Mr. Keillor,
After many years of listening, my wife and I will make our first trip to the Fitzgerald this weekend. We've never been to St. Paul before — what should we see on our way to the show, and where should we eat after?

It's our 15th wedding anniversary, which means it should be someplace special, but because 15 years on has us brimming with kids, pets and monthly payments of all kinds, not too expensive.

Liam C.
Milwaukee

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Liam, we are deeply honored that you and your wife would go through all the rigmarole of arranging child care and farming out pets and make the long trek to St. Paul at a cold and dreary time of year, and though you are a proud man and likely to put up a fight, we are going to twist your arm and make you accept a gift certificate to the St. Paul Grill in downtown St. Paul. It's a good restaurant and the staff is friendly and you'll like it. After fifteen years, you deserve no less. The Grill is a bright spot downtown and from a window table you can see the statue of F. Scott Fitzgerald in Rice Park. He is standing, coat over his arm, as if waiting for his ride. Beyond him is the old courthouse with its lighted clock tower and across the square from it is the public library. On the hill above and beyond the courthouse you can spot the lighted dome of the St. Paul Cathedral up on Ramsey Hill with Selby Avenue running alongside it. If, in the afternoon, you want to climb that hill and walk up Selby, you'd want to step into Nina's Coffeeshop on the corner of Western & Selby to warm up, and if you go to the bookstore in the cellar below the coffeeshop, you will find a gift certificate in your name so that you can purchase a decent St. Paul guidebook to tell you more about the city. There's a nice little guidebook to Fitzgerald sites in town, if that interests you, one of which is W.A. Frost's across the street, a restaurant that used to be a drugstore where the impoverished young Fitzgerald used to buy his cigarettes in 1919 while he was working on the novel that made him famous. Or you can spend it on anything you like. I own the bookstore, Common Good Books, so it's no problem. Enjoy your time and my best to you both.