The best part of our excursion was seeing Garrison Keillor at the Lied Center. My husband and I were fans long before we approached the age where being such is considered cool, or at least artsy.

In case you've never met: Keillor is an all-American storyteller whose venues include books, columns and radio. He hales from Minnesota and much of his "fictional" work centers around the subjects of mid-western living.

My husband and I take in his radio program, "The Prairie Home Companion," every weekend on National Public Radio. We laugh out loud at Keillor's satire and references to potluck dinners and the medicinal qualities of ketchup while our children's stares remind us that we are far from cool. And they don't appreciate artsy.

But we are in good company. The Lied Center was packed with fans who paid a pretty penny to hear a disheveled man in a suit and red sneakers speak of the familiar. And it occurred to me that even grown-ups love a good bedtime story.

When I was a little girl growing up on Cottonwood Drive I used to beg my parents to read me "just one" bedtime story. And I knew just what to pick something fat that would take all night.

Recently my parents downsized and requested that we three girls pillage through the old books that were taking up space in their basement. As if a dinner bell had been rung, we came running.

It seemed natural that certain books would go to each of us. I scored "The Gypsy Girl's Red Shoes" and "Me Too, Me Too," among others. I don't recall how everything was divvied up, but sitting on the floor with my sisters and a box containing the stories of our childhood is something I'll always remember.

And my children were thrilled when I came home with a stack of "new" books. They, too, are bookworms and beggars for a bedtime story.

Our first-grader loves fairy tales or any Junie B. Jones book. Often, in the middle of the night, we'll hear a loud thump. My husband and I hardly flinch anymore. We assume it's just her flashlight or a pile of books sliding off her bed onto the hardwood floor.

My fourth-grade daughter prefers mystery and all things dark and creepy. I've enjoyed revisiting Nancy Drew along with her. In return she's introduced me to The Sisters Grimm and Lemony Snicket's series. We were extremely proud when she asked for a book light for Christmas.

And my middle school daughter loves books about interesting people overcoming dire circumstances. Unfortunately, I think she'd love to get her hands on a good romance novel too, and I'll put that in the genre of horror.

In general our girls love to read about the far away, the fantastical and the extraordinary. And that's because they're children with their whole lives ahead of them.

But then there's my husband and me and all the artsy folk who took in a night of simple storytelling last week. Keillor's stories neither inspired me to greatness nor piqued my curiosity of long agos and far aways. They didn't end with happily ever afters either. And they didn't scare me at all except when I looked around the auditorium and realized that most of those artsy people were sporting gray hair and orthopedic shoes.

When I take in a movie I prefer action and suspense, mostly because I tend to fall asleep otherwise. And I still love a good who-dun-it page-turner. But at bedtime I seek out the familiar a flip through a baby book, a stroll down memory lane, a simple recap of the day. Something easy to digest but sweet and satisfying. Something that promises tomorrow will bring more of the same good stuff.

Perhaps Keillor himself said it best when he wrote, "...Nothing human is beneath a writer's attention."

Nor mine. And, with my three favorite characters tucked snugly in bed, I've learned that there lie my best stories.