The mythical community of Lake Wobegon, created by Garrison Keillor and presented each week through the public radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," is the place to which everyone wants to return. A town devoid of newfangled technology, where life goes on pretty much as it always has, Lake Wobegon offers respite to listeners who daily face the complexity of modern life. The fictional citizens of Lake Wobegon do not pursue personal life styles; they are not concerned with personal needs so much as community survival. Change is something longtime residents do not welcome, and modern technology and values are objects of ridicule. The tension between parents and children provides the substance of many Keillor monologues and stories, becoming, in many instances, a metaphor for the tension between Lake Wobegon and the outside world. The only way to escape is to leave home--in effect, to leave behind the values of the town--an amusing, nostalgic theme with enormous cross-generational appeal for listeners, many of whom are displaced Midwesterners. Through the radio show, listeners are able to return in humor to the life they left behind. The charm of "A Prairie Home Companion" lies in its author's ability to portray the myth of Lake Wobegon in such a way as to uncover the touching paradoxes of life, which enables listeners to keep their lives in perspective. It is concluded that Keillor's monologues draw on both myth and reality. (NKA)