A Prairie Home Companion: July 1, 2006

SFX script
Saturday, July 1, 2006
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Garrison Keillor: I don't talk much about myself because that's how I was brought up, to focus attention on others and not hog the spotlight, but nonetheless I can't help but remember that it was here at Tanglewood I came to music camp to study bassoon (SFX) which I had gotten a merit badge in, but I wasn't that good (SFX) so I looked for other ways to make myself useful, and one day Leonard Bernstein was stuck in New York and I volunteered to fly down and pick him up — I had a merit badge in aviation too. (AIRPLANE ENGINE) So I took off and aimed for a beacon I thought was the Minot's lighthouse off Cape Cod but it never seemed to get closer(AIRPLANE SPUTTERING) and eight hours later I realized I'd gone the wrong way. Wings iced up. I was heading north. Had to climb out the window and (SLIPSTREAM, LOUDER ENGINE, CRUNCHING OF ICE BEING SMASHED AND SCRAPED) knock the ice off the wings with a baseball bat. It was pitch black outside. I was losing altitude fast and I didn't know it until a polar bear stood on his hind legs and (BEAR ROAR AS PLANE PASSES) took a swing at me and his claws (RIP) ripped my pants. But I got her straightened out again and (AIRPLANE SMOOTH ENGINE) eleven hours later landed in Siberia. (RUSSIAN GIBBERISH) They thought I was a spy. They threw me in the pokey. (RUSSIAN GIBBERISH, CLANK OF STEEL DOOR). Luckily I had a merit badge in communism too and I knew that commies don't believe anything you say because they lie all the time themselves. So I told them I was going to escape. (RUSSIAN LAUGHTER, DOOR OPEN) They let me out then. I got back in the plane and took off (PLANE TAKING OFF) and managed to make it back to America. It was a big deal at the time. (IMPORTANT GUY TALK) Went to Washington. Big ceremony. (MARCHING FEET, COMMANDS) White House lawn. Honor squad. (RIFLE COMMANDS, SALUTE. BOOM OF CANNONS) Eighteen gun salute. But I just wanted to get back to Tanglewood. Play ping-pong (PING PONG) or badminton (BADMINTON) or tennis (TENNIS) or throw Frisbees to dogs (FRISBEE DOG) and practice the bassoon. (SFX) I was lying out here on the grass one night, listening to Ravi Shankar (SITAR) when I saw the meteoroid heading toward earth (SFX) and I sounded the alarm (KLAXON) and the roof raised off the music shed (MOTORIZED LIFTS) and men came running with trombones which actually were rocket launchers (FOUR ROCKETS) and they fired them out into space and hit the meteoroid (EXPLOSION) and blew it up into little particles the size of a compact car (WHIZZING OF INCOING) one of which landed next to a chicken coop in Mill River (BIG SMASH, CHICKEN FRENZY). And another landed near Great Barrington which used to be called Greater Barrington but was diminished by the meteoroid (METEOROID SMASH). And as you might guess, the vibration set off prehistoric eggs deep in the earth's crust (SFX) which opened and an enormous ape came out (APE ROAR) causing desolation and heartbreak on every hand and I got in my (PLANE SPUTTERING) and flew straight toward that ape (PTERO) and I dropped a peanut butter jar (FLIGHT OF JAR) and he swallowed it (GULP) and now his jaws were stuck together (APE TRYING TO GET P.B. OFF ROOF OF MOUTH) and that enabled me to fly around him with a thousand feet of clothes line (PLANE CIRCLING) and tie him up and down he fell (PTERO FALLS, HITS GROUND) and it was a big thing for awhile — I went to the White House (RIFLE DRILL) and there was a 19-gun salute and there were bagpipers (PIPES) but I don't talk much about it because I wasn't brought up to make a big thing about myself.