Drumming Our Way Back to 2001

Wisconsin Bound!

Ashwaubenon (Green Bay area), Wisconsin, on January 21, 2024, at 7:00 p.m.

Garrison Keillor brings his solo show to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Poetry, limericks, a sing-along, and the News from Lake Wobegon. No doubt, a memorable evening. Hope you can join us!

Get tickets to Ashwaubenon PAC on Jan. 21

Listen to the Classic Show from January 6, 2001

This week, we revisit a great show from downtown St. Paul as A Prairie Home Companion welcomed Laurie Lewis, Tom Rozum, and Bruce Molsky on their “Winter's Grace” tour, plus a salute to Twelfth Night with actor Charles Keating and a 12-person drum ensemble with Marc Anderson.

Highlights include the “Boogie-Woogie Dance” by Pat Donohue and the house band, “Sail Away Ladies” and “Winter Grace” by Laurie Lewis, Tom Rozum, and Bruce Molsky, some banging music from the Drum Ensemble, a Tom Keith Sound Effects sketch, The Lives of the Cowboys, the Twelfth Night, and the latest News from Lake Wobegon. Listen now.

Fiddler, singer, and songwriter Laurie Lewis grew up in Berkeley, California, and began playing violin as a child. It was at the Berkeley Folk Festivals of the 1960s that she first caught the folk bug. And while she drifted away from the music after her high school days, she always kept her fiddle stashed under the bed. A prudent move. In her early 20s, she discovered the Bay Area bluegrass scene and realized that music would be her life’s work. In the mid-1970s, she helped found the Good Ol’ Persons, an all-female ensemble, and she went on to form the Grant Street String Band, Blue Rose, and the Right Hands. Mandolinist Tom Rozum, Laurie's longtime collaborator, joins her for today’s show along with Bruce Molsky

Charles Keating was best known for his role as Carl Hutchins in the daytime soap opera Another World where he won a Daytime Emmy Award for his portrayal. Born in London, he immigrated to Canada as a teenager — and later moved to the U.S. His stage appearances included the Guthrie Theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and more. He also appeared on Broadway and in film. He passed away in 2014.

Here are the lyrics to ’Twas Christmas Day in the Poorhouse’ from this week’s classic show:

CK: ’Twas Christmas Day in the poorhouse
And the cold bare walls of blue
Were bright with sprigs of holly
Sent by the well-to-do
Who also donated a turkey,
Cranberries, and Parker House rolls,
Which delighted the poor ragged wretches
Bent over their porcelain bowls.

In front stood a plastic snowman
And a small aluminum tree
The tape deck played Christmas carols
Recorded by Donnie and Marie.
And each of the paupers was given
A gift, at public expense:
A bar of soap for the ladies,
A bar of soap for the gents.

When a geezer looked up from his turkey
And said to the warden, “Kind sir,
Whatever became of Melissa?
I’m expecting a visit from her.
I haven’t seen her since September
And I’m also waiting for Jim,
My son who’s a big shot in Dallas,
I’m expecting a visit from him.”

The Warden turned and with cruel
Irony sneered at the man,
“Your children are rich and successful
And they’re busy — don’t you understand?
They’ve dinners to go to and parties,
Openings! Benefit balls!
Why would they come out to see you
In a poorhouse in downtown St. Paul?

You’re old and sick and depressing
And your conversation’s a bore.
You’re frankly not all that attractive,
A common fate of the poor.
You should have thought of this sooner
Back in your prime earning years
And hoarded your dough, but instead
You went in hock up to your ears.”

When we’re ancient and stiff and crabby,
Our relatives quickly forget us,
So listen to me, young people,
And work hard and save up your lettuce.
Get your books at the Salvation Army
Buy all your clothing at Sears
Take buses wherever you’re going
Live with your parents for years.

Don’t marry and do not have children,
Drink the $3 rosé.
Collect all the pats of butter
They bring you at the café.
Invest in blue chips and municipals
And avoid technology stocks
And never put money in the basket,
The collection plate or the poorbox.

And when you are old and senile
And you think that your niece is your aunt,
My friends, you’ll be rolling in money,
You’ll have all the money you want.

(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor

The Writer’s Almanac

It was on January 1, 1993, that the first episode of The Writer’s Almanac debuted on public radio stations across the country. The Writer’s Almanac was created by Garrison Keillor to bring poetry to a larger audience, with each five-minute episode featuring history notes on the given day plus a poem.

The program was first offered to stations that carried A Prairie Home Companion, but it built its own following over these past 30 years. Anniversary episodes are featured daily on our website, social media, and via a daily Substack page. You can support this ongoing celebration of poetry with a contribution to offset our expenses. 

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Living with Limericks

Limericks are the poems that can be written in the empty spaces between life, and this compact book illustrates the full range of the form’s utility: thank-you notes to doctors, odes to “Prairie Home” performers, postcard greetings from exotic places, succinct biographies of favorite writers, and scribbles in the margins of Sunday church programs.

Here is a limerick Garrison wrote about his mother, Grace:

My mother whom I adored
Is in heaven where, with one accord,
Saints clang their balls
In heavenly halls
As they fall on their knees to the Lord.

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