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A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

Che Gelida Manina (Jello Aria)
Saturday, October 13, 2001
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CHE GELIDA MANINA

I ate your gelatin Christina
It was delicious and so cold
I love raspberry with little Chinese oranges.

It always makes me think of our mother
And how she loved to eat supper in the garden
She'd sit down by the flowers,
Eating oranges in red Jello
Our mother dear
All I wanted was to be like mother.

Oranges, walnuts
Green grapes and sliced bananas.
Her blouse and long blue skirt
Perfume. The smell of lilacs.
Sunset.

The crème brulee was lovely
And the lemon custard
It was such a lovely evening
With your friends and family
Your home is simply lovely.
But I wish that she were here
To serve her bright red Jello
In her tidy garden among the white begonias

In nineteen sixty- seven
The smell of lilac perfume
Mother and her daughters
Together in the evening
Forever and forever.

Through all life's cold dark days of sorrow
I think of her in summer
Young, the age I am now she said "My darlings,
How lucky we are to be here
I love you, my dear.


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LIBERTY

Liberty:A Novel of Lake Wobegon A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty?
Everyone is here—Pastor Ingqvist, the Sons of Knute, Sister Arvonne of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility and her ocarina band, the Norwegian bachelor farmers, Dorothy and the Chatterbox Café, Wally in the Sidetrack Tap—as crowds converge on the little town to celebrate American independence, even as the chairman of the event broods on the great question of the day: Shall we struggle on valiantly here or shall we burst the bonds and find beautiful life in the golden west?



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