People sometimes inquire why a man of aiding keeps doing shows, and I got the answer

last week in the hills of Virginia, an outdoor show near Lexington, a perfect summer night

after a morning downpour, an amiable crowd. My friends Robin and Linda Williams came over

from Stanton to sing with me. I talked about like, well begun, where there's now a veterinary

rheumotherapist, and people are selling artisanal ice from Lake Superior. I talked about it as

a museum quality guy who saw most of the previous century and remembers cursive writing and light

bulb jokes, and the audience stood during intermission and sang going to the chapel and in my life and

American, the country to the end, the battle him of the Republic. In Virginia they know the words

about the watchfires and the circling camps, the evening do's and dams, the dim and flaring lamps,

a crowd, singing in harmony after sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous. I hung out with the

customers before and after the show because there's no backstage at this amphitheater, so I entered

and exited through the audience, and it's startling to hear middle-aged people tell me they listened

to a prairie home companion as kids and grew up with Guy Noir and Dusty and Lefty. I was sort of a

distant uncle to them. I was very busy all those years hosting the show, writing a touring around,

and I was an ambitious author. My hard drive is full of the rusted wreckage of unfinished novels,

and stories, and screenplays. I was not paying attention to the radio audience. It was only a statistic,

and I didn't really believe it. And now, here were the statistics shaking my hand,

and I stood next to them. Well, they took a picture of the two of us. They knew all about me, so

I got them to talk about themselves, and here's a biochemistry professor and a young woman EMT

who wants to become a doctor, a Robert Frost scholar, a Lutheran minister, a data analyst,

a man who quarries limestone, a harpist who's working as a waitress. I'm an old familiar voice to

them. They're all fresh and new to me, and everyone has a story. The radio show was a variety show,

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