Today's Music Selection - The Cat Song

One of my favorite things to do is to listen to the radio broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion.  If you are unfamiliar with the show, here in Chicago it airs on NPR's 91.5 WBEZ at 5 PM. Since Saturdays tend to be a bit busy, I rely on their website to hear the show. You can see a rundown of last week's show (or earlier archived shows) here.  The show runs for two hours and includes songs, skits, and commercials from places like Bertha's Kitty Boutique and Powdermilk Biscuits (Heavens, they're tasty!).  Each week Keillor gives a 20-minute monologue about the news from Lake Wobegon. After a while, you know all the characters and you enjoy it even more. You look forward to hearing the latest about Lutheran Pastor Inqvist, Father Emil of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, the Lake Wobegon Whippets baseball team, and various members of the Bunsen and Krebsbach families. When our kids were young, they fell asleep listening to cassette tapes, then CDs of Lake Wobegon, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." The best show of the year is the Pretty Good Joke Show, which usually has Roy Blount, Jr. or Paula Poundstone as a guest. A typical example:   

What does your father do for a living?
He is a magician. He cuts people in two.
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Yes, one half-brother and one half-sister....   

I have used several of their jokes over the years in Commencement addresses. Always a hit. I would encourage you to listen to a show on the website. It takes some time, but I think that's one of the messages of the show. Sometimes you just have to make time to do the things that are worth doing. The video below is from quite a few years ago and is typical of the songs and skits you will hear on the radio show.  Enjoy.