NAMES IN THE NEWS : Garrison Keillor Goes Home

Garrison Keillor returned home and told former neighbors that they didn’t inspire whimsical Lake Wobegon, the fictitious town made famous in his radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.”

“Lake Wobegon is not about Anoka,” he said Monday. “It’s a romance, a comic romance, and Anoka is a real place and it’s infinitely more complicated and interesting.”

He also delivered the commencement address at Anoka High School, telling students: “Graduation is a graceful and sweet old ceremony. What it means is that it’s time to gather your stuff together and get out.”

The author and humorist thanked his hometown for helping spawn the insecurity he says he needed to become a writer.

“On the off chance that Anoka might feel bad, might feel guilty for making me feel inferior, I came back to say it’s all right,” he said.

Keillor, 47, has written four books. He lives in New York and is host of a new public-radio show, “The American Radio Company of the Air.”