"Museum-quality northern liberal" goes to Abilene

On Oct. 18 Colburn and I went to see Prairie Home Companion perform at Moody Coliseum on the ACU (Abilene Christian University) campus. Who woulda thought? GK (Garrison Keillor) described himself as a "museum-quality northern liberal" in the early part of the show as he himself wondered what he was doing there.

I won't repeat moments of the show here because, as the saying goes, you had to be there.

What I will hesitantly admit is that it was a very moving experience for me. As I listened to the audience sing songs that I haven't heard in 30...40...no...45 years, I flashed back to sitting in my seat between Grandmother and Grandad at Woodlawn Church of Christ and singing "Just As I Am." As Colburn knows, hearing 4,000 people sing that hymn a cappella made me cry.

Those of you who know me well know I have little contact with anything or anyone from my childhood. My own mother doesn't remember it - partly because of her mental health and partly because she just wasn't interested. My grandparents are dead, and my father and I are estranged. So, I never, ever expected to sit there in a basketball coliseum and fall in love again with Abilene, see the wisdom of the practices of the Church of Christ, and weep while singing an old-fashioned hymn. I only went to the show for laughs, to see a minor celebrity, and have a good time.

I think it moved the tectonic plates underneath my life.

If you want to hear audio clips of the show, go here.

To read GK's article in the International Herald Tribune about his two days in Abilene, go here.

The photo above is of the Women's A Cappella Choir from ACU with Jearlynne Steele, guest performer with Prairie Home Companion. (I like the choir better than her.)