Lovely, really lovely. It's why an antiquated, arcane game (the only one, as Roger Angel pointed out, where the game begins with the ball in the possession of the defence) will always survive and be with us. It holds such romance and beauty that even the forces of billionaire owners and millionaire players can't erode it.
Hah! I dredged up a quote from Dickens and made passing reference to W.P. Kinsella, but you win! Always found e.e. cummings remarkable. He and William Carlos Williams. Cheers.
Thanks for a morning laugh...and the universal brotherhood of American boys being asked by an older neighborhood girl "Do you want to wrestle...etc" In the factory ,and once in a bar I tried that line and even the lesbians loved it...
Bucketry. What a fantastic way to describe the ball swishing through the net.
And our language grows as if a slime mold. (And that IS a compliment.)
Try a google search of the word. And dictionary.com reports ‘no results.’ Yet I knew exactly what you meant.
I can still see my brother crying, hugging my dad, as the court was flooded with ecstatic fans as our team won the District 9 Championship in 1967. That one word- bucketry- brought it back.
I'm tellin' ya: I'm only 71, but you're singin' my song...As long as I can read your stuff, I know that I'm still alive, skimming the obits every morning.
And so it begins, like a fly-ball hit into the outfield by a powerful opponent. Where will the ball land and who will catch this trajectory bound leather comet. It started like all the other pitches thrown to the catcher behind home plate in front of the batter but this one didn’t get by him.
It was the intention of the hurler to get past the batter to produce a strike or out but the batter connected with the ball to propel it into the stratosphere. A loud crack of the bat and up, up ,up goes the ball higher and higher. The outfielder is in motion to his estimate where he will connect with the meteor. It all ends with human nature and skill on the outcome of this event.
Looking back on our origins is a universal quandary to those who wonder, “how did I get here to this point in my life?” Step by step we progress through challenges and trials to end up satisfied or not at the conclusion of a lifetime. Destiny is the answer for some, luck is another way of looking at it. Being groomed and pushed by others into a position happens to some but on the whole “human nature” drives most people to their final destination.
We are who we are. We do what we do. Writer, doctor, engineer, cook, whatever makes sense to you, you will be. A sunflower can’t be an oak tree, even if it wanted to. Both have a place in this world, both are needed here.
Sir, the love you have for your Treasure....certainly a gift from God...gives me hope and faith, that I too will experience this miracle of marital love in the land of the living.
Contrary to popular, modern believe, the founding fathers knew what they were doing. Its the whiners of today who believe otherwise, hence our national dilemma's we deal with today.
Awards are good.... to a point. Giving someone a Pulitzer is a good thing. It lends credibility to a questionable career choice and ensures that the odds of getting published again are improved, even if only remotely. Grammy's, Oscar's and even the Nobel are nothing more than patronizing flatulence in a Ziploc bag. Given, ad hoc, by cronies, deep pockets and those of influence. They mean little and do nothing to further the interest of what the receiver does hence forth. Accept your rewards, you've earned them and they are proof that you are worthy of the life you live.
"Boomtown"..... Hmm.... Having read "Liberty", "Pontoon", "Lake Wobegon Summer 1956" & "Wobegon Boy"..... I can't help but feel that this latest book feels, from the sample, almost autobiographical. I felt the same about "Wobegon Boy"... at times..... Perhaps I'm seeing the blurred line between fiction and reality.
"Is an audiobook version out of the question?" He asks, prodding the author with a cane his wife got him in preparation for knee replacement surgery.
Lovely, as always. Just a few points (hah!). "The wrong words" with the Constitution..yes, but not "onion" (yes, I got it); it's "more perfect" - it's like "a rounder circle"; there are some things/adjectives that cannot be intensified. It's either perfect or it's not. But as Dickens said "the wisdom of our ancestors" is in the phrase.
Cufflinks and tuxedos: bang on, Garrison. I'm a retired Judge and respectfully decline the annual invitation to attend the Court's Retirement Dinner, for the exact same reasons. No cufflinks, no tuxedos. On advice I retained one suit on retirement "...for weddings and funerals".
And art and literary awards: so true. But I register one cavil - not sure our (Canadian) Alice Munro was quite as morbid as you say, in winning her Nobel Prize. Dylan - maybe. But W.P. Kinsella, who wrote "Shoeless Joe", which became the movie "Field Of Dreams" so hated literary awards - and the writing fraternity/sorority, even - that he eschewed all awards and ceremonies. He called them out, using fairly profane descriptors. And, true to his independent spirit, he chose the manner and date of his exit from this mortal coil.
Mr. Keillor, you certainly pack a lot into one post. Cheers.
Nice one, another great read. When you mention the Federalist Society and "originalism" I can't help but think of these people who wan to take the constitution literally, word for word; almost as big a folly as doing so with the Bible. For example the second amendment; Three sentences. That's it - three. And those among us who regard their firearms as sacred relics, or necessity items for protecting themselves from a government they actually run make it sound like a volume of Stephen King's The Tower series. And what's worse is the composition of those three sentences; they have no place in any modern society, either in law or personal conversation. So antiquated, so obsolete, impossible to take literally It may as well have been written in a dead language. I believe the word "witches" is even in there somewhere. It's tragic that there is nobody in America that could be trusted with the task of weeding this sort of thing out of the constitution before it loses all of it's objective meaning in it's literal execution.
It has been an unexpected pleasure to discover you again in The Column. As I am about to turn 70, I am 10 years behind you in this race to wherever it is we will eventually end. I consider myself a lucky survivor as more and more of my former classmates succumb to the heavy hands of time.
Your voice and humorous observations have graced the soundtrack of most of my adult life. I discovered A Prairie Home Companion when I moved to Alaska with the National Park Service in the 1980’s. Alaska Public Radio was my lifeline to the world I left behind in the Lower 48. The show played on Saturday afternoons, when I was usually busy with other chores. I recorded them on a marvelous double cassette tape recorder with a timer. I could then listen at my leisure while on the road in my car. The shows carried me through a painful divorce, a wonderful remarriage, and the raising of three children.
In 2007 I heard you read the poem Coats by Jane Kenyon on the Writer’s Almanac. I was spending my days visiting my father in the hospital as he lay dying in hospice. I felt I was the man with the coat. I know someday someone will be carrying my coat. Until then I will laugh and love until I cannot. Thanks for your continuing insights, and for the lovely medicine of laughter.
I am not the last man to drive a Model T Ford. My 1910 Model T Ford is in my garage. I am 89 yeatrs of age and I bought that Ford when I was 14. This old Ford runs well. I am in about the same shape as this Ford. When the weather warms up bit, I will crank up the old Ford and this old man will drive it down the road for at least one more time.
I read your Post to the Host comments from the week of 3.28.22 and laughed at the one from Ed. Laughed out loud, rare for me. It sounded like something my husband would say, he with the quick, dry wit who always hears the ambiguity and humor in language that eludes most of the rest of us, quietly delivering twisted humor in a deadpan way that also eludes others. I've learned to look at his otherwise expressionless face for the wrinkles at the sides of his eyes that he can't hide when he is playing with you. Hours after he has said something, you can suddenly realize you'd been zapped.
Well, it turns out that the Ed who sent that note to you is my Ed. Years ago, when Saturday Night Live was new and wicked and made me laugh out loud, I told Ed he should write for them. The same with PHC. Instead, my funny husband continued to entertain me on a regular basis, and some few lucky others quick enough to catch on. I'm not worried about being a killed romantic partner. My witty husband needs a good audience and that is my role.
We both enjoy your posts. Thanks. And thanks for the outlet for Ed, much more limited for introverts in retirement.
I'm a right-field camper too! I have a special reason. You see, for certain players, I can be psychic! It began when I was listening to Vin Scully call the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games. The Dodgers and I go waaaay back to my great grandfather - I used to root for them in elementary school when they were showing the televised World Series in our school auditorium. Locally, there are a lot of Yankee's fans - but the Dodgers were the team Grampa cherished and I started out as a Dodgers' fan on Grampa's knee!
I was really tickled, when I moved to Los Angles, to find that I could go watch the Dodger Blue locally! Mostly, I listened on the radio, though, as I worked through the season in my acre of garden. When Vin Scully would announce "Billy Russell is up to bat," I dropped what I was doing. Usually, somewhere along the play, I'd feel the urge to yell "Get a Hit!" and Billy would respond with a triple! I honed this telepathy enough that in later years, Billy and I were going at least nine for ten at bats!
Mostly, the messaging didn't seem to work for other players. However, in 2013, I was fairly close to the plate when Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves stepped up to the plate. He had 713 home runs. If he homered this time around, he'd tie Babe Ruth's major league all time record. I sat there for three pitches, then I felt my Billy Russell telepathy go to work. "Get a Hit!" I yelled in a silent stadium, easily clearly enough for Hank to get the signal. Sure enough, that was the pitch that put Hank up there with The Babe!
So what if he wasn't on "The Home Team?!" Hank was capable of great accomplishments! If a little juju from the stands helped him along, I was glad to be a part of it!
see Vin Scully calls Hank Aaron's historic 714th home run
Lovely, really lovely. It's why an antiquated, arcane game (the only one, as Roger Angel pointed out, where the game begins with the ball in the possession of the defence) will always survive and be with us. It holds such romance and beauty that even the forces of billionaire owners and millionaire players can't erode it.
That last line! Brilliant. That is akin to cummings “there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile”. You’ve done it again, GK. Thank you.
Hah! I dredged up a quote from Dickens and made passing reference to W.P. Kinsella, but you win! Always found e.e. cummings remarkable. He and William Carlos Williams. Cheers.
Thanks for a morning laugh...and the universal brotherhood of American boys being asked by an older neighborhood girl "Do you want to wrestle...etc" In the factory ,and once in a bar I tried that line and even the lesbians loved it...
A better line with lesbians: "they're trading up". That one, too, always gets a laugh. And every good joke has a bit of truth in it.
Bucketry. What a fantastic way to describe the ball swishing through the net.
And our language grows as if a slime mold. (And that IS a compliment.)
Try a google search of the word. And dictionary.com reports ‘no results.’ Yet I knew exactly what you meant.
I can still see my brother crying, hugging my dad, as the court was flooded with ecstatic fans as our team won the District 9 Championship in 1967. That one word- bucketry- brought it back.
And you got the girl, too.
Pretty nifty for an old guy.
I'm tellin' ya: I'm only 71, but you're singin' my song...As long as I can read your stuff, I know that I'm still alive, skimming the obits every morning.
And so it begins, like a fly-ball hit into the outfield by a powerful opponent. Where will the ball land and who will catch this trajectory bound leather comet. It started like all the other pitches thrown to the catcher behind home plate in front of the batter but this one didn’t get by him.
It was the intention of the hurler to get past the batter to produce a strike or out but the batter connected with the ball to propel it into the stratosphere. A loud crack of the bat and up, up ,up goes the ball higher and higher. The outfielder is in motion to his estimate where he will connect with the meteor. It all ends with human nature and skill on the outcome of this event.
Looking back on our origins is a universal quandary to those who wonder, “how did I get here to this point in my life?” Step by step we progress through challenges and trials to end up satisfied or not at the conclusion of a lifetime. Destiny is the answer for some, luck is another way of looking at it. Being groomed and pushed by others into a position happens to some but on the whole “human nature” drives most people to their final destination.
We are who we are. We do what we do. Writer, doctor, engineer, cook, whatever makes sense to you, you will be. A sunflower can’t be an oak tree, even if it wanted to. Both have a place in this world, both are needed here.
Sir, the love you have for your Treasure....certainly a gift from God...gives me hope and faith, that I too will experience this miracle of marital love in the land of the living.
Contrary to popular, modern believe, the founding fathers knew what they were doing. Its the whiners of today who believe otherwise, hence our national dilemma's we deal with today.
Awards are good.... to a point. Giving someone a Pulitzer is a good thing. It lends credibility to a questionable career choice and ensures that the odds of getting published again are improved, even if only remotely. Grammy's, Oscar's and even the Nobel are nothing more than patronizing flatulence in a Ziploc bag. Given, ad hoc, by cronies, deep pockets and those of influence. They mean little and do nothing to further the interest of what the receiver does hence forth. Accept your rewards, you've earned them and they are proof that you are worthy of the life you live.
"Boomtown"..... Hmm.... Having read "Liberty", "Pontoon", "Lake Wobegon Summer 1956" & "Wobegon Boy"..... I can't help but feel that this latest book feels, from the sample, almost autobiographical. I felt the same about "Wobegon Boy"... at times..... Perhaps I'm seeing the blurred line between fiction and reality.
"Is an audiobook version out of the question?" He asks, prodding the author with a cane his wife got him in preparation for knee replacement surgery.
Lovely, as always. Just a few points (hah!). "The wrong words" with the Constitution..yes, but not "onion" (yes, I got it); it's "more perfect" - it's like "a rounder circle"; there are some things/adjectives that cannot be intensified. It's either perfect or it's not. But as Dickens said "the wisdom of our ancestors" is in the phrase.
Cufflinks and tuxedos: bang on, Garrison. I'm a retired Judge and respectfully decline the annual invitation to attend the Court's Retirement Dinner, for the exact same reasons. No cufflinks, no tuxedos. On advice I retained one suit on retirement "...for weddings and funerals".
And art and literary awards: so true. But I register one cavil - not sure our (Canadian) Alice Munro was quite as morbid as you say, in winning her Nobel Prize. Dylan - maybe. But W.P. Kinsella, who wrote "Shoeless Joe", which became the movie "Field Of Dreams" so hated literary awards - and the writing fraternity/sorority, even - that he eschewed all awards and ceremonies. He called them out, using fairly profane descriptors. And, true to his independent spirit, he chose the manner and date of his exit from this mortal coil.
Mr. Keillor, you certainly pack a lot into one post. Cheers.
I enjoyed reading the piece you wrote when you were 14. Thanks for including it.
Nice one, another great read. When you mention the Federalist Society and "originalism" I can't help but think of these people who wan to take the constitution literally, word for word; almost as big a folly as doing so with the Bible. For example the second amendment; Three sentences. That's it - three. And those among us who regard their firearms as sacred relics, or necessity items for protecting themselves from a government they actually run make it sound like a volume of Stephen King's The Tower series. And what's worse is the composition of those three sentences; they have no place in any modern society, either in law or personal conversation. So antiquated, so obsolete, impossible to take literally It may as well have been written in a dead language. I believe the word "witches" is even in there somewhere. It's tragic that there is nobody in America that could be trusted with the task of weeding this sort of thing out of the constitution before it loses all of it's objective meaning in it's literal execution.
It has been an unexpected pleasure to discover you again in The Column. As I am about to turn 70, I am 10 years behind you in this race to wherever it is we will eventually end. I consider myself a lucky survivor as more and more of my former classmates succumb to the heavy hands of time.
Your voice and humorous observations have graced the soundtrack of most of my adult life. I discovered A Prairie Home Companion when I moved to Alaska with the National Park Service in the 1980’s. Alaska Public Radio was my lifeline to the world I left behind in the Lower 48. The show played on Saturday afternoons, when I was usually busy with other chores. I recorded them on a marvelous double cassette tape recorder with a timer. I could then listen at my leisure while on the road in my car. The shows carried me through a painful divorce, a wonderful remarriage, and the raising of three children.
In 2007 I heard you read the poem Coats by Jane Kenyon on the Writer’s Almanac. I was spending my days visiting my father in the hospital as he lay dying in hospice. I felt I was the man with the coat. I know someday someone will be carrying my coat. Until then I will laugh and love until I cannot. Thanks for your continuing insights, and for the lovely medicine of laughter.
I am not the last man to drive a Model T Ford. My 1910 Model T Ford is in my garage. I am 89 yeatrs of age and I bought that Ford when I was 14. This old Ford runs well. I am in about the same shape as this Ford. When the weather warms up bit, I will crank up the old Ford and this old man will drive it down the road for at least one more time.
Hi Garrison,
I read your Post to the Host comments from the week of 3.28.22 and laughed at the one from Ed. Laughed out loud, rare for me. It sounded like something my husband would say, he with the quick, dry wit who always hears the ambiguity and humor in language that eludes most of the rest of us, quietly delivering twisted humor in a deadpan way that also eludes others. I've learned to look at his otherwise expressionless face for the wrinkles at the sides of his eyes that he can't hide when he is playing with you. Hours after he has said something, you can suddenly realize you'd been zapped.
Well, it turns out that the Ed who sent that note to you is my Ed. Years ago, when Saturday Night Live was new and wicked and made me laugh out loud, I told Ed he should write for them. The same with PHC. Instead, my funny husband continued to entertain me on a regular basis, and some few lucky others quick enough to catch on. I'm not worried about being a killed romantic partner. My witty husband needs a good audience and that is my role.
We both enjoy your posts. Thanks. And thanks for the outlet for Ed, much more limited for introverts in retirement.
Shirley
I'm a right-field camper too! I have a special reason. You see, for certain players, I can be psychic! It began when I was listening to Vin Scully call the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games. The Dodgers and I go waaaay back to my great grandfather - I used to root for them in elementary school when they were showing the televised World Series in our school auditorium. Locally, there are a lot of Yankee's fans - but the Dodgers were the team Grampa cherished and I started out as a Dodgers' fan on Grampa's knee!
I was really tickled, when I moved to Los Angles, to find that I could go watch the Dodger Blue locally! Mostly, I listened on the radio, though, as I worked through the season in my acre of garden. When Vin Scully would announce "Billy Russell is up to bat," I dropped what I was doing. Usually, somewhere along the play, I'd feel the urge to yell "Get a Hit!" and Billy would respond with a triple! I honed this telepathy enough that in later years, Billy and I were going at least nine for ten at bats!
Mostly, the messaging didn't seem to work for other players. However, in 2013, I was fairly close to the plate when Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves stepped up to the plate. He had 713 home runs. If he homered this time around, he'd tie Babe Ruth's major league all time record. I sat there for three pitches, then I felt my Billy Russell telepathy go to work. "Get a Hit!" I yelled in a silent stadium, easily clearly enough for Hank to get the signal. Sure enough, that was the pitch that put Hank up there with The Babe!
So what if he wasn't on "The Home Team?!" Hank was capable of great accomplishments! If a little juju from the stands helped him along, I was glad to be a part of it!
see Vin Scully calls Hank Aaron's historic 714th home run
84,056 views Aug 9, 2013 You Tube
I felt like I was at the game. Nice work to fondly remember after all these years.