Post to the Host

Comments from the week of 03.10.24

Mr. Keillor,

I understand that you will be in Wilmington, North Carolina, the week before Easter, and I further understand that you are an Episcopalian and might be looking for a place to worship on Palm Sunday.

I would like to extend an invitation for you to join us at St. Philip’s church in Southport. You can find information about our church at www.stphilipschurch.org.

Should you decide you would like to attend, we have a retired priest, Canon Jim, who would be happy to provide transportation.

Blessings,
Fr. Eric Mills

Bless you for the invitation, Father Eric, and I look forward to joining you. GK

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Hello, Mr. Keillor.

Given your appreciation for Mennonite a cappella singing, I wanted to bring your attention to this recording of the 3/10/24 memorial service for Mary Oyer, the Grande Dame of Mennonite singing and hymnody and longtime music professor at Goshen College in Indiana. She died this past January at the age of 100. 

It takes a bit to get to the group singing (which starts just before 19 minutes) prior to the service, during which there is lots of music. Many of those in attendance are white-haired, and few are contemporaries of Mary, but many former students and lifelong community neighbors. I am the daughter of one of Mary’s close childhood friends and classmates; one of my sisters is named Mary after her. It was always a pleasure to visit her when I went to visit my mother, and I missed out on more recent visits after my mother died in 2015.

https://boxcast.tv/channel/n12gpk18euckrb3gcgs4?b=ij0vym0stcetnonumxkd

In any case, if you care to listen, I hope you are moved as I was by this commemoration of Mary Oyer’s life. FYI, the service closed with singing the Mennonite anthem Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow/Alleluia.

Sincerely,

Betsy Beyler

Fairfax, Virginia

I remember doing a show at Goshen and the other-worldly singing of the Mennonites. A former Mennonite came up to me at church on Sunday and told me that Mary Oyer had been at that show. Thanks for the link. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Your column “It’s democracy folks, learn to love it” puts you in peril — of never being able to top this one. Witty, insightful, funny (laugh-out-loud funny), imaginative, written with your consummate skill. It’s hard to find a place of sensible sanity in the world where Mr. Sunkist calls the shots, but you’ve helped me do that. You always do. Your columns bring into focus how you, people of my age and time, can navigate the world we have become. I urge you to continue to tell people who may believe in this frightening sideshow where you stand. You are respectful but speak your truth. Well done, Garrison. I agree we can’t seem to change benighted minds, but what balance of forbearance and courage is necessary is a lesson I hope to learn.

I hope you enjoy good health for years to come and days of abundant love. You are a gift to us all.

Thank you for all the years,

Elinor Donahue

Elinor, you are a dear and I do believe that with God’s help we’re going to get through this year. I do what I can but I also believe in prayer, more now than ever, and during Lent when I’ve tried to maintain daily meditation and at church, during the Prayers of the People, I do feel the Spirit. I used to be an ambitious striver and now I feel the gravity of faith, the faith that God loves us and that this planet was not created for the purpose of extinction. In Minnesota, I was a man in a car heading somewhere and in New York I’m a pedestrian in a crowd and I feel the humanity around me and I walk prayerfully. That’s the end of my preaching, Elinor. Walk in love, keep the faith, bring hope wherever you can. GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

As a former English major, I’ve always enjoyed all the POEM skits on Prairie Home Companion, as well as the English Major CD collection released many years ago (the Six-Minute Hamlet is a particular favorite). Included in that set is a story about the Hochstetter house, and you mention one of the Hochstetters was your high school English teacher. Was he an influence or source of inspiration to you?

Best regards,
Michael Brumitt

He was. His name was DeLoyd, he was from South Dakota, and he was sort of crazy, not a systematic teacher, plagued with OCD, but he was a brilliant monologuist and his rambling lectures ventured into theology and history and his own life story; we got to know his mind. He was bewildering to some and encouraging to others and he told me I had a gift and I chose to believe him. GK

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Dear GK,

I thoroughly enjoyed your, “Mature man available for speaking, easy terms” and especially your take on Pascal’s Wager.

“Some of my best friends are Unitarians. I tell them, “If I’m wrong about the afterlife, no problem, I’ll just cease to be, but if you’re wrong and you face God, I’d like to see you talk your way out of that.”

You reminded me of the old joke:

“What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Unitarian?

Someone who knocks on your front door at 7:00 AM on a Sunday morning with nothing to say.”

Good luck,

Bill Stein

My Unitarian friends have a great deal to say. I heard that punchline as “… knocks on your front door for no particular purpose.” I do know that they relish Unitarian jokes. Like the one about the Unitarian Ku Klux Klan that goes around burning question marks on people’s lawns. GK

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When the Chicago Cubs won the World Series — when was that, 2016? — I heard an interview with Bob Newhart. Lifelong Chicagoan, lifelong Cubs fan, he had been waiting all his life for this moment. And at age 87 he was working! Performing in a night club, I think. He was asked, “Why haven’t you retired?” He said he hadn’t gotten tired of making people laugh. Neither have you! and it’s a great gift. Canada has the Stephen Leacock Award for humour. Why isn’t there a Pulitzer? Or a Nobel?

Elizabeth Block

Toronto, Canada

There’s a Mark Twain Award but it goes to actors, not writers particularly. That’s okay by me, I’ve lost interest in awards, the award is the chance to work. Newhart was a great innovator in stand-up. Thanks for reminding me of him. I’ll look him up. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I am one of your happy subscribers. In a Substack post by Matt LaBash, he refers to you as “the criminally undervalued wise man.” Nice compliment, and I agree.

I’m trying to learn to write a limerick. Here’s one of my first efforts:

If his IQ were 2 points higher
He’d be a rock—not merely a liar
Such is our bad luck
So sad to be stuck
With Trump and his Republican choir.

Thanks so much for all that you do. You cheer me up.

Best,
Carolyn Harrison
Oro Valley, Arizona

Good start. Work on meter and structure: the last line needs to be the punchline, the clincher.

A lady in the valley of Or
Postpones bad news till tomorrow
And is happy today,
Whoopi-ti-yi-yay,
And has yet to experience sorrow.

GK

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Garrison,

Thank you for Saturday nights’ APHC. I was a school principal and Superintendent for over 34 years and always took your weekly inspiration to school the following week to build school communities where we became a “family.” I specifically used the word “family” constantly in conversations. Since my retirement I still see my school staffs, students and parents in the community who come up to me to say how much they enjoyed our “family.” The staff had pride in their subject and school family. This created a top 100 U.S. high school in five years. We now have in the U.S. a drive-thru, pessimistic, angry, hostile culture with “I” being more important than the “we” values that we say we aspire. Our heads are constantly in our phones, and we never look up to see the wonderful possibilities around us. I spoke to a millionaire developer the other day who proudly told me, “I don’t know my neighbors and I don’t care to know them.” Somehow, we need to start talking and getting others to join in to create more of a place like the Lake Wobegon culture of respectfulness, working together and loving your neighbor. I have attended a half-dozen of your shows and will be at your Wilmington, North Carolina, show in a couple of weeks. I hope there will be a time where I can personally say thank you as you helped me create numerous “Lake Wobegon family”-oriented schools touching many tens of thousands of staff, parents, and students. I believe in America. Now let’s all as listeners begin to turn down the volume (in both parties) and build a community built on equality, respectfulness, and friendship, working together for a better country. We can do it. Movements start one at a time. 

Joel F. Ritchie 

I take your message to heart, sir. I’ve not been a good neighbor myself, not in Minnesota, not in New York. I live on the 12^th floor and I’ve yet to invite the 11^th floor up for coffee. I go to church and don’t stay for coffee hour afterward. I am very reluctant to engage with people on the subway. I was a busy bee in St. Paul and one day my next-door neighbor came over to visit and, good Lord, it was Dave Durenberger, a former Republican U.S. Senator whom I had voted for. He was a lovely man and his dad had taught at St. John’s University where I started out in radio. Your phrase about the drive-thru culture I take to heart though I don’t think I was angry or pessimistic, just wildly busy. It’s never too late to change: that’s my new motto. GK

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GK,

After reading your musings about a winter that won’t end where you live, I was hoping you could turn some climate change knobs and send some of that cold down here to Texas. Winter passed us by this year and the bluebonnets are already starting to wilt from all the warm weather that has been thrust upon us. Maybe this early heat wave has more to do with divine retribution for our goofy Texas politics than with global warming, which our Rs deny like they do any inconvenient truth. This may be just a prelude to the coming of hell to the Moan Star State. Like you, I turn to our finest cuisine to endure what we are living through — mashed rutabagas, fried okra, black-eyed peas, collard greens, along with highly seasoned chicken-fried steak. I’m not sure how long we can hold on to these essential vittles. Some of us are hoping our governor will realize that we need these immigrants to grow our vittles and cook our steak. 

Leroy Cotton

It was a weird mild winter up here and now spring seems to have arrived. And onward we go. Just waiting for Opening Day. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I turn 70 this month. I hope to catch up with you in 14 years or so. And I wish to extend an invitation to you. 

In 2066 on October 14^th, a thousand years will have passed since King William claimed victory at the Battle of Hastings. In looking at the Bayeux Tapestry, I see that all the soldiers of William are actually our Viking ancestors. If you are available on that date I would like to invite you to join me for a reenactment to celebrate the Viking conquest of England.

Thank you.

Matt King

P.S. What is your helmet size?

I haven’t traced the Keillor line back beyond 1,300 or so and don’t know how Viking we might have been. I haven’t read about them battling. And in 2066, I would be 124 years old and that is simply much too old. My goal is 97, which my mother reached, and which I’ll reach in 2039, which is getting closer faster and faster. I won’t be doing much reenacting then, I think; I’ll do well to speak in whole sentences. GK

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