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Comments from 04.25.22

Mr. Keillor,

Dr. Schwartz asked today in PTTH about the Scottish party joke — which I clearly remember from an APHC that was broadcast sometime in the period from 2006 to 2012. I remember the punchline more like “Och, come as ye are, laddie, it’ll only be the two of us.”

(There would be “wild ’ighland music,” and “wild ’ighland dancin’,” and “wild ’ighland drinkin’,” culminating in “wild ’ighland sex.”)

I can hear your guest making this joke in my mind’s ear, now. Dr. Schwartz, thanks for jogging the memory!

Carole L.

My Scots grandpa was a Glaswegian and not a Highlander. He wore trousers, not a skirt. He didn’t drink or dance. And now I understand why.

GK

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I just wanted to respond to the issue of mental health care currently. Although, I agree that much needs to be done to improve the situation that resulted from the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals because of concerns about warehousing mental patients, I disagree that everything is as dismal as you seem to suggest. My own son has a severe mental illness that he had been unwilling to address. But when he finally walked into an emergency room in a small hospital in West Virginia, not only was he given excellent care for the 21 days they could keep him there, but also they discharged him to a community mental health clinic that serves the poorest of the poor and took him in as one of their own. Nothing is perfect, but there are some very special people out there trying to make a difference for patients like my son.

Barbara Fairfield

Glad to hear it, Barbara. My column was prompted by the dilemma of a friend whose granddaughter is caught in a hard place between taking drugs that make her feel catatonic or living in the nightmare of schizophrenia. There are temporary shelters available but the long-term prospect is rather terrifying.

GK

GK,

Some years back, in my U.S. Coast Guard days, I was working on Orcas Island in Puget Sound, at a remote radio site. It was a one-day trip, so I left Seattle early, got to the island, did the work and drove back to the ferry landing. With it being summer, there were about a zillion cars and tourists there. I parked, went down about 50 wooden steps to a café, got the largest to-go clam chowder they had, and started walking back up the steps to the car park. With there being sheer boredom for those waiting, they were out of their cars and lining a wooden fence, looking down at me walking up and waiting for the ferry. Suddenly I heard an airhorn. The ferry arrived early. I started running up the steps.

I tripped and my extra-large clam chowder seemed to travel in slow motion out of the container and straight up. As it hit its apex straight above me, real time returned and it came down on top of my head, covering it completely, my beard and my uniform shirt. I only assumed everyone saw this; I wasn’t sure, clam chowder was covering my glasses.

I had zero time to clean up and drove onto the ferry. I went up into the ferry seating area to find the bathrooms and wash up, but with next to zero water pressure, I gave up and sat down in the enclosed area where the heat was on full blast. 

Despite the ferry being completely full, oddly enough nobody would sit next to me. Finally, a young girl of about 10 did but her mother immediately grabbed her and pulled her away. “Don’t sit next to that man. He’s the one who threw clam chowder over his head, thinking we’d all find it funny.” “But mom, it was funny, it was really funny.” As I sat there picking clam chowder out of my hair and beard, I thought about your Homecoming story, when Carl Krebsbach ends up in front of his daughter’s homecoming parade, hauling an old Chevy that had been used as a septic tank.

Carl’s line: “If it had to happen, I’m glad it happened where a lot of people could see it. Who needs dignity when you can be in the entertainment business?”

That’s what I figured too. If you’re going to wear clam chowder, you might as well do it in front of a crowd so everyone can enjoy it.

Cheers,

Velo Mitrovich

London

That is a fine visual story, Velo, I can see every step of it. The mother’s line is disappointing, but the rest is perfect. I guess it looked as though you had vomited, but how could a person vomit on the top of his head?

GK

Good morning. I am with you on mac and cheese; enjoyed reading this. I had thought I was the only person addicted to Cheerios and bananas. Cheerios is one of the old originals that has escaped change.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you on your upcoming cardio procedure when they remove the regrets from your heart. Hope all will be well. What happens to the regrets though?

Dick
Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

Thank you for your kind thoughts. Regrets, of which I have a bucketful, become fainter with time and what becomes clearer and sharper is the memory of wild good fortune. I still cannot believe that Bill Kling let me start A Prairie Home Companion back in 1973 when KSJN was a little duplex office suite in downtown St. Paul. I was destined to be a parking lot attendant and the man made me a performer.

GK

Dear Garrison,

Yes, they can put a wire in your groin, take the scenic route and poke around in your heart, incredible as that sounds. My husband had it done April 1st; it’s called an angioplasty. It’s much easier for the patient than open-heart surgery, which they still do when necessary. When my husband went in to have the angiogram, a preoperative procedure, he said it made his heart flutter and he told the surgeons he hadn’t felt his heart race this way since the first time he saw Mary Lou naked. And then his medical team burst into song, “Hello, Mary Lou, good-bye heart!” I guess you had to be there, tee, hee….

If you’re on a waiting list to have this done, I wish you all the best. The doctors will give you sedatives, so you’ll be awake but won’t care too much.

My dear hubby was only hospitalized for 48 hours, after that I was able to take him home. We live in Canada so they don’t keep you in the hospital for long. I snipped the stitches and removed them three weeks later, I’m not really sure if they were the dissolvable type but I made an executive decision and with the aid of a magnifying glass, manicurist scissors and a pair of tweezers, I figured, how hard could it be?

He lived!

Sincerely,
Kathy McGovern

Kathy, you may not know it but you’re a comedy writer and I think this story is the beginning of a novel. But are there novels set in Canada? I don’t know of any.

GK

GK,

Got a chuckle from me. I’m sure you will live … as they say, “Only the good die young.” Not really inferring that you aren’t good, after all, I read you and if you are not good, then maybe I am not either?

Regardless, (’cause irregardless is NOT a word) so I’m told. And what would it matter as they know what I meant anyhow? Regardless, make sure you are okay, because for whatever reason, while drinking my no name coffee, I look for your dribble each week. I mostly concur with your conclusions, that the most sensible of all are the gifts given from above, like my baby (72) who wakes me daily at 4:30 a.m. so I can go to work while he putzes around rolling that roller picker-upper on the rug and doing dishes, as he is retired after a cancer episode 10 years ago. He is cancer-free now but still retired. Okay is fine with me.

I will go now and finish my coffee, do the Wordle online that I play with my granddaughter remotely, then go be the best parts saleslady in these parts.

After Saturday Mass, and a bit of Castle or Saturday Night show, perhaps a few hours at the casino Sunday with my babe.

Then back to parts on Monday. Yup, okay is fine with us.

Godspeed, old man.
Marie Green

Manchester, New Hampshire

I never met a woman before who works in parts and it’s an honor to hear from you. I was in Manchester years ago but wasn’t in need of a part and now I need so many parts that I wouldn’t know where to start. But that’s just how it is.

GK

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I am reading through an old document that I keep on my computer, to which I added poems I really enjoyed from reading The Writer’s Almanac.

In the spring semester of 1999, my English professor at Westmont College, Dr. Paul Willis, played The Writer’s Almanac to our Creative Writing class at the beginning of each session. I will never forget those mornings in the dreamy Santa Barbara air, in the fresh light of Reynolds Hall, closing my eyes and listening to the velvet melody of your voice reading beautiful poetry. I loved hearing the interesting stories you told about events from that day in history, and the quotes you chose from authors, statesmen, public figures, actors, and everyday heroes. What a beautiful time it was.

In those days before the internet took over our lives, I spent a lot of time listening to the radio. I made a habit of listening to The Writer’s Almanac, and Prairie Home Companion. I lived a simple life in Lake Tahoe after university, in a small cabin with many windows, a wood burner, a black cat, and no television. I read books, excited to read works of my own choosing after finishing an English degree. I journaled every day, inspired by Thoreau and Colette and Edna St. Vincent Millay. I found myself weeping when you sang a little tune from the past, talking about the simple lives lived by the people in Lake Wobegon, and I found myself among them. You introduced me to very beautiful writers: Billy Collins “the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest,” Dana Gioia, May Sarton, W.S. Merwin, Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry, Elizabeth Bishop; and my favorite poem of all time, “From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee.

You kept me company in those dark snowy nights by the fire, and the sunny sultry summer afternoons with the door open, with your velvety voice, introducing new worlds of poetry and possibility to me. I felt that it must be okay to be as sentimental as I found myself to be, watching the world around us change so quickly with the events of 2001, if there was a man like you out there, with a wistfully sonorous voice, reminiscing about the good old days and the good old ways of our beautiful American past, quietly celebrating the simple lives of simple people.

The Writer’s Almanac was my “homepage” on my computer for years, and I read it daily. I went to Spokane in the summer of 2014 by myself to see you perform live, and it was a sweltering, beautiful experience in Middle America. I often shared with friends and family the snippets of delight that you had culled from history to add to TWA every day. It was endlessly inspiring. One of my great dreams was to attend a live broadcast of PHC from the Fitzgerald Theater, and I am sorely disappointed that I did not make it happen.

When the events unfolded that saw the Almanac and PHC taken offline by MPR, I was furious for you and grieved with you. Their loss was a real loss to me. I recognize that it must have been very painful and costly to you and I am so sorry that it happened.

I wanted to let you know that I have appreciated your body of work, your creativity, and your spirit, for over twenty years. Just today as I read through the poems I had saved from TWA, I was reminded of how comforted I was for so many years by what you produced, so beautifully. I recognize that TWA and PHC became more than just you, but they carry your DNA, your nostalgic bent, your gentle spirit, and your great appreciation of the small delights in life.

Thank you so much for what you have added to my life in your years of writing, singing, performing, experience, wisdom, humor, and hard work. I am so grateful for you, and I wish you the very best in your future. Your life’s work has made a huge difference in my life and made it more beautiful.

Sincerely, and with great warmth,
Livia Simmons
Tahoe City, California

Livia, you’ve written the only thank-you letter I will need for the next ten years and any other listeners can set their pens aside and go back to work. What an independent spirit you are, to have settled in that cabin and devoted yourself to reading, and taken nourishment from poetry. I wouldn’t have had the gumption to do that and I admire it with all my heart. While you led a disciplined life, I stumbled along, a clueless husband and absentee father, trying to cobble together a career for myself, and your letter tells me that out of the confusion of my life came some good for a woman near Lake Tahoe, and I feel good about that. I met Jenny when I was 50 and life has been good for thirty years, and it’s very pleasant to think of you in a snowy cabin listening to Merwin and Bishop and Gioia and Lee. Thank you, my dear.

GK

Have you ever commented about ageist views that accompany aging? If not please consider commentary about it either from his own experience or general concepts.

Thanks.

Ramona Johnson

I made fun of old people when I was a kid, imitated their quavery voices and confusion and fearfulness, and now that I’m old, I still do. Why should we be exempt? I love being 79. Some days are better than others. What’s the problem? I worry about people under 30 — we had all sorts of advantages unavailable to them. When I was a kid, I had the ambition to support myself by writing. And I did. Nowadays, that’s ten times harder than it used to be. And college kids are paying lavishly for a mediocre education that isn’t preparing them for much. I could go on.

GK

Hi, 

I’m sure I won’t be the only one to point this out but wearing jeans with holes is high fashion. Although — your not knowing that does prove your point of being out of the loop.

Blessing,
Teresa

Teresa, my wife Jenny does not view jeans with holes in the knees as high fashion. She views them with disgust. The two of you can discuss this and work out something and I’ll wait for further instructions.

GK

Having spent months either in hospital or homebound for recuperation, I needed some joy. I remembered the Saturday evenings I spent since the 1980s listening to your show. Today I found your show again. Jean Shepherd was my radio show during my teens. Certain people have a radio voice and your show provided a perfect replacement for Jean’s shows. I longed for a respite. Thank you for providing just what this 80-year-old needed.

Sonia C.

I missed out on Jean Shepherd, Sonia, growing up in Anoka, Minnesota, as I did and I really need to catch up. One of these days, I’ll google him (her?) and see what this is all about.

GK

I know you are tired and want to rest. You deserve a rest. Take a vacation. Please come back. The sound of your voice is a comfort and the comments you make lighten my daily load. The Writer’s Almanac has been such a wonderful combination of thoughts and events. What could I do to replace you?

Bob Shaffer

Pick up a copy of Mary Oliver’s Devotions and read the poems aloud to yourself. The poem about wild geese, the one about the grasshopper. She’s gone from the world but she’s still very much in it, thanks to her poetry.

GK