A Prairie Home Companion
Saturdays at 6 p.m.
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Garrison Keillor Offers a Wobegon Romance

In Garrison Keillor's new release (September 2009), Margie Kresbach dreams up the idea of a trip to Rome, hoping to get her husband Carl to make love to her. He's been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why.

She finds a patriotic purpose for the journey. A Lake Wobegon boy, Gussy Norlander, died in the liberation of Rome in 1944 and his grave, according to his elderly brother, Norbert, is in a neglected weed patch near the Colosseum. So it's decided they will go to clean Gussy's final resting place.

Margie is unprepared for the enthusiastic response -- 50 people want to go with her, including her nemesis, the mayor of Lake Wobegon; Carl's bossy sister, Eloise; Mr. Berge, the town drunk; and her treacherous mother-in-law. Margie fends off some of the would-be travelers with a graphic handout on the dangers of typhus and food poisoning and the seriousness of diarrhea, but 10 applicants remain, though Carl is not sure he wants to go after all.

At this, a heartbroken Margie gets the motley crew to the airport and aboard the plane and then discovers one of the secret pleasures of travel. Safely away from Lake Wobegon, the pilgrims' memories are quickened as they recall long-forgotten incidents. In the warm circle of kinship, they enter alien territory, they tell stories of astonishing frankness and self revelaton, all delivered with Keillor's trademark humor.