I wonder when Garrison Keillor will retire from the show he created, A Prairie Home Companion? When I discovered that he wasn't on last night's broadcast, and that a Minneapolis storyteller would be a guest instead, I started to think about what it would be like without this great American humorist. He is my generation's equivalent to Mark Twain. My husband and I have listened to the A Prairie Home Companion almost every Saturday night since 1986. There were so many times that we would say to each other, "One of these days, we have to go to Minnesota and look up all the places where he's based his fictional town of Lake Wobegon upon."
Two years ago, my husband and I left sunny Southern California for the frozen tundra of the North and went in search of Lake Wobegon. When we went to the bookstore Garrison Keillor owns in St. Paul, we were amazed when we saw him walking across the parking lot by himself with a couple of books tucked underneath his arm. We had a little chat with him outside our car window and my husband shook hands with him. There was a car in back of us, so we had to move along; but my husband and I were amazed that we were lucky enough to have this chance meeting with one of our heros.
On the plane home, I wrote this story about a precocious teenage sleuth named Nancy Keene who travels to Minnesota with her father in search of the real life places mentioned in Keillor's stories. I've included some pictures we took on our pilgrimage.
The Missing Bachelor Farmer: A Nancy Keene Mystery
By Louise Hathaway
It's only $1.99 and is available at most online bookstores.
Also available in paperback at Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com and Createspace.
