IT WAS A DARK NIGHT in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, and our cover was being blown by Guy Noir and the Prince of Wales. "We're from Philadelphia if you haven't figured that out by now," said Garrison Keillor at the end of a two-hour love song to our city broadcast live on National Public Radio Saturday night from the Kimmel Center. Meanwhile at the Academy of Music one block north on Broad Street, the future king of England and his princess consort held court at the Academy Ball. The eyes of royal watchers around the world were on Philadelphia at the same time the ears of Prairie Home Companions were listening to Keillor tell the audience, "Some people get to dance with royalty and others of us pretend we don't care."

Moe and Kathy, our next door neighbors, went to the ball and before they left Kathy jokingly referred to Lady Camilla as "The Duchess of Adultery." By all accounts Their Royal Highnesses were a big hit with Philadelphians, which pleased me despite the fact that, being a Philadelphian, I wouldn't cross the street to shake Prince Charles' hand. Maybe it's the Irish in me (the Clark side of the family), or maybe it's where I grew up.

Whatever it is I recognized myself in Keillor's description of Philadelphia as a "city that knows its own mind. . . They like what they like. And what they don't like they complain about." Keillor seemed impressed, and slightly in awe, of Philadelphia's willingness to speak it own mind. "I come from a non-booing state," he said, minutes before he heard boos (good natured, of course) when he said, "Outsiders associate Philadelphia with political corruption, Legionaires Disease and bombing row houses."

But for the better part of two hours the Prairie Home Companion was the radio show that loves us back. Keillor always tips his hat to the host city each week, but for Philadelphia he genuflected. There wasn't a ten minute span that he didn't reference the city, its majesty, its mystery and its meaning to America and to itself. It was in Philadelphia, he said, that "in a moment of elegance and clarity" the men gathered here wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. He praised the Mummers Parade. "This is not a sedate public event," he said. "These people are Italian."

He gloried in the architecture. He understood our taste in food. One skit featured something called a "Philadelphia Slider" a sausage filled with cheese that "goes down great with beer." In the same skit WHYY's Terry Gross proved her comedic skill by portraying a Philadelphia punk rocker with pink hair called Sandy Beach, "It's pronounced Beach, but it's spelled B-I-T-C-H." Terry said, sounding exactly like Terry Gross. Beach told private eye Guy Noir that she had moved on from the current music scene. "Irony is dead, Mr. Noir. Sincerity is the new irony." And then Keillor led the entire audience in singing, "Oh, beautiful for spacious skies. . ." and by the time they got to "America, America, God shed his grace on thee" there wasn't a dry eye on my face.