KEILLOR AT GOSHEN COLLEGE

I once saw Garrison Keillor in concert at Pepperdine - it was very good, but I thought then that given his affinity for singing, he would enjoy an evening at Goshen College.  Well it happened this fall, and here is what he had to say:

“I think I maybe did the best show of my life Tuesday night and all thanks to the audience, a thousand Mennonites and their neighbors in a small town in Indiana. It was mostly impromptu, fast-paced, jumpy, with a big complicated pontoon-boat story in the middle, and at the beginning and end we sang. They sang beautiful four- and six-part harmony in a fine acoustic hall and I sang a modest bass, no arm waving, no coaxing, and the sound of this impromptu choir made everyone intensely happy. I steered them directly from one verse of a song to a chorus of another, no pausing, and when I did pause once, trying to figure out where to go next, they did not applaud. Marvellous. Because it was not a show. It was for real. Mennonites are quiet, peace-loving, kind-hearted people, salt of the earth, If I knew a church where people sang like that, I’d be there every Sunday, sitting right smack in the middle. Thank you, Goshen College.”

A couple of more lines from the evening:

 “Women look down on men. Women have always looked down on men because men fart so much. So much more than women because women don’t keep their mouths closed long enough to keep the pressure built up.”

But possibly the funniest impromptu moment occurred when a cell phone could be heard ringing from the seats. How did Keillor react?

“Tell them I’m almost done.”