Author and satirist Bob Mills takes a parodical look at Garrison Keillor's long-running PBS series (and a movie) "Prairie Hope Companion" in a piece that first appeared in his blog "Dr. Digit's Hollywood Memory Blog."

Excerpted from "Dr. Digit's Hollywood Memory Blog" -- Daily Newsworthy Observations Wrapped in Topical Satire With an Ideological Subtext Carefully Crafted For the Intellectually Fit Plus Photos of Old Hollywood

www.bereftontheleft.blogspot.com

 

Well, it’s been a busy week in my hometown of Lake Misbegotten…

* Deacon Holmquist over at Our Lady of Perpetual Plate-Passing announced during Sunday services that the Ladies Sodality will host a pancake breakfast to help defray Mildred Bumgartner’s rising medical bills. According to the buzz at the Chattering Teeth Café, Mildred had recently confided to friends that she had a date with the stork. No, no, she’s not pregnant -- she had a date with an actual stork she claims she met and fell in love with while on a 4-H Club tour of the new aviary over at Pine Mulch.

* Well, her friends thought that a bit odd, so they made an appointment for her at the Amy Semple McPherson Mental Health Clinic & Spa. After administering a series of diagnostic procedures recently developed in Latvia, the docs concluded that Mildred is suffering from what’s referred to within the medical community as mallardiphobia, a rare but not entirely unknown condition whose symptoms include fever, chills and an inordinate desire to experience carnal knowledge with water fowl.

* As some of you may recall, a few years back, Mildred was interrogated by sheriff’s deputies at the Botox County Fair after someone reported observing her under the livestock judging bleachers en flagrante delicto with a goose. Unfortunately, the victim was ol’ Homer Billingsley’s prize gander, “Mr. Pecker“ and the unfortunate incident cost him the blue ribbon that year. According to the intel at the Chattering Teeth, the docs at the clinic suspect that Mildred’s problem may have begun right after graduation from Bruno Hauptmann High when she opted to skip college in favor of full-time entry level employment at Foster Farms as a down-sorter. It was there, you’ll recall, that she met her husband-to-be, Harold, who was a beak-separator while supplementing his income selling used lariats to traveling rodeo cowboys.

* The couple soon married, settled down and led what appeared to be a normal life -- if you don‘t count the criminal charges, later dropped according to court records, that accused Harold of participating in three-way sex with Leopold and Loeb. Life appeared to improve until the unplanned and totally unexpected arrival of twins Skeeter and Tac dashed their lifelong dream of opening a cleaning service specializing in truck stop restrooms.

* It appears that Mildred’s first episode of mental instability occurred just after son Tac turned eighteen. He had expressed a desire for a career in the military, had done well in high school R.O.T.C. and applied to his congressman for an appointment to West Point. Instead, for some reason never fully explained, he received an appointment to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Now you must remember that both Mildred and Harold detested show business, apparently --- and this is pure conjecture at this point --- because Mildred’s mother had committed suicide while working as a social secretary to Fatty Arbuckle.

* Of course, all that can be hoped for now is that Mildred’s mental stability be restored so that she can return to her much-appreciated volunteer job mending prayer shawls at Temple Beth Georgie Jessel. And in a bit of good news toward that end, the National Audubon Society has, bowing to public pressure, dropped their sexual harassment suit. I’m sure we’ll hear all the details at the pancake breakfast following the raffle drawing for two free tickets to "Doubt."

Well, that’s the news from Lake Misbegotten... where all the women are looking for a good way out and all the children are living above the garage.

Excerpted from "Dr. Digit's Hollywood Memory Blog" -- Daily Newsworthy Observations Wrapped in Topical Satire With an Ideological Subtext Carefully Crafted For the Intellectually Fit Plus Photos of Old Hollywood

www.bereftontheleft.blogspot.com

A native of San Francisco, Bob Mills served in the Navy from 1956 to 1959, graduated from San Francisco State University in 1962 and the University of California Hastings Law in 1965 and practiced in Palo Alto, California from 1966 until becoming a television writer in 1976, whereupon he ceased all contact with lawyers. He wrote for the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts" 1976-77; "The Bob Hope Show" 1977-92 In 1973, he married his wife, Shelley, with whom he lives in Studio City, California.

He writes a daily topical blog entitled "Dr. Digit's Hollywood Memory Blog" online at www.bereftontheleft.blogspot.com. He is a volunteer reader at Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic in Hollywood and hosts a weekly program entitled "Inside Television" for Los Angeles Radio Reading Service for the Blind in Northridge, California, streamed online each Tuesday at 0820-0900 Pacific at www.larrs.org. Each New Years Day, he co-hosts a three-hour audio description of the Pasadena Rose Parade broadcast to 52 radio stations for the blind reaching 2.7 million listeners via NPR satellite. He's also a substitute co-host of "Access Unlimited" heard on Tuesdays 2:30 to 3:00 pm Pacific on KPFK, 90.7 fm Los Angeles, 98.7 fm Santa Barbara. Streamed live and archived at www.kpfk.org

In 2009, his book THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind the Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers was published by Bear Manor Media in both a print and an audio version read by the author. Sample chapters: www.laughmakers.blogspot.com An unabridged audio version read by the author is available at: http://teach.learnoutloud.com/Browse/Arts-and-Entertainment/Film_-Music_-Radio_-TV_-and-Pop-Culture/The-Laugh-Makers/33067 He is an emeritus member of the Writers Guild of America and holds memberships in two organizations: Yarmy’s Army, a group of veteran writers and entertainers who meet monthly for dinner and produce fund-raisers for worthy causes including the Motion Picture and Television House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, and in The Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters, a social club made up of former radio and television professionals that meets bimonthly for lunch and a celebrity “roast.”

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