly farm fields the roads rose into the impressive Purdue campus.  Lots of fraternity houses, a huge clock and bell tower, and students in shorts on skateboards in cold weather were to be seen.  We parked in a storied parking garage and walked to the Elliot Hall of Music to witness a live broadcast of Garrison Keillor and 'A Prairie Home Companion.'

WBOI in Fort Wayne, the local National Public Radio affiliate, had offered tickets to this event in return for a donation to the station.  We took the bait.  It was fun to see good-looking, white-haired Fred Newman performing the sound effects for the radio show.  It was much more animated than I expected; his gesturing and movements as he made the sounds using his various tools were dramatic.  Sue Scott, the radio actress who does almost all the female voices looked nothing like I had imagined;  it's sort of like reading a good book and having your imagination give you a picture.  Do you actually want the reality, or is it almost better to have created the image in one's head?

The Purdue Varsity Glee Club, a large group of college men, ran on to the stage area from the back hall and gave a lovely rendition of the folk song 'Shenandoah.'. There were many references in their numbers to the Wabash river, but no one ever sang "back home in Indiana".  Why - are the rights too expensive?  Perhaps it's too associated with other things, such as Indiana University.  Garrison seems to have a beef with IU; or at the very least, prefers Purdue.  Oh well, there's a big rivalry there, so some of that is to be expected.

Garrison had a funny bit about walking around on campus and viewing what one sees nowadays: kids texting and walking with their heads down, frat boys bragging about doing keg stands naked.  Typical campus life.  Sue Scott read a diary entry from a college girl (or was it a letter to her parents?).  I'm not sure, but it was about dating college men, and falling in love, enough to be happy being fed ramen noodles and drinking Tang.  Oh, the good old days. The men's glee club did "In the Hall of the Mountain King" - that's a great piece of classical music, and I had never heard lyrics associated with it.  It was well done.

Old Crow Medicine Show was the guest band:  they did some rousing bluegrass numbers and a couple thoughtful numbers; one named 'Levi', and one called 'Ways of Man': one of these was about an Iraqi war veteran who had come home to West Virginia, I do believe.  The banjo picking, fiddle playing, string band was a perfect fit for the style of the prairie show.

Garrison did "News from Lake Wobegon" without any notes.  He really is an old-style story teller.  He said he had 'autism' when he was a kid, but nobody called it that then, and he was fine, happy. Yes, he's a little odd, and meanders around the stage almost like he's lost or doesn't know where to go, but he's also brilliant at what he does.  My husband simply said he's walking around his 'office.' That's about right.  It was a rough drive home in the dark through those four-way stops back to I-69 and home in Fort Wayne, but I'm glad I saw Garrison one more time before one of us is here no longer.