"eventually it passes": the best answer for most problems. Of course, for some it is not enough, hoping they can get the help they need. (Inappropriate comma for style reasons.)
Regarding songs passing through one's head. At the ripe young age of 68 I planted sunflowers and pumpkins. The first two plantings devoured by rabbits. Finally the third planting took and I had a crown of 10-12 foot sunflowers with 15-20 feet of pumpkin vines going directly east and west on either side of the crown. This long-winded story just to say the theme song to Green Acres is constantly sprouting in my head as I walk my border collie Rosie.
After reading the comments, I found it rather “funny” how one objects to your soft response to an angry person and another thinks you are unforgiving of your father. You’re right, Mr. Keillor, to not argue with a person whose political beliefs are not yours but also I’ve never read anything about how you haven’t forgiven your father. You understood your father as having done the best he could for you and your siblings. You are not a man who judges anyone harshly. As my religion teacher back in our parochial school in the ‘60’s once taught us: “If a bully is confronting you, kill him with kindness.” Kill probably is a strong word not used these days, but you get the point.
You seem to get it both ways from comments made of you, Mr. Keillor. You either are too kind or not kind enough. You get your point across without anger. Keep being the kindly Soul you are.
Some advice for Heather, who asked you for advice for young folk facing an uncertain future: NEVER ask questions asking a person in the public eye for advice. Pose your question ANY OTHER WAY than “What advice do you have?…” Please, o, please
An elderly husband and wife sit together at the end of the day in their rocking chairs drinking a glass of wine. The husband hears the wife whisper "I love you so much I don't know what I would do without you" The husband smiles and says "Oh honey is that you talking, or is that the wine? The wife responds "That's me talking.... to the wine."
If California were a red state, high-speed rail would be much less likely to materialize than it is now. I agree with Clay Blasdel in Buffalo, although I think Garrison Keillor makes his pro-democracy views pretty clear. I can't imagine what Republican you could have voted for this year, though, when the "GOP" has been taken over by conspiracy theorists and is chipping away at the foundations of our nation.
When it comes to helping immigrants adjust to American ways - in my experience, the Good Lord does His thing to find folks who can act as bridges. In my case, at college my advisor pointed out that I couldn't graduate until I fulfilled the language requirement. As a chemist at heart, I looked at Chemical Abstracts (a list of world-wide scientific papers) and noted that Russian was the most frequent non-English language of publication. That surprised me - I would have expected Spanish or French. Thinking about it, though - standing in a chemical laboratory and watching two solutions drip into each other is a nice, academic way of making sure you keep your head on your shoulders! There's not much "political thought" in salt being sodium chloride! So I signed up for one year of "Scientific Russian" at college and thought that would be the end of it.
Not so fast! When I moved to Upstate New York, I settled near a city with an expanding Ukrainian immigrant population. I was feeling lonely without all my former fellow workers - so when I heard a mother speaking a Slavic language to her children, I came up to her and exclaimed "Oh! You Speak Russian! I haven't had a chance to use it, here!" Actually, she was speaking Ukrainian, but she passed on the news of our meeting to her husband. He was a Deacon in the Slavic Full Gospel Church. He came over to me and invited me to come to Sunday's service. That was the beginning of the answer to a prayer that I hadn't even voiced to the Good Lord - to be a part of a "community."
When the deacon brought me into the sanctuary, he seated me next to the only woman in the congregation who had studied English while she was still in the Ukraine - Raisa. Before the service, as we got to know each other, I felt something like a hen pecking at my shoulder. I turned around to see a woman with practically an ostrich of a hat - it was huge! Through Raisa, this woman invited me to have dinner with her after the service. After dinner at her house, she told me that I was an answer to her prayers- that she had failed her Citizenship exam, and she needed an American to tutor her before her retrial. That was the beginning of my "service" to the Ukrainian immigrant community. Word got around that I could help people to study for their INS exams - and soon I was making the drive to Buffalo with applicants - grilling them on lists of questions all the way out, and congratulating them on their successes afterwards. I was 24 for 24 in terms of passes - some on the strength of their answers, and some others because the examiners in Buffalo became familiar with us. Some of my "students" really didn't understand the exam in an academic way. One elderly gentleman, in particular, would query me "Why is he asking me THAT?" This fellow had been a shepherd all his life - he was used to being alone with his sheep among the rocks on the hills. No matter how his family and others had tried to explain the process to him, all he knew was that he was the father of the family, and that the others, now new American Citizens, would be embarrassed if he didn't become a citizen too. By this time, I had been to Buffalo nearly a dozen times, and had been in the interviews with the same INS examiner most of the time. After one particular outburst, the examiner just gave me a "Don't worry! I've been through this with uneducated people before" look. He backed off the difficult questions and settled on "Do you have a wife? Children? Are some of them citizens now?" - that sort of thing.
I guess part of what I'm saying here is that the folks who work for the INS aren't necessarily feeling-less robots. They care about people and families too. Bur another part is that the newcomers do form ties with locals - and having "intermediaries" available can make a huge difference in the new immigrants' abilities to adjust to this "Foreign " (to them) land!
You, too, Dear Host, have often acted as an "intermediary" on APHC! I remember a young pianist from the Detroit area who was a shining example of someone adapting well to his new American home. If I tried to list all the nationalities of guests on the show - I'm sure I'd fail in coming up with more than half of them! I've been enormously impressed by the breadth of your World View! WOW!
Here is a story about my immigrant grandmother whose family fled the pogroms in Russian Ukraine in the early 1900's: Grandma’s English was broken; she understood better than she spoke. Her native language was Yiddish, a kind of German dialect. Like Swiss German, pretty similar to “High German,” but distinctly its own language. She read a newspaper readily available in Chicago that was written in Hebrew characters and read right to left. One day Grandma went to the post office and asked a man for help reading some instructions. The man adopted an aloof attitude, and berated her, “Can’t you read? You’re ignorant.” She thrust her newspaper at him and said, “Here; you read this.” Seeing the page of Hebrew characters, he shut him up. He apologized and he helped her.
PTTH is never dull. What a great cast of contributors! Your character is amazing, and your memories and associates are golden.
"eventually it passes": the best answer for most problems. Of course, for some it is not enough, hoping they can get the help they need. (Inappropriate comma for style reasons.)
Regarding songs passing through one's head. At the ripe young age of 68 I planted sunflowers and pumpkins. The first two plantings devoured by rabbits. Finally the third planting took and I had a crown of 10-12 foot sunflowers with 15-20 feet of pumpkin vines going directly east and west on either side of the crown. This long-winded story just to say the theme song to Green Acres is constantly sprouting in my head as I walk my border collie Rosie.
After reading the comments, I found it rather “funny” how one objects to your soft response to an angry person and another thinks you are unforgiving of your father. You’re right, Mr. Keillor, to not argue with a person whose political beliefs are not yours but also I’ve never read anything about how you haven’t forgiven your father. You understood your father as having done the best he could for you and your siblings. You are not a man who judges anyone harshly. As my religion teacher back in our parochial school in the ‘60’s once taught us: “If a bully is confronting you, kill him with kindness.” Kill probably is a strong word not used these days, but you get the point.
You seem to get it both ways from comments made of you, Mr. Keillor. You either are too kind or not kind enough. You get your point across without anger. Keep being the kindly Soul you are.
Some advice for Heather, who asked you for advice for young folk facing an uncertain future: NEVER ask questions asking a person in the public eye for advice. Pose your question ANY OTHER WAY than “What advice do you have?…” Please, o, please
I always look forward to your comments—always clever and apt.
An elderly husband and wife sit together at the end of the day in their rocking chairs drinking a glass of wine. The husband hears the wife whisper "I love you so much I don't know what I would do without you" The husband smiles and says "Oh honey is that you talking, or is that the wine? The wife responds "That's me talking.... to the wine."
If California were a red state, high-speed rail would be much less likely to materialize than it is now. I agree with Clay Blasdel in Buffalo, although I think Garrison Keillor makes his pro-democracy views pretty clear. I can't imagine what Republican you could have voted for this year, though, when the "GOP" has been taken over by conspiracy theorists and is chipping away at the foundations of our nation.
When it comes to helping immigrants adjust to American ways - in my experience, the Good Lord does His thing to find folks who can act as bridges. In my case, at college my advisor pointed out that I couldn't graduate until I fulfilled the language requirement. As a chemist at heart, I looked at Chemical Abstracts (a list of world-wide scientific papers) and noted that Russian was the most frequent non-English language of publication. That surprised me - I would have expected Spanish or French. Thinking about it, though - standing in a chemical laboratory and watching two solutions drip into each other is a nice, academic way of making sure you keep your head on your shoulders! There's not much "political thought" in salt being sodium chloride! So I signed up for one year of "Scientific Russian" at college and thought that would be the end of it.
Not so fast! When I moved to Upstate New York, I settled near a city with an expanding Ukrainian immigrant population. I was feeling lonely without all my former fellow workers - so when I heard a mother speaking a Slavic language to her children, I came up to her and exclaimed "Oh! You Speak Russian! I haven't had a chance to use it, here!" Actually, she was speaking Ukrainian, but she passed on the news of our meeting to her husband. He was a Deacon in the Slavic Full Gospel Church. He came over to me and invited me to come to Sunday's service. That was the beginning of the answer to a prayer that I hadn't even voiced to the Good Lord - to be a part of a "community."
When the deacon brought me into the sanctuary, he seated me next to the only woman in the congregation who had studied English while she was still in the Ukraine - Raisa. Before the service, as we got to know each other, I felt something like a hen pecking at my shoulder. I turned around to see a woman with practically an ostrich of a hat - it was huge! Through Raisa, this woman invited me to have dinner with her after the service. After dinner at her house, she told me that I was an answer to her prayers- that she had failed her Citizenship exam, and she needed an American to tutor her before her retrial. That was the beginning of my "service" to the Ukrainian immigrant community. Word got around that I could help people to study for their INS exams - and soon I was making the drive to Buffalo with applicants - grilling them on lists of questions all the way out, and congratulating them on their successes afterwards. I was 24 for 24 in terms of passes - some on the strength of their answers, and some others because the examiners in Buffalo became familiar with us. Some of my "students" really didn't understand the exam in an academic way. One elderly gentleman, in particular, would query me "Why is he asking me THAT?" This fellow had been a shepherd all his life - he was used to being alone with his sheep among the rocks on the hills. No matter how his family and others had tried to explain the process to him, all he knew was that he was the father of the family, and that the others, now new American Citizens, would be embarrassed if he didn't become a citizen too. By this time, I had been to Buffalo nearly a dozen times, and had been in the interviews with the same INS examiner most of the time. After one particular outburst, the examiner just gave me a "Don't worry! I've been through this with uneducated people before" look. He backed off the difficult questions and settled on "Do you have a wife? Children? Are some of them citizens now?" - that sort of thing.
I guess part of what I'm saying here is that the folks who work for the INS aren't necessarily feeling-less robots. They care about people and families too. Bur another part is that the newcomers do form ties with locals - and having "intermediaries" available can make a huge difference in the new immigrants' abilities to adjust to this "Foreign " (to them) land!
You, too, Dear Host, have often acted as an "intermediary" on APHC! I remember a young pianist from the Detroit area who was a shining example of someone adapting well to his new American home. If I tried to list all the nationalities of guests on the show - I'm sure I'd fail in coming up with more than half of them! I've been enormously impressed by the breadth of your World View! WOW!
Here is a story about my immigrant grandmother whose family fled the pogroms in Russian Ukraine in the early 1900's: Grandma’s English was broken; she understood better than she spoke. Her native language was Yiddish, a kind of German dialect. Like Swiss German, pretty similar to “High German,” but distinctly its own language. She read a newspaper readily available in Chicago that was written in Hebrew characters and read right to left. One day Grandma went to the post office and asked a man for help reading some instructions. The man adopted an aloof attitude, and berated her, “Can’t you read? You’re ignorant.” She thrust her newspaper at him and said, “Here; you read this.” Seeing the page of Hebrew characters, he shut him up. He apologized and he helped her.