As Garrison Keillor kicked off his and Prairie Home Companion's visit to the Bismarck Civic Center last week on their Rhubarb Tour, he offered up a whopper of a fib, pulled probably from beneath the placid surface of Lake Wobegon, as he sang these words to the assembled crowd: "North Dakota, the place that I call home."

To his credit, he immediately called himself on it, admitting he was not from North Dakota, he just wishes that he were. And, I could see why, as the Civic Center's intimate theater setting was packed to the rafters with a mostly silver-haired crowd, but with a smattering of young hipsters, dressed for a study group to discuss the prevailing themes of "Walden."

A great crowd, though; the sort of people you'd like to picnic with in the park or volunteer to help out with a landscaping project in their backyard.

Keillor's show was among several national acts to visit the Civic Center this summer, which is to the credit of the staff there and new manager Charlie Jeske, who earlier this year promised to bring more concerts to the facility.

And concerts, they did arrive, in something of a little-bit-for-everyone approach. Alice Cooper, Puddle of Mudd, Jeff Dunham and upcoming shows by Carlos Mencia and Elmo of Sesame Street (separate shows, of course; we already had the comedian with puppets act) are all national names with more than enough drawing power to pull Bismarck residents out of their homes and into those seats.

My little bit of everything was this Garrison Keillor show, though, from the minute it was first announced. I'd been bouncing off the walls for months, visions of powdermilk biscuits - "the biscuits that give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done" - floating through my head, waves of anticipation for some "Bad Jokes" or maybe the further adventures of Guy Noir, private eye.

What I love about Prairie Home Companion, and I suspect most everyone in the Civic Center that night loved, is the inclusiveness I can feel from the show.

The bluegrass music provided by Guy's All-Star Shoe Band carrying on throughout the show, the brilliant country songs of guest Suzy Bogguss and the comedy of radio dramas featuring sound-effects improviser Fred Newman all feel very down home.

Combined with the stories Keillor tells, which are sardonic and far-reaching, but always so familiar, about lost love and memories of growing up on the farm, love for family members and their eccentricities, and reverence for God and country.

The most magical moment of the show, though, was the intermission. This sounds like an insult, I understand, but it's not. This wasn't your standard, "everybody mill around for 15 minutes, smokers run outside and get your fix, children get their picture taken with an elephant" sort of intermission.

This was a standing intermission, a group sing-along intermission. We all stood together and sang together, "Home on the Range," "America the Beautiful" and "Amazing Grace." Of course, everyone knows the first verse of every song, and Keillor coaches us through all subsequent verses.

It was in the moment of singing "Can't Help Falling in Love," holding hands with my own sweetheart, Annette, that I most understood the beauty of living out on our prairie (you'd think this moment would have arrived during "Home on the Range," but no, there's just something about an Elvis song that inspires moments of clarity in my life).

It's the moments of quiet that you can only get from our vast stretches of open land, it's the voices of us and our neighbors, joining together in perfect harmony, it's remembering our past in self-deprecating terms, but with fondness and good humor.

Elvis sing-alongs are why I love America.

(Columnist Kelly Hagen, who now has "Viva Las Vegas" stuck in his head, can be reached at 250-8259 or kelly.hagen@;bismarcktribune.com.)