Back home to the humid warmth of a Minnesota summer with loud neighbors, Twin Cities drivers, airplane noise, and mosquitoes, but, also, with all the familiar stuff I love so well—the lakes, great restaurants, coffee shops, Midwestern politeness, bike trails, intense greenery, Qwest Internet, and my writing, which is a form of painful Zen meditation. I do love road trips, such as the one we took to Moab, but I don’t miss the road. When you sit on the toilet in a smelly restroom in a gas station somewhere in the middle of nowhere, you can see the center stripe of the highway running between your legs, and when you sleep at night, it is still rushing at 75 miles an hour through the center of your brain. My former English friend, Tony, after driving with his family to the Black Hills, said, “American is vast, so unbelievably vast.” Because he was a prig, he also said, “Americans are fine in their own country.” What was it Christ said? “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s.” Yes, I’m home, proud of America, and feisty as hell.

On this cold and blustery day in December, I feel like saying something about Garrison Keillor, Minnesota’s favorite son, though I’m not entirely sure what to say. I suppose this is because Garrison is an institution. What do you say about the Minnesota Institute of Arts, the Guthrie Theater, or the Walker, except they’re there, they have nice shows, and they’ve been a part of our heritage for ages?

I first started listening to Garrison when he had his own morning program at the University of Minnesota radio station. This was a long time ago. He was fresh-faced then, unpolished, and not quite so sure of himself. Whenever I could, I tuned him in. Because he was successful and needed a wider audience, he moved his program to Minnesota Public Radio, where he became a household name. When he got the idea for a Prairie Home Companion and started writing, Garrison became known internationally. (When English acquaintances learn I’m from Minnesota, the first name they mention is Garrison Keilor’s.) In a sense, Garrison has put Minnesota on the map.

The only out-of-character thing Garrison ever did was leave Minnesota in a huff for New York City. This happened because a local journalist described in delicious detail Garrison’s pursuit of his Danish lover while he was still married. Keillor didn’t like being portrayed as a bad guy. Who can blame him? Like many people in the public eye, he hated having his privacy invaded. He said he was never coming back, but, of course, he did. Both Garrison and Minnesota needed each another. Who is Costello without Abbott? Or George Burns without Gracie Allen? Garrison had no idea how to make fun of New Yorkers.

I still like listening to his monologues. He’s a very funny man, but I can do without the music and the schlock. I miss his young voice with its deep resonance, honesty, and range (it’s become tinny in old age). There was something magical about him then, before he became a polished celebrity. He was a joy because you never knew what he might put on the turntable or say next. If I ran across Garrison at a party (which, of course, is never going to happen), I wouldn’t dream of introducing myself or trying to chat him up. There would be no surprises. I’d already know everything he might say.

Shoveling snow is one of the things that makes us special in Minnesota. In winter we do it on the average of twice a week from December through March, and sometimes into April. March is a particularly bad month, for then the white stuff seems to come down in feet rather than inches. In Minneapolis we are required to shovel our sidewalks by city ordinance, though I doubt it’s seldom enforced unless someone complains. It makes us a hearty lot, though a number of people now hire others to do it. Now that I’m sixty, I use a snowthrower, something I eschewed as a younger man, though there are still plenty of opportunities to use a shovel. The thing I like best about clearing snow is that it’s a communal act. We do it together, before everyone leaves for work, or just after work when there is still a bit of sun left. Neighbors shovel the sidewalks of other neighbors. Children get involved, and so do dogs. One neighbor with whom I haven’t spoken in years sent me an email thanking me for doing her sidewalk the other day. I wrote back saying that I hadn’t, though I wished I had, and now we’re on speaking terms again. See what I mean?

This morning when I bought my latte at the local coffee shop, the barista (a lovely girl who dresses as a boy and proclaims she’s a transsexual) started talking about Scientology. I like her a lot and listened carefully. Then we talked about fundamentalist Christianity, but she was too young and urban to understand what I was trying to tell her.

When I grew up in a small southern Minnesota town, we laughed at the hellfire-and-brimstone preachers on the radio. Now it’s no longer a laughing matter. They have taken over most small-sized Minnesota cities. A friend whose husband teaches science in one of these towns is regularly shouted down in class when he implies that the earth is older than 6000 years. It’s not hard to see what has happened to education in these places and why. American flags fly from many of the homes, paranoid patriotism is the norm, and anyone who’s “liberal” and educated is shunned. Of course, America has a long tradition of this kind of small-mindedness, but it has now spread everywhere. Rove and Bush used these people, especially those in the press, as “brownshirts” whose job it was to intimidate the rest of us into silence. The frightening thing was that they almost succeeded.