NORTHROP – Garrison Keillor brought his humor and storytelling prowess to Northrop Sunday as 475 people filled the Martin Luther High School gym for a “Lutherans Laughing” dinner.

Keillor is an internationally known humorist who has been the writer, host and star of “A Prairie Home Companion” for 41 years on Minnesota Public Radio.

“Thank you for letting me talk about you through the years,” he told the predominately Lutheran audience.

“The real reason I’ve come was for the food,” he said, referring to the customary Lutheran hotdish supper that was served. He lamented that it was very hard to find a restaurant that serves a good hotdish in the Twin Cities, where he lives. “It’s just one more reason to drive all this way.”

Keillor led the audience in several songs, from traditional hymns to the Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There.”

He talked about people and events in his past, bringing the characters to life, describing their quirks and personalities. He talked about growing up in Anoka, with great parents who “took a very severe view of the world.”

Their thinking was: “Sex is filthy and disgusting. Therefore, you should save it for the one you love most,” Keillor said.

When he was 12, Keillor rode his bicycle from his home to the YMCA in downtown Minneapolis to take swimming lessons. Although his mother insisted on the lessons, he skipped them, opting to go to the library. Then he went to the WCCO radio station, where he sat in the studio audience for the live noon show.

“That must have been when I started to be interested in something for which I had no aptitude,” he said.

When he attended the University of Minnesota, he read the noon news for a small station for about eight months. When spring maintenance was being done on the transmitters, it was discovered that all the transmitters had been turned off during that time so no one heard his broadcasts.

Keillor then applied at KUOM, the university’s station.

“I got that job based on my experience – talking to myself,” he said.

That eventually led to “A Prairie Home Companion” and the tales of the folks in Lake Wobegon.

“To stay in radio for 41 years requires short-term memory loss,” Keillor said. “I made so many mistakes at the beginning. Somewhere around the 30th year, I finally started to get the hang of it.”

He credits his success on ignorance and luck.

“You have no idea what you’re trying to do so there’s no failure,” he said. “You have to be prepared to be lucky. Hard work doesn’t necessarily get you anything.”

In addition to “A Prairie Home Companion,” Keillor is working on a screenplay that he hopes will be made into a movie and he is also working on a novel. When he is not working, his favorite pastime is sleeping.

Keillor has no intentions of slowing down.

“I am 72 years old. It’s an age where you have a lot more past than future,” he said. “When you get to be 72, you look back on your life and try to figure it out.”