It's Been a Quiet Week

When I sit down to write a blog post on Sunday morning, I’m usually thinking two things. One, I should have started this much earlier. And two, what would Garrison Keillor write about?

Garrison Keillor, if you don’t know, is a prolific author with a signature Midwestern storytelling charm. He may be best remembered as the long-time creator and host of the National Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion. On air for decades, starting in the mid-seventies, he gave millions a feel for slow living and small-town Minnesota life through music, comedy, and the famed News from Lake Wobegon.

Lake Wobegon, and the characters who inhabited it, were fictional. But as Keillor recounted the goings-on of the week there, it all felt warmly familiar and nostalgic. His words were comforting, uplifting, and humbling all at once. The stories weren’t true, yet they were deeply authentic. He made you care about Aunt Flo and Wally Kresbach and a whole cast of Norwegian descendants in

“the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve,”

and

"where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

Those lines alone should tell you how good Keillor was.

Keillor’s style can’t be replicated—and that’s not what any of us are trying to do here. Also, Bear Lake is real, so there would probably be a few issues if we started making things up about this place and the people in it. What we do want to maintain at Bear Lake Local is that hard-to-come-by feeling of authenticity. Trust me when I say that neither Bob nor I (nor Cash, for that matter) are very good at being anything other than who we are. What you see—or read—is what you get.

News from Lake Wobegon always started the same way: “It’s been a quiet week at Lake Wobegon.” From our Bear Lake viewpoint, that feels oddly fitting. Let’s try it out.

It’s been a quiet week at Bear Lake. I’ve been down and out with a cold and a cough. Bob has followed suit. Our no-good, germy situation meant missing out on two Christmas parties. The first was Bob’s family gathering at his parents’ house—nine families’ worth of people, ages 1 to 81, a kitchen full of German food, and a rec room of card tables equipped with Wahoo boards, dice, and marbles.

The second was an ugly Christmas sweater party hosted by friends. We’re pretty bummed about that one. Neither of us has ever participated in an official ugly sweater party before. It took some serious Amazon shopping to find the right attire. Hopefully we’ll be invited again next year so we can don our gay apparel, as the song goes.

The weather isn’t helping. No snow and temperatures in the 50s? Needless to say, our Christmas spirit is waning.

This quiet week isn’t the kind we planned, but it’s the kind we got—coughs, canceled plans, and a Christmas that feels a little unfinished. So we’ll save the celebrations for another time. For now, we’re resting, watching the weather, and trusting that the spirit of the season has a way of showing up eventually—even if it’s late and wearing sweatpants.