(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
(KETCHUP MUSIC)
GK: Tonight's Halloween broadcast is brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Board.
TR: These are the good years for Barb and I -
SS: Barb and me.
TR: These are the good years for Barb and me - our marriage has survived major hair loss and serious credit-card debt and now that the kids are off welfare and the cat was run over, she and I are closer than ever ...
(NIGHTTIME AMBIANCE. CRICKETS)
SS: It's a beautiful night, Jim. I feel so privileged to sit here on our deck and share the experience with you.
TR: Thank you.
SS: But why are you holding that butcher knife, Jim?
TR: I don't know.
SS: What's on your mind, Jim?
TR: The problem of evil, Barb. If God is all-powerful, why does He allow me to struggle unappreciated, working for chickenfeed, persecuted by appliance failure, while evil men prosper?
SS: But we have a good life, Jim. We have each other. We have public radio. We have our faith in reason.
TR: I know - and yet I have this sense that we're on the edge of the precipice and just about to start that long grim slide toward disaster.
SS: It's Halloween, Jim. It's all right to be scared.
TR: You're not afraid that evil and ignorance may triumph in Tuesday's election and that the stock market will come crashing down on Wednesday and our retirement account will suddenly be worth the price of a week in Cancun and I'll be forced to spend my golden years working as a security guard at the Mall of America?
SS: It's Halloween, Jim. That's all. Relax.
TR: I know, but I'd like to know how Alan Greenspan is celebrating it tonight. Is he handing out big candy bars or the miniatures?
SS: I was reading an interesting article the other day, Jim.
TR: Oh?
SS: It said that eating chocolate makes people crazy and paranoid.
TR: Interesting.
SS: But ketchup is loaded with natural mellowing agents that help people relax and enjoy life.
TR: Ketchup. I almost forgot.
SS: Maybe it's time we remembered again.
TR: Maybe, instead of handing out candy tonight -
SS: I already thought of that. (THE SLIGHT JINGLE OF A BOXFUL OF SMALL BOTTLES) I picked up two hundred restaurant-size bottles. (MUSIC BUILD BEGINS)
TR: Make sure you save one for us, Barb.
SS: I already have, Jim.
RD (SINGS): These are the good years, in the golden sun, A new day is dawning, a new life has begun, The river flowing like ketchup on a bun.
GK: Ketchup ... for the good times.
RD (SINGS): Ketchup ... ketchup.
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor