(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; FN: Fred Newmann; RD: Rich Dworsky)

GK: -- this portion of our program brought to you by the Catchup Advisory Board.

(MUSIC)

TR: These are the good years for me and Barb. My folk group the Split Level Ramblers played at the Anglo-Saxon street fair, and during my dulcimer solo all the children held their cigarette lighters high in the air. Our neighbors developed algae in their garden fountain, which eventually got into the walls of their house and drove them out and I was able to go over and take down their wind chimes that have been driving me nuts all these years. And my Men's Literary Club was taking up the Memoirs of Casanova. We should have been happy. Then one afternoon I found Barb in the kitchen, weeping into a Kleenex.

SS: Oh Jim. I'm worried about lightning. What if a bolt of lightning hits the house and shoots right through the telephone while we're talking on it and we lose an ear? Did you know that 73 people a year are hit by lightning?

TR: That's about as many as get hit by unicycles, Barb.

SS: I mean it. We're sitting here absolutely vulnerable--..

TR: We're also vulnerable to meteorites.

SS: My brother Earl was hit by lightning and he got all confused and his golf game went to pieces and his hair smelled burned for years and he forgot the Lord's Prayer and he lost his taste for barbecue.

TR: So that's the deal with Earl--

SS: He could never eat bar-b-que again. He and Ellen went to Kansas City once and they skipped the barbecue and had dinner at a Norwegian restaurant and had fried herring and boiled potatoes and string beans.

TR: A man who would pass up barbecue is not operating with a full deck of cards, Barb. Because you know the secret of Kansas City barbecue is the ketchup in the sauce. Oh, sure, they spice it up, but it's ketchup that gives barbecue those natural mellowing agents that make you feel so contented after a meal. What do you say we get some ketchup and stick some pork in it-----

SS: Oh, Jim--

RD (sings): These are the good times, waiting for our ships,
Hearts full of laughter, a song upon our lips.
Life is flowing, like ketchup on pork ribs.

GK: Ketchup. For the good times--.
RD (sings): Ketchup--..ketchup----.

© Garrison Keillor 2002