Some pleasures in life are mostly reserved to those of mature years. Garrison Keillor is one of them.

The host of Prairie Home Companion came to Boston one Saturday in late February to stage one of his radio shows and, the next day, to perform at Sanders Theater across the Charles River.

At the latter site, I saw Keillor, my first sight of one of the greatest humorists America has produced. He came on stage hulking in a tux, his feet encased in red sox and sneakers. Listening to the radio, you would never know how tall he is, six-four or higher. Mop-like, a lock of hair descends over his forehead, threatening to obscure his right eye.

This native Minnesotan, at age 62, has a surprisingly small face. If I emphasizethe man’s looks, it comes from fascination at finally seeing someone after years of only hearing him. Some 65 years ago I had a similar epiphany when I was taken to New York for a live broadcast of the hit show “Information Please.”

My surmise about Keillor’s humor being largely accessible to people of a certain age finds support in a panoramic sweep I made of the Sanders Theater audience. Most people, it seemed, had white or gray hair, with some of the guys having precious little at all.

Garrison Keillor’s view of old age, however, would delight few of its boosters. Here’s some of what he wrote for Time Magazine on the occasion of his 60th birthday: “Even if you're positive-thinking, hopped up on Viagra, and your face has been lifted and stapled to make you look like a feral lemur, nonetheless one day you'll look like something from the lost lagoon and have the sex drive of a potted plant. Nature doesn't care about your golden years, it's aiming for turnover.”

If I wrote like that, I might get high marks for clever style, but would I keep any readers?

Most of the time Keillor restrains such somber thoughts, however. His view of life also has more of the ironic about it than the pessimistic, and he often goes for the sentimental.

Nostalgia, of course, is his chief stock in trade. On the air since 1974, Prairie Home Companion itself is a sophisticated tribute to the old days, the time when he, along with the rest of us, grew up and blundered into knowledge of life.

I remember first listening to it, wondering what kind of show it could be. Who was this fellow from the upper Midwest regaling us with often corny jokes and country music? At times the program sounded as if it was on the level, the real life product of small town America, but one had to wonder.

His characters, like Pastor Ingkvist and Dorothy Myrtle, are convincing types of an earlier society filled with home-grown stereotypes and personal eccentricities. Keillor gets mileage galore out of the mythic population of Lake Wobegone “where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children above average.”

Where would we be in later life without humor like his?  As one of my favorite spiritual writers, Kathleen Fischer, says: “Humor reveals that there is a more in the midst of human life.” It gives us a perspective enabling us to make fun of the ridiculous enterprise that our lives so often appear to be.

Keillor shows himself especially adept at holding up to gentle ridicule the ways of grassroots religion. Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility hits off the Catholic parish nicely, and the Lutheran code of behavior that keeps citizens, both young and old, within the confines of decency gives an entertaining edge to small-town community tales.

What Keillor does best is spin stories. Who can match his timing, his ability to build suspense, the way he can bring out the pathos in a situation without direct statement of it? With his genius for narrative, he reminds us how storytelling is the best way of learning, the ancient art that has most enriched the history of the world.

With the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the visiting entertainer did a riff on some of his favorite poems, including bits and pieces of them in an ongoing monologue accompanied by music. The lines all shared the theme of “gather rosebuds while ye may,” a subversive motif that pervaded poems once innocently recited in junior high school.

Later, he fitted poetic passages between the sections of Ottorino Respighi’s suite “The Birds.” Some doves perched on a telephone wire the poet imagined witnessing his own burial. “Please don’t take him away,” the birds cried, “please don’t take our daddy away.”  

On my way out the door after the Pro Arte concert, I spotted Garrison Keillor standing, head above the crowd, and edged close enough to shake his hand. “Thank you for coming,” I said to this man I consider a cultural icon. “My pleasure, my pleasure,” he rejoindered, these words entirely without trace of his signature irony.

Richard Griffin