I have been a fan of Garrison Keillor and his National Public Radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” for quite some time and have always wanted to be a part of the shows live studio audience at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. My wife made that wish a reality when I found two tickets to his show under the Christmas tree this year.

My wife willingly listens to the show on the radio when we’re traveling but informed me that my good friend Paul was to be the number two of the two tickets of which I was one. Yet another adventure for us to partake in, or allow to partake on us, as seems to generally be the way of such things. As Guy Clark sang, “I got a pretty good friend who’s seen me at my worst…he can’t tell if I’m a blessing or a curse…”

We’re not too hard to entertain. Generally, a bottle of rum, some jerky, a couple of cigars, and excessive flatulence will do the trick, but now we had actual tickets to actual entertainment by actual entertainers.

As mentioned earlier, the show takes place in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is a few miles east of a stone’s throw from Rapid City so a road trip was also on the agenda. In the interest of abiding by the law and not marinating the car and ourselves in carcinogenic stogie soup we chose the lesser of our four entertainment go to’s for the journey east. So as I enjoyed a particularly tough strip of jerky Paul sat with his window cracked contemplating the value and worth of friendship and hoping I didn’t get as good a gas mileage as the car.

Driving 600 miles to see a radio show may seem odd to some, but to the odd it seems about right. The odd manage to recognize the justification for things of this nature and harbor an appreciation for opportunities of exploration of that which they’ve yet to explore and experience.

So off we went, rolling east on I-90, bucking a north wind that made for the untimely demise of many a tumbleweed that seemed to be hastily trying to make a dinner date somewhere in Nebraska. I picked two out of the grill of the car at a rest stop, and with few sticks short of a full tumble, they limped south in search of friends, family, and a better way of life. Godspeed tumbleweed…Godspeed.

As luck would have it we hit Minneapolis approximately the same time as a snow storm which effectively transformed the fast and furious big city traffic to slow and slippery. An exit ramp guard rail attempted to put a hitch in our giddy up, but thanks to my cat like reflexes and superior driving skills, the attempt was thwarted and we crept onward unscathed and oddly entertained. With the help of my navigator we located our hotel and then got lost in the parking garage. You weren’t there…don’t judge.

It just so happened that the Fitzgerald Theater is located about one block from Mickey’s Diner. I hadn’t been in Mickey’s Diner since about 1993 and I had questioned its actual existence since that time. Twenty years ago, without the aid of GPS, my college buddy and I stumbled upon Mickey’s at 3AM with a hankering for some greasy food to fill the void our liquid diets had left vacant. Our preferred mode of navigation, dumb luck, always seemed to get us where we didn’t know we wanted to go. So in the spirit of dumb luck Paul and I had our preshow meal at Mickey’s. A patty melt, a mound of hash browns, a shot of penicillin (Mickey’s could use a good scrubbing) and I was ready for the show.

The show was great and the Fitzgerald Theater is a grand old venue that first opened its doors in 1909. As Garrison spun his yarns of life in a small Midwestern town I got a little misty eyed and felt the stirrings of the emotion that overcomes you when you’re witnessing the making of something special. Something you’ve only heard, and now get to see and be a part of and most likely won’t again. Thank you Dawn.