Post to the Host

Comments from the week of July 23

Hello, Garrison.

Your Prairie Home cruises were so enjoyable. Might there be another one in the future?

Rita

I’m sorry, Rita, they were fun, and I especially enjoyed the early morning choir practice, which gave a lot of agnostics a chance to sing old hymns for the pleasure of it, without having to commit themselves, but the cost is prohibitive now and we just can’t ask people to pay that kind of money. There was a cruise planned a few years ago but COVID came in and it had to be canceled. The company treasurer says, “No more.” GK

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Garrison,

In the spirit of our current national debate, let me concur with your reader about Cheerfulness. As usual, you liberals fail to give BOTH SIDES of the cheerfulness issue. Where’s the case for crotchetiness, grumpiness and perpetual irritability? As a “Churlish-American,” I demand to be heard. What if everyone adopted your attitude? Cable news would cease to exist! AM radio would be nothing but sports talk and farm reports! I will begin writing my answer book, The Case for Testiness, as soon as I finish yelling at those kids to get off my lawn.

Sincerely,

R. Lee Procter

P.S. I am not a crank.

I take you seriously and I hope you write the book but I believe that when you reach my age, you’ll come to agree with me, and it’s too bad I won’t be around to know it. GK

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Greetings, GK.

I disagree with the woman who wrote to say to you that you’re homely. You and I met and chatted at a reception after a show you did in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I thought, as you gazed down upon me with what appeared to be amused affection, that you are in fact attractive. Just thought you’d like to know. 

Peggy Payne

It’s kind of you to say, Peggy, but when I am gazing down is when gravity does dreadful things to my cheeks and neck and I look like a Botox landslide. I was wise to go into radio. On TV I would’ve frightened small children. But my looks have inspired many acts of Christian charity, such as your note, and I hope that makes you feel good. GK

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GK,

“May your tears kiss the flowers on my grave” reminds me of this instruction for my funeral: “Would all who plan to piss upon my grave please refrain till all the dancers are done.”

Richard J.

Duly noted. I’ve drawn up no instructions for mine but I hope it’ll take place at St. Michael’s in New York where I’ve been so happy and where Jenny and I were married, and I hope the congregation will sing I Am the Bread of Life and It Is Well with My Soul. Dancing is optional. Pissing is not: we are, after all, Episcopalians. GK

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Dear Garrison,

“A former president’s website offered up the Obamas’ home address and a gentleman read it and announced that he was going to try to get ‘a shot’ and the Secret Service arrested him near the home …” 

Please do not use the word gentleman when describing such a person. My British mother was insistent that we use the word properly:

Gentleman: noun (plural gentlemen) a chivalrous, courteous, or honorable man: he behaved like a perfect gentleman.

·      a man of good social position, especially one of wealth and leisure.

·      (in the UK) a man of noble birth attached to a royal household.

Thank you for your continued writings.

Meg

Irony, irony, irony. But I do believe the word is used more broadly now, as in the song, “Gentlemen will please refrain from flushing toilets on the train while standing in the station, I love you. When the train is in the station, you must practice constipation; if the train can’t go, then why should you?” GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Your columns are so appealing — you hit the nail on the head for me with The Art of Leaving Home. I am in the process of cleaning out our family home (I lived here on and off for over 58 years); my 95-year-old father is now in a memory-care facility, and I am preparing to move into an apartment. The best find of all (so far) was a photograph of my paternal grandfather, who died when my father was seven — I had never seen a photo of him and had no idea any existed. I felt like I had met him — now he has a face, and thanks to a screenshot, he will stay with me. The hard copy is in an album I made for Dad.

I wish you many more new adventures, and thanks for sharing.

Best,
Pat McC.

I have many photos of my handsome paternal grandfather and my favorite is of him as an old man in his coveralls, bundled up against the cold, going out to throw hay down to the cattle, and he looks very happy to be up and out and doing things. Hard work seems to have excited him. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Your reflections on academe are right on. No humor there. I remember delivering a funny line in a paper I was presenting and getting “How inappropriate!” stares. I do miss the students’ lightheartedness and generally optimistic view of the world, though. When last-minute prepping before a class started, I would eavesdrop, hearing such gems as “He was the love of my week.” You’re a brave man to jump to another floe at such a time in life. I hope you get to float along on it for a good while yet.

Paul Many

Toledo, Ohio

My experience of academe is a very small and narrow one and I admire friends of mine such as Lytton Musselman who taught botany at Old Dominion and who recently retired but retained his great enthusiasm to the very end. He was doing research and writing papers but he still loved taking undergrads out on walks and talking about plants. GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

Why, why on earth do you unfailingly have to inject at least one utterance of your political opinions in your writings? This time: “DeSantis’s anti-woke campaign is stupidity on toast.”

What value does it add to an otherwise very entertaining article?

I’ll answer: none. 

With the country divided right down the middle, you know you are going to gladden the hearts of half while pissing off the other half. Not a winner.

But wait. 

Who am I to even suggest to an award-winning author what to include or omit in his writings? Far above my station in life. Apologies.

Carry on. Please.

Sincerely, 

Tim deGavre

Tim, thanks for the opinion. I’m sure there’s merit in it. On the other hand, I’m 81 and feel I should now and then say what I think about whatever I’m thinking about. I read the conservative columnist George Will and admire his point of view, even if I disagree. Mr. Will’s column in the Washington Post attracts torrents of abuse from my fellow liberals. I appreciate him. Go figure. GK

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Dear Garrison,

There is a place for cheerleaders, but good cheer will not solve any of the problems raging around us. Boomers like me lost the fight for a clean environment while the oil and coal industry polluted us to death and bribed every Congress to go along. Thus, the world is literally burning up and even a new heart valve won’t prevent the elderly from dropping dead from the heat.

I see all the con men like the former guy and DeSantis playing three-card monte, trying to misdirect every issue with “Don't look here, look over there.” 

But progressives aren’t waiting for the end of the world. We’re still fighting for a clean environment, with or without cheer. 

One famous progressive used cheer this way (and I know you won’t like it) He said: “Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever till the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!” —George Carlin.

If you use cheer like Carlin does, count me in.

Clay Blasdel

Buffalo, New York

I don’t detect anything cheerful in the quote from Carlin, I only detect deliberate misunderstanding, but I’d offer that millions of devout Christians believe that it is a grievous sin to destroy the world God created and you would be foolish not to accept them as allies in the battle to prevent the holocaust. GK

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GK,

I recently watched the 1970 western movie The Cheyenne Social Club with Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. The interaction and conversation between them reminded me of Dusty and Lefty. The similarities are remarkable. I wondered if the movie had inspired your characters.

Thanks for being a great friend for 40 years even though we have never met.

Liam Robertson
Nashville, Tennessee

The gentlemen will be pleased to be compared to Fonda and Stewart but I believe that the laconic style precedes them. I remember men speaking haltingly, using few words, from when I was a child hanging around the Ford garage. My own father was laconic. So to me it’s a Midwestern style, based on suspicion of fast talkers who might be out to scam you. I can be laconic too. Just ask my wife. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Re: your recent post about minimizing your footprint, as Linda Loman once said to husband Willy, “Life is a casting off.” And as my father once said, “True happiness doesn’t come from acquiring but rather discovering how little you really need to exist.”

I’m not moving (yet) … but am fast approaching your age, and I’m trying to declutter my life so my children won’t have to deal with (to them, at least) my ultimately meaningless memorabilia.

My favourite find whilst combing through my past are letters from dead people. It’s almost like they are up there somewhere clarifying previously coded messages.

Wishing you cheerfulness in all future endeavours,

Rick Whelan

I agree and there’s a good reason to write letters, not texts or posts but real letters in your own hand, to leave something of yourself to be remembered by. Letter writing is a vanishing custom and it’s up to old guys like me to revive it. Thanks for the push. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Several years ago, a friend of mine said he ran into you on a passenger train; I think it may have been the Empire Builder. Do you prefer train travel to air travel?

Jay

I love trains. My dad worked on trains, in the Railway Mail car, and I took a train from St. Paul to St. Louis, changing in Chicago, when I was 15 and it was thrilling. I’ve ridden the Empire Builder but my favorite train is the Southwest Chief (formerly called the Southwest Limited) across Kansas and Arizona, a majestic stretch, and now living in New York City, I’m surrounded by trains. More trains go by my building every day than go through St. Paul in a month. The Amtrak Lake Shore Limited is fantastic, coming out of the tunnel and up along the Hudson. I hear Canadian trains are quite the deal and intend to go up there when the fires die out. GK

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Dear Garrison,

I’m excited to tell you that Donna and I are coming out to see your show on December 9. You probably don’t remember us, but we were long time ushers at the Fitz, and went on several of your cruises. We love New York and have a daughter in Brooklyn.

Art Hogenson

It’s a good show, Art. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks and Heather Masse and the Royal Academy of Radio Acting. I love Town Hall; I can get there by subway. Someday I should venture over to Brooklyn, I hear it’s quite hip now, not that I know about hip. GK

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Hi, GK.

I must admit feeling sorry for Mitch McConnell as he froze for about 20 seconds in front of the press conference. I’m a Democrat and disagree with most of his decisions, but I’d never wish that humiliation on anyone. Has anything like this ever happened to you? I’m guessing Mitch’s problem was an illness of some sort, but it got me wondering — have you ever been in front of an audience and had your mind go blank?

Sandy Martensen

Not in front of an audience, but a couple times at home with my wife. Stood there, speechless, which alarmed her. I assume it was mild aphasia but I don’t worry about it. I saw Senator McConnell’s bad moment and felt for him too but I think his problem may be the result of concussion. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I’m hoping to catch one of your APHC 50^th anniversary shows. I see you’ll be in New York City and Manhattan, Kansas. Are there other dates and places on the books that you can share with us?

Greg Sherer

We’ll do it in Nashville and Austin, Texas, and a bunch of other places. Probably Washington and Boston. Nobody’s invited us to do it in Minnesota so we probably won’t go there. Public radio would never broadcast anything as silly as PHC these days, which is fine, but still it was a lovely show and I want to trot it around one more time. Including the intermission sing-along. GK

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Garrison,

Now that you’re becoming a full-time New Yorker, are there any things you’ll miss about living in the Midwest?

R.J.

Friends and their children and grandchildren. There are so many things I could tell the grandkids about their grandparents and now I won’t have the chance. GK

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Dig back into some old favorites this summer with From the Archives: Garrison Keillor’s The News from Lake Wobegon - 1980 (3 CDs).

CLICK HERE to order.