32 Comments

God, I love you, Mr. Keillor! You make us laugh, and how we need that. I read this post even before I read my Bible this morning, 2 Thessalonians, not Jeremiah, but equally encouraging in a sometimes-depressing sort of way. But the Good Lord who made us both understands, I think. He gets a kick out of you too, I'm quite certain. Keep it coming. We're all likely in for a long and bumpy ride. Thanks for being there!

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I think God has better thingsto do than read my writing. I'm glad you like it though.

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Respectfully, Garrison, I disagree. I think that God treasures the creative things that we do. Hanging on the wall of my home office are little scraps of paper with some of the drawings and writings that our kids and grandkids made for me. I think that our Father in Heaven has a wall like that in His House too with some of your writings and mine.

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Laughter has heavenly blessings.

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Good morning, Garrison. Had a similar experience while visiting in a group of five. The conversation had become biblical, so in an attempt for humor, I posed the question. "Why did God give Adam nipples," and all hell broke out. The least interesting among the group, sitting inside a kitchen eating fresh baked pecan pie, wearing a baseball cap, became disgusted and walked out of the house. The gathering was abandoned. RR

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LOL. Apparently, men CAN lactate. They just don't want to hold a baby to their breasts long enough to stimulate the process. However, the LORD is described in the Bible as not being so unloving or disinterested. https://www.livescience.com/45732-can-men-lactate.html

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And men can get breast cancer, rare, but it does happen. About 5 years ago, my niece got breast cancer and it was determined that she had the BRCA gene which apparently had been lurking in the women's side of my family (my mother and sister, my niece's mother, both had breast cancer), so she had a prophylactic double mastectomy to not go through the operation again. Her daughter does not have the BRCA gene but I decided to get tested. My niece's oncologist sent my doctor the details and, as a blood relative, I was eligible to get tested. I tested negative so the gene is extinct in our family (we had no biological kids, just adopted, so I didn't pass anything on).

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I, not Adam, never shoulda taken the bite of apple before reading your post, Richard Roeder. Now there's apple bits all over my screen! OY what tsuris .. since Mr. Keillor (he's 5 years older and entitled to a bunch of respect) gave us permission to use Yiddish.

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Surprising, I wonder why it caused such a stir.

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Turns out, the offended man belonged to a group years ago that was, as his wife put it, "a deep belief in the teaching that included hellfire and brimstone". Not sure how that makes sense, but his spontaneous explosion came out of the blue. Thanks for asking, rr

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Despite age or hearing loss, acuity of your other senses is finely tuned. Great post. Foreign affairs, war machine, corporatocracy, the global oil industry etc. -the real issues shielded by the circus- the demon flaps both wings.

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Well, your wonderful storytelling put a smile on my face! Nothing like discussing foreign affairs to put a damper on the evening.

How did ya like the debate last night?

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3 guesses as to who won and first 3 don't count, but we know who did..

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She wiped the floor with the man and she knew it, as she was doing it. She laughed aloud at his weird comment about Haitians eating pets in Ohio, and now it's become a great joke online. Comedy, the great American weapon.

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My sister does that, and so does my mother.

They put a damper on things with their prattle while the evening could have been magical.

My grandmother had the gift of hospitality.

Mid Century ranch house in the sixties through the nineties for me. Her tasteful crafts and hl.emaking would rival any pla e at all. Small an intimate and those two dampers were on the periphery until she died and it all shifted to center around someone not gifted in hospitality.

No use getting mad about it.

I always had a plan B and a good exit strategy to allow me to try to enjoy the evening. For years now I have a firm no to spending holidays with them.

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No one's allowed to not have an opinion. We should all have hearing aids : )

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As Marcus Aurelius wrote, "You always own the option of having no opinion". Stoics believe that opinions can be a source of misery and that they can make things that have nothing to do with us into problems. While I agree with your assessment that people are not allowed to have opinions (we've all been chastised at some point by the online version of a mentally ill person screaming at us from a dumpster)... to me, the larger problem is that too many people hold opinions about things that have nothing to do with them.

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This is such a swell column.

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It was even before the use of "mishegoss" that I laughed robustly and I just don't much .. because long COVID starting in early 2023 brought hearing loss AND the most amazing tunes heard in my ears. My mother (z"l) had that too - tho' she heard much better music than I. (Currently "It's a small world" on repeat; sometimes it's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" which I attribute to you and a group singalong idea; other times it's some children's songs. It's all annoying. Hearing aids, I was told, don't fix this which is a form of tinnitus. Feh.) Just smile and go along. You and David Sedaris and yes, the MAGA candidate during the debate, cause guffaws. Long live two of you.

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I have tinnitus but just hear my heart beating. It acn be annoying but at least I know that it is working.

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I've had tinnitus for 5 decades (sounds like cicadas) which hasn't affected my hearing but that is starting to go so I may have to get aids. It hasn't affcted my singing and choir singing -- yet.

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I became uncharacteristically stuck on the song Come and Get Your Love by Redbone. In the third day of it, I asked a friend to *please* help me! They advised to chew gum, and it worked! Of course, the problem returned a few times, but each time with less intensity, and after a couple of weeks and many sticks of gum, I was free! I was hoping that same solution would work for hiccoughs, but I had to take a reflux medicine 💊 for that….

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I heard that the new Apple ear pods can function as hearing aids. It won't help me because they fall right out of my ears.

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What Majik said. Also, I always found Jeremiah's comment about the desperately wicked oddly comforting. Maybe I need to read it again.

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GK - Speaking of foreign affairs, I see you will be in Dublin in October. Please take some extra time to explore Ireland (if you haven't before). I feel it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and its people the most wonderful I've ever encountered.

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Jenny wants to look around the city and so she's taking me there six days early.

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Too bad the word gay has undergone the evolution, there even was a song (I'm, so pretty and gay..."). I even had a grade school classmate named Gay in the '50s, I wonder if she ever changed her name (assuming she was straight).

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My sisters middle name was Gay. She was not gay. Born in the 60's, and no reason given for her name. She just used her middle initial.

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Hey Garrison, You are in your 80s with a tour schedule of a 40 year old. Stop w the jokes and tell me how you’re doing that. Some kinda crazy diet or exercise regimen? 🤗

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The only exercise I get is hiking through airline terminals and walking back and forth on stage. I do it for the sense of focus one gets onstage and also for the memory exercise and then too there is the pleasure of hearing a crowd sing acapella. And they enjoy it too.

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I live with rescued cats and walk a lot taking care of them, outside and inside.

I move because it perhaps prevents illness.

I had cancer and think that being sedentary contributed to that more than anything.

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You seem to think, at least as indicated by the locations on your schedule, that there is no "left coast" south of Washington state.

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