(GK: Garrison Keillor; TK: Tom Keith)
(SLOW, OUT OF TUNE "AULD LANG SYNE")
GK: This year why settle for an ordinary New Year's Eve in a hotel ballroom watching a bunch of old guys play foxtrots? Why not join Tom Keith for (LASER BEATS) The Millenium Eve of a Lifetime---- It starts right here in New York with a helicopter ride over Manhattan (CHOPPER), Times Square, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, and then a train trip (TRAIN CHUGGING WHISTLE) west to the Poconos where you'll be taken by antique car (MODEL T) to historic Pocono Village and travel by horse and buggy (WHINNY, HOOVES) to an authentic farm (CHICKEN FLURRY) and watch a barn-raising (SAWING) and a quilting bee (TITTERS) and see butter being churned (SQUISHES) and rugs being woven (LOOM, SERIES OF ALT SWISH AND KONK) and then it's back to New York's Kennedy Airport where the supersonic Concorde waits to carry you west (JET TAKEOFF), into the setting sun and beyond, to the noontime sun of Hawaii (SURF, GULLS) --- yes, you'll prolong 1999 out in the mid-Pacific, scuba-diving (SCUBA) off Waikiki with friendly dolphins (DOLPHINS) and exploring the mysterious depths aboard the USS Nautilus (KLAXON) as she dives 10,000 feet and heads for the International Date Line (MOTORS THUMPING, IDLING) where, at 11:59 p.m. Friday, you'll be wrapped in tinsel and put into a forward torpedo tube and (BIG WHOOSH) shot out of the water and into the year 2000 (TK WHOOPEE IN FLIGHT) and splash-down on Sunday (SPLASH). All of that, all for the price of your first-born child. Yes, that's all it costs. Take a look at your oldest child and think, how much fun has that child been? (TK TEEN: Dad? Mom?) And then compare it to the fun of a (CHOPPER) helicopter ride, train trip (CHUGGING), visit to farm (CHICKEN FLURRY), travel on the Concorde (JET TAKEOFF), dolphins (DOLPHINS), submarine (KLAXON), and blast-off (WHOOSH) plus fireworks. Yes, fireworks are included too. Happy 2000, everybody. (FIREWORKS END)
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor