Argus-Leader from Sioux Falls, South Dakota • Page 5

Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D. Saturday, June 13, 1987 5A ILuUca Do you know? Keillor understood Ann I 1 i. laughter is like tears By ANN GRAUVOGL Argjs Leader Staff Today won't be a quiet day in Lake Wobegon. The town that time forgot will lose its most fa mous child when the final episode of A Prairie Home Companion airs at 5 p.m. today.

As Garrison Keillor slips back into the quiet life of a shy person, 4 million listeners will be on hand to say goodbye. From chic Georgetown condominiums to rustic Montana cabins, fans will gather around radios in tribute to Keillor gentle appreciation of the everyday absurd. From the time he opens with the familiar strains of Hello Love on through the day's happenings in Lake Wobegon and finally to goodnight, Keillor will woo and win 8 million ears. The show can be heard locally on Sioux Falls' KRSD-FM at 88.1, Vermillion's KUSD-FM at 89.7, or Brookings' KESD-FM at 88.3. The show will be followed by a retrospective on South Dakota Public Radio.

Those who make a habit of analyzing everything will have one last chance to consider what it is that makes Keillor so successful. After 13 years on the radio, the man who brings Boy Scouts, church and ice caps for cats into the modern living room has been compared to Mark Twain, James Thurber, E.B. White, William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, Henry David Thoreau and Will Rogers. Keillor has a wonderful sense of incongruity, speech rhythm and local color, says Bill Geyer, an English professor at Augustana College. Those are the elements from which American humor always springs.

Geyer compares Keillor to the humorists of the Old Southwest in cluding George Washington Harris and Augustus Baldwin Longstreet Keillor, like his predecessors, enters the rhythm of the speech and the thoughts of those he talks about, Geyer says. That gives his stories authenticity. A good humorist can create a world that people enter easily, says Ruth Alexander, chairwoman of the South Dakota State University English department. Keillor created Lake Wobegon as Faulkner did Yoknapatawpha County or Twain the Mississippi River country. Lake Wobegon becomes real, she says.

"You see yourself and people that you know." Keillor's humor works because listeners can laugh with the characters as well as at them. Alexander has no qualms about calling Keillor a genius. She offers KeillorSee 7A Don't touch By KELLY P. KISSEL The Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. -The departure of Garrison Keillor will create a void in public broadcasting, but producers and distributors of other shows hope Prairie Home Companion's 4 million listeners will leave their radios on.

A half-dozen programs, four of which already are in production, are looking for the audiences that have been listening to Minnesota Public Radio's Prairie Home Companion Saturday evenings since 1980. "Some people won't listen to radio anymore, but some will listen to the other shows and discover that radio is wonderful," said We will miss our shy guy I agree with Wally, the bartender down at the Sidetrack Tap. Garrison Keillor, host of A Prairie Home Companion, is making a big mistake by going away. At least he's leaving a big hole in 4 million Saturday nights. If that makes me conservative or a little too eager to hang on to what I've got, well I can't help it.

After all, I'm a German Catholic, reared well in my own church of perpetual responsibility. As anyone who's listened to Keillor knows, we don't like to change. WHAT WILL BECOME of Saturday nights now? Who will tell the stories about those folk we've all known for years? Who will understand that to be Midwestern might be OK despite, or maybe because of, all the emotional baggage' that comes with the territory? Saturday night without Keillor will be like Linus without a blanket: A certain amount of security will be missing. When Hello Love began on the radio, we knew everything was right with the world or at least a piece of it. Who cared from 5 to 7 on Saturday nights whether this year's hemlines would go up or down? Who needed to worry about a new car or painting the house? the self-imposed intricacies of surviving in modern America seemed less important as we laughed at lessons in talking Minnesotan or learned that cats can be paranoid.

too. KEILLOR GAVE my family a quiet place in a busy week. Twen ty minutes in Lake Wobegon was an excuse to ignore the supper that needed to be cooked or the walk that needed to be shoveled. Even my husband, who learned well that sitting is akin to sin. sat and listened.

We don't have many of those times in 1987. Father Jim Doyle tries to create that kind of peace during the hour he lures us into St. Michael's Catholic Church every weekend. The difference was that even the kids didn't wig-' gle during Keillor's sermons. Who else will recognize the ab surd possibilities in everyday life? Who else will let us laugh gently at ourselves? Who else can we count on to be there every Saturday, every week, every year? So yes, I agree with Wally.

I know Keillor, who's now 44, deserves a break. I know shy people can't be public people forever. I know we can all read his books. I even know Noah Adams, a fine public radio announcer, will do a good job with whatever he decides to create. BUT I KNOW KEILLOR'S making a mistake.

What is he, a regu lar guy from Minnesota, going to do overseas for heaven sane; He could wish he was back at the Sidetrack Tap before the sum mer is out. I know if he wants to change his mind, a lot of us will be ready to let him visit again. BEST BET for the weekend: The last Prairie Home show airs at 5 tonight on Sioux Falls' KRSD-FM at 88.1, Vermillion's KUSD-FM at 89.7, or Brookings' KESD-FM at 88.3. South Dakota Public Radio will air a Prairie Home retrospective following the show. Ann Grauvogl is an Argus Leader columnist.

and i4. il What is the state insect? Pccplo Zappa gets zapped as 'Late Show' host Frank Zappa, like Joan Rivers, has been canned by Fox Broadcasting as host of The Late Show. In a terse announcement re leased Thursday, Fox said it was canceling the avant-garde musician's appearance as guest host on Friday night's show and replacing him with a non-Rivers 4 rerun. Although Fox had ap-proached him about doing the mJtl chnur Tnno said his ap- Frank ZaPPa pearance fell through because of the guests he had scheduled for the show. They weren't too controversial or off-beat; they were too tame, he said.

Zappa said Late Show producer John Scura told him, "People want laughs; they'll be nodding out." After several false starts, Zappa scheduled National Public Radio commentator Daniel Schorr and Gerard Thomas Straub, whose book, Salvation lor Sale, details his firing as pro ducer of Pat Robertson's The 700 Club. Zappa said he initially wanted Prince, Wynton Marsalis and the group Cameo as his guests. Fox agreed, but none was available. Scura declined to be inter viewed about the cancellation of Zappa's one-night stand. Columnist's fiancee said yes over cookie Jeffrey Zaslow, one of two col umnists who will share the Ann Landers' advice column, is witty, intelligent and sensitive, says Sherry Margolis, who plans to marry Zaslow next month.

Zaslow and Diane Crowley will jointly replace Eppie Lederer at the Chicago bun-limes. Margolis, a broadcaster at WJBK-TV in Detroit, said she in tends to keep her job, so the cou pie will have a commuter mar riage. She said she met Zaslow, a tea- ture writer for the Wall Street Journal, at the wedding of a fel low journalist. He proposed to her last year after dinner in a Chica go Chinese restaurant with a cus tomized fortune cookie whose message was "Say yes." Hot movies 1. Beverly Hills Cop II 2.

The Untouchables 3. Harry and the Hendersons 4. Ernest Goes to Camp 5. The Secret of My Success 6. The Gate 7.1shtar 8.

Creepshow II 9. Platoon 10. The Chipmunk Adventure Briefly Colorado town gets ticked at festival time A bie crowd is expected to swarm into Heeney, this weekend for the seventh annual Tick Festival honoring those nastv little oodsuckers. The festival in this north cen tral Colorado town of 63 people began in 1981 when resident Faith Tiardes recovered from a bad case of tick fever and her friends decided to celebrate with a pic nic. Tiardes.

Heenev's first Tick Queen, left town shortly after the festivities, but the celebration has continued. The festival, set to begin today includes a Darade. a turkey shoot. a canoe race, a tug or war, a nsn ing contest, an archery competi tion, a funny-boat race and street dancing to music by a band called Slick When Wet. The 1987 Tick King and Tick Queen must be town residents.

Winners are se ected by me amount of monev dumped into jars on the counter or the ureen Mountain Inn. Keats Scott, a waitress there, remembers the time she was crowned Tick Oueen by mistake fimtnmers thought the iar was for tips, and just kept putting money in despite her pleas. "Ymi rpallv don't want to win, said Scott, whose husband is a ranHidate for Tick King this year. "It's an honor that's tough to live down, HI tell you. Hovt you do The honeybee.

So long, 'Com anion that dial other shows ready to fill gap and, at two hours and before a live audience, it is the closest of the NPR offerings to Prairie Home Companion, which is distributed by the rival American Public Radio network. Ridenour plays down any similarities "Radio variety shows did not begin with Prairie Home Companion but he said some of his program's 87 stations are moving the show to better times in an apparent attempt to get some of the audience. WCPN in Cleveland, for example, will begin carrying Mountain Stage at 6 p.m. Saturday the same time slot in which it carried Prairie Home Companion for the ReplacementsSee 7A Keillor's shoes and aren't that willing to try, either. "Whoever has to be after Garrison Keillor is not necessarily in a happy position," Boal said.

Stuart Rosenberg, the producer and host of Flea Market, said "If you confront people with something in the place of something they love, they may stay away from it." "We don't have a high-falutin' goal of being the top program," said Mountain Stage producer Andy Ridenour in Charleston. "What we're trying to do is provide an opportunity for performers and audience to get together in the medium in which we work." National Public Radio began distributing Mountain Stage last June 'it Dean Boal of National Public Radio, which distributes Mountain Stage. Our Front Porch. Flea Market and Whad'ya Know? "I mean no ill will toward Minnesota Public Radio, but Garrison's leaving does open new opportunities for everyone in broadcasting." Boal said. Keillor, who became public radio's one true star after publishing a best-selling book about his fictional Lake Wobegon and appearing on the cover of Time magazine, has decided to leave Prairie Home Companion after 13 years and move to his wife's native Denmark.

Boal and the producers of programs similar to Prairie Home Companion know they will not fill The Albert and Ida September 1911. was 5 Calendar marks celebration of 100 years of Buntrocks aim uiipv jwp i "1 the homestead where Albert Buntrock and 'Leader Staff PZ his wife raised pigs, chickens and cattle a descendants of Albert P. and Ida A (7.. harvested corn, wheat and other crops Bv GAH Y. HUEY Araus Leader Staff his wife octpad whprp Alhprt Buntrock and raised pigs, chickens and cattle harvested corn, wheat ano oiner crops.

the first reunion, the family put to Buntrock have filled a calendar with 100 years of living. It's a 12-month calendar that tells in souin udKuia. parsonage have since descendants flocked from 15 planned 1985, for a gathering near St. John i Frnm gether a pictures. was used grandson of the Each descendants 11 is Lorna Lars year.

The Adam both 6 the calendar died Sept. Family the calendar which said. They 29 to this The two days lunch, history book from family trees and Information from the history book this time for the calendar, said Erling Podoll, 62, who is in charge reunion. page of the calendar has a photo of of each of Albert and Ida Bun-trock's children. The only one still living Buntrock Herseth, 78, mother of Herseth, who ran for governor last youngest additions to the calendar are Herther and Jennifer Ann Podoll, months.

The latest death entered in is Bertha Buntrock, 93, who 16, 1986. members, have helped put together and add pages to the book, constantly needs updating, Podoll replaced three pages and added year's book. reunion this time around is filled with of activity. A worship service, program, games and visiting time is the tears and joy of birth and death. It has photographs, some old, some new, of generations that descended from the German immigrant couple that married in 1887 and farmed in Columbia, a town of 240 northeast of Aberdeen.

In spaces where there are no dates, Buntrocks send each other brief hellos. In March, readers get "greetings from the Hong Kong Buntrocks." In August, Orville and Cecelia say, "May the Lord bless our reunion." The calendar is one tribute to the first Buntrocks who settled in South Dakota. Albert P. Buntrock, who was born in Cammin, Pomerania, Germany, in 1856, immigrated to the United States in 1872 and moved near Columbia in 1884. Ida Yeske, who was born in Pommern, Germany, in 1870, moved to Minnesota in 1875 and then to Brown County in 1883.

More than 300 descendants are gathering this weekend at Columbia Park in Columbia Photo courtesy Buntrock calendar Buntrock family, as seen here in this family portrait of the first of the Buntrocks to seme gregation and the only heard about. For others, it's a time to renew ties. The celebration also coincides with the centennial birthday of the St. John's Lutheran Church that once' sat on moved into town. The reunion is the second in two years for ho famiiv which has about 500 members.

today. A service win De aunuuy tu Lutheran cnurcn. More than 230 states June 29, to celebrate the 100th wedding anniversary nf fhp rnnnlp Fnr manv. the gathering land the couple donated in 1905 lor tne church, parsonage and cemetery. The con means a chance to see faces they until now.