Lake Wobegon
Lake Wobegon is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Minnesota, said to have been the boyhood home of Garrison Keillor, who reports the News from Lake Wobegon on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion. Its location is believed to be north of St. Cloud and is claimed to be the town of Holdingford.
Name
On the show Keillor says the town's name comes from a fictional old Indian word meaning "the place where we waited all day in the rain [for you]." Keillor explains, "Wobegon sounded Indian to me and Minnesota is full of Indian names. They mask the ethnic heritage of the town, which I wanted to do, since it was half Norwegian, half German." The English word woebegone is defined as "affected with woe" and can also mean "shabby, derelict or run down." The term could also be a portmanteau of woe, be, and gone, as in "woe, be gone".
Standard monologue items
In Keillor's weekly monologue about Lake Wobegon, there are recurring monologue descriptions of the town:
Podcasts:
