Post to the Host

Comments from the week of 09.25.22

Hi, Garrison Keillor.

I read That Time of Year several months ago and know that you were named Gary at birth. How many people call you Gary these days? Is that how you know who your real friends are?

Stanley (my real friends call me Stan)

My siblings and cousins call me Gary, which is just fine by me. I created the Garrison when I was in the 7th grade and writing poetry and needed a stronger pen name to ward off teasing by classmates and somehow it stuck to me though today it strikes me as slightly pretentious, but what can I do? I never used my name on the radio. Today I go to a medical clinic and they ask my name and birthdate and I say it and it feels odd. I wish I had a nickname, like Duke or Stretch. The only nickname I had was in junior high when some people called me Perfessor. But there’s no going back, it is what it is. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

Have you ever noticed the violence in some traditional children’s songs and poetry? “Rock-a-Bye Baby” is about a child plunging to his death. “Three Blind Mice” get their tails cut off with a butcher’s knife. “Humpty Dumpty” falls off a wall and cracks his head open. “Rub-a-Dub-Dub” is about three men in a tub. Really? I could go on. What songs did you sing to your babies? Can you recommend a book of poetry for children or a favorite poem? I’m looking for good material for my little granddaughter. I do like to sing, too.

Rosie 

The song doesn’t matter, it’s the singing the child wants along with your arms around her. I sang old pop songs to my little daughter and she liked those, “Going to the Chapel” and “I Will” and “Surfin’ USA” and “Under the Boardwalk” and though she’s 24 now, if I sing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to her, she joins right in. GK

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Dear Garrison,

As a writer, how have you managed to cope with rejection from publishers? You’ve been very successful, and I’m wondering if more things were accepted than rejected and whether you had to struggle like most writers out there. Was there a rejection that stung the most? And how did you bounce back?

Mark Hagen 

I got canceled by publishers in 2017 during the #MeToo scare when an accusation was as good as conviction, but it really didn’t matter much. Viking Penguin was my publisher, I’d had a long happy history with great editors like Kathryn Court and Molly Stern, and I was 75 years old, for heaven’s sake. If I’d been 35 or 45 it would’ve killed me but I was okay because I still loved writing, was busy, and if publishers didn’t want me, I could publish stuff myself. It’s water off a duck’s back, in my case. I had a wonderful forty-year stretch, published novels, satiric pieces, poetry, whatever I wanted, and then one day a big honcho in New York slammed the door. Not a problem. GK

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GK,

I listened to A Prairie Home Companion for years and it always seemed to be a seamless operation. Is that just my perception, or were there times when panic set in during the broadcast? How the heck did you always manage to time it so precisely?

Mary Ann 

Moorhead, Minnesota

It was a variety show and a variety show is a piece of cake, no need for panic. The host needs to keep things moving along but if you hit a bump, there’s someone waiting in the wings to come out and rescue you. The Lake Wobegon monologue was in my head and sometimes I forgot stuff and had to improvise but you learn how to get away with it. We did a show once in Anchorage where I couldn’t figure out how to end the mono and stage manager Steve Koeln had to come out and say, “Five minutes,” and then he came back and said, “Just say good night,” so I did. A band of Inuit dancers was supposed to end the show and I could hear their ankle bells jingling behind the curtain but they never got on. We did a show in Seattle at an outdoor amphitheater where a man in the front row died about half an hour into it. He was an old man, an invalid, had been sick a long time, and he simply leaned against his wife and died and she let him be. I saw this and knew something was wrong but the show went on and during intermission, a crew of EMTs carried him out. I loved the show, especially the outdoor ones, Tanglewood and Wolf Trap and Ravinia, people bringing cushions and lawn chairs and spreading out on the hill under the sunshine, and if it rained, I just walked into the crowd and we did an a cappella sing-along until the rain let up. No panic, I felt like the luckiest man in the world. GK

Dear Garrison,

Regarding your post about your dad saying that those getting assistance from the WPA during the depression were lazy freeloaders while he himself had gotten a job through a relative, and not through his own efforts:

My brother is exactly the same, he is opposed to people receiving assistance from the government yet has no qualms about receiving all kinds of government loans and grants to purchase rental properties that he then rents to tenants receiving Section 8 rental assistance and receives that rental money directly from the government. He also once falsely stated that one of his children was living in one of his rental properties and not at home so his child could receive a large government education grant when he was at college. When I and my siblings point this hypocrisy out to him, he defends his own right to receive aid from the government while denying it to others and comes up with all kinds of ridiculous reasons why he is entitled to it while others are not. I like my brother (mostly), and he’s actually a very conscientious and overall good landlord, but he is a conservative, and conservatism and hypocrisy seem to be inextricably linked. It seems to be a sort of genetic thing, and sometimes seems as if the conservative person is even unaware of his own hypocrisy. Plus they will dismiss or ignore that hypocrisy in other conservatives.

But if a close relative is that way, what can you do? Just try to avoid talking politics at holiday gatherings, I guess. Plus, it’s good to maintain cordial relations and not alienate anybody that might be needed to make sure you have enough pall bearers at your funeral.

Yale Hawkins

My dad was a farm boy who turned 18 in 1931, and it was a rather poor farm, no indoor plumbing, not much cash flow, so I honestly don’t think, living in poverty, he noticed the onset of the Depression. Farms had been suffering for years. I think he was joking about the WPA (We Poke Along) and he accepted the job from his uncle so he could marry my mother. I don’t see conservatives as being especially hypocritical and I enjoy reading their opinion columns very much. GK

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Oh, Garrison … every time you joke about farts, I laugh till I cry. (My all-time favorite is one of your monologues from an old PHC show — our public radio station used to rerun the show the next day, and I recorded it to keep.) The mental image evoked by the onion and the resulting “music” made my morning! Thank you for helping me keep my inner nine-year-old alive.

Pat McC.

Once a year is about all the flatulence humor I allow myself. See you next fall. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I enjoy reading your weekly columns but I’m a little alarmed — actually, more than a little — that you are ignoring Putin and his atrocities in Ukraine and the danger of World War III. Is this deliberate on your part? How do you defend your apparent naivete?

Cynthia Morgan

Chicago

I read the papers and appreciate the reporting of people who are on the ground and seeing his war close-up. It’s horrible. I also read, though with somewhat less interest, the opinion pieces about Ukraine written in Washington or London. As for me, I know nothing other than what I read, and so were I to write condemning Putin, it would only be for the pleasure of expressing condemnation and would add nothing worthwhile to the conversation. When I was in college, I wrote plenty of term papers about subjects I knew nothing about. I tried to leave that behind and I thank you for writing. GK

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Dear GK,

It breaks my heart that you’re leaving Minnesota for New York City. What are you thinking? New York is so fast and frenetic; how can you be happy there? Think again. Please.

Elaine

Burnsville

Elaine, driving a car in New York can be crazy but then it’s crazy in Minneapolis too. The rush-hour freeways packed with angry drivers who hate their jobs. I-35 and I-94 are hellish. In New York, the C train clatters along at the same stately pace. I walk for blocks on side streets. Central Park is a paradise. I go to Midtown and Macy’s and ride the escalator up from Cosmetics to Men’s Wear and it’s timeless, like the old department stores that disappeared in Minneapolis. It makes me feel young again. So does the Oyster Bar in Grand Central. In Minneapolis I worry that someone might shoot me. This will improve, I’m sure, but I’m 80 and I feel safe in New York. GK

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Dear GK,

I’m not expecting you to kick the bucket anytime soon, but death had to have crossed your mind when you went under for that recent surgery. Have you made any of your wishes known about what type of funeral you want to have when the time comes? What music would be perfect to soothe the souls of those attending? What scriptures mean the most to you at the time of death and why? 

Flo Prang

I was surrounded by competence when I went into surgery and I never considered death an option so I never imagined a roomful of sniffling friends and family. When I get around to making my wishes known, I’ll say, “Absolutely no eulogies. None. A nice choir to do the Mozart Ave Verum and the Fauré Sanctus and a standard Episcopal service but maybe not a homily, for fear it may turn into a eulogy.” GK

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Mr. Keillor, 

We are having a family conflict. My sister and her husband have a son who is wrestling at the college level, and this requires a lot of travel. Last Christmas, my wife and I (who are very cautious when it comes to COVID exposure) asked them to get tested before we were willing to go to their house with the rest of our family for Christmas. They refused, saying that “If we test positive, we won’t be able to travel to the tournaments, and it might have an effect on our son’s ability to compete.” We didn’t go to their house, and we were told we were being selfish. Now 10 months later, we hardly speak to each other. This reminds me of when Trump alluded to the possibility that if you don’t test for COVID, you don’t have it, which of course is ridiculous. I’ve heard of other families with similar COVID conflicts. I hate to think of what the pandemic has done to my relationship with my sister. I find myself feeling resentful and angry. Have you experienced anything like this? There has been no apology from my sister and no recognition that her actions could have endangered others. Who are the selfish ones here? What do you think?

Robert J.

St. Paul, Minnesota

I’ve mostly lived in a bubble during COVID and it’s brought my beloved and me much closer together. We have a few anti-vaxxers in the family but we’ve simply isolated ourselves and there’s been no conflict. You’re right to be cautious, of course, as you well know. This is a disease to be avoided. GK

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Dear Garrison,

My friend’s daughter, age 16, has changed her name to Felix. And now SHE is a THEY. Grammatically, this just doesn’t work for me. Do I say, “They is going to the store?” Maybe we need an entirely new pronoun. What could it be? And what do you think of all of this? Maybe I’m an old lady, but I just don’t understand how so many young people can be dissatisfied with their gender. Is this just the popular thing to do right now? What’s next? 

Jackie Mullins

Don’t bother thinking about it. If it were your daughter, you’d have to deal with it, but you can give your friend and her daughter plenty of space and not get involved. As we say, “Don’t try to answer an unasked question.” GK

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Garrison,

Okay, okay, enough of the limericks. I used to like Post to the Host, but is this what it is becoming? How about some intelligent and occasionally humorous conversation? Very few of the limericks have been any good anyway, and I don’t need to read terrible poetry. 

A fan,

Carole 

Denver, Colorado

The limerick-limerick contest was won a couple weeks ago so that’s the end of it. Thanks for writing and I won’t write one about Carole who considered limericks sterile and they got her goat so she’d rather float over Niagara Falls in a barrel. GK