Post to the Host

Comments from the week of June 20th

Jun 28, 2021

Sir:

I’m going to my husband’s family’s cabin in northern Wisconsin for the July 4th weekend, though I’d rather go to your show in St. Michael. My husband’s elderly aunts will be there and I’ve been assigned to bring potato salad and it terrifies me. I’ve never made potato salad. Shall I cheat and buy a couple gallons at a deli and put it into a big wooden bowl and pretend it’s mine. (I’m not a good liar.) What to do?

Christine

Don’t attempt to lie if you lack the talent. Nothing is worse than to lie clumsily and then be subjected to cross-examination and finally break down. Those old ladies assigned potato salad to you because they’re sick of making it so buck up and find a decent recipe and throw it together, the hard-boiled eggs, fresh chopped celery, chives, green onions, real mayonnaise, mustard, maybe a little sour cream, plenty of dill, paprika, potatoes of course, and — I don’t know — toss in some chopped kale and cucumbers. Celery is crucial, and the green onions. Don’t overcook the spuds. You will be honored for your enterprise and for not trying to fob off a bowl of yellow glop from a SuperAmerica station. Good luck.

GK:

You may not want to weigh in on this and thereby draw hate mail from the hearing-impaired, but I am very irked when I see a public official giving a speech on TV and next to him or her stands a person waving her or his hands around with great excitation, supposedly translating the speech into ASL (American Sign Language). The speech is captioned so hearing-impaired people can read it off the screen and my guess is that the number of people who can’t read English but who understand ASL is rather small. Meanwhile, the signer seems to feel that this is her (or his) big opportunity to make an impact and he (or she) is gesturing wildly as if waving to someone across the lake. I did some research on this and the number of hearing-impaired persons who use ASL is estimated at a quarter-million, there being many more effective electronic means of compensating for hearing loss, but the Americans With Disabilities Act (which has brought us many good things, ramps, rails, lifts, and so on) is based on the shaky principle of No Discrimination against people whom nature or mishap or disease have already put at a cruel disadvantage. Theoretically, under the ADA, a theater company could be required to put ten ASL signers onstage for a performance of “King Lear,” signing like mad, driving the rest of us crazy. Where will all this nonsense end?

Carl K.

You’re right, I don’t see a need for me to weigh in on this. I learned my lesson when I kidded the birdwatchers and again when I made fun of the Pekingese. One thing I learned from it is that the American reader is no slouch when it comes to expressing righteous outrage. Our schools are doing something right. I’ve experienced disgrace in men’s eyes and bewept my outcast state and it’s good for me because I think of her and hear the lark singing at heaven’s gate. So go sit on your thumb, Carl.

Garrison,

My grandmother in St. Paul died recently and my brother and I had the job of going through boxes of her letters and clippings and in one we found a folder with your name on it and dozens of clippings from the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the early Sixties. What’s the story? Evidently you didn’t last long. Didn’t you enjoy newspaper work?

Devin Flanagan

I loved the paper, it was just like in the movies, typewriters banging, everyone smoked, and the floor shook when the presses rolled and the editor Walt Streightiff wore a starched white shirt and he yelled at you when he wanted something. But I wasn’t a good reporter. One big problem: I was 20 and I wanted people to think I was smart and sophisticated and the key to journalism is to look innocent and sound ignorant and this encourages people to tell you stuff. People love to talk about themselves, so keep asking simple questions like “And then what?” and “What did he say then?” and you’ll be amazed what you get. So Mr. Streightiff mainly assigned me to write obits and interview minor celebrities and so I quit after six months and went back to the U.

Garrison,

I truly regret never hearing the radio show — can’t think why. But your monologues to read do make up for it. Haven’t laughed so hard or for so long in, well, ever. Thanks — keep them coming!

Helen Sturgis

Helen, I’m glad the monologues read well. I worry about that, having never read them except when I was writing them. Reading spares you from having to look at the storyteller onstage with a solemn, sometimes agonized, look on his face as he is trying to recall how the story goes. I had a policy of not reading stories from a script and that’s why the radio listener heard a lot of long pauses. The silence of a man thinking. Anyway, I survived and now I can talk about it. What little I remember of it.

Greetings, Mr. Keillor;

Thanks for sharing this excellent Father’s Day story. It did inspire me to flip though the index cards of my mind under the file marked “Dad” and smile while doing it.

At 60 I still haven’t been to New York or London, two places I’ve wanted to see since the first grade, when I was obsessed with the Beatles and thought Lulu and Twiggy were the most beautiful creatures on Earth. I fear that London and New York — like Las Vegas — may be the burned-out, sold-out, shell of their glorious former selves I used to see in ’70s movies. Hopefully, when I go to New York I’ll see the real things that never go away, that really matter, where the city’s soul lives. Thanks again for the great story.

Dean

Thanks to the pandemic, New York has become a city of sidewalk cafés and you should put that on your list of things to do and also a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Central Park on a weekend will give you the chance to see a lot of New Yorkers up close: check out the running track around the reservoir, and while you’re there you may as well check out the Met, at least a few galleries. Governors Island is worth an afternoon. If you’re adventurous, ride the A train out to Far Rockaway and back or out to Flushing. You meet all sorts on the train.

Thanks for the great story about your dad and New York. It brought back great memories of my childhood. Back in the early 1950s, when I was much younger than your 11 years, my mom also used me as a gentle ball and chain.

Being the oldest kid, I got to go into town with my dad most Saturday mornings, first to visit his infirm parents, then to make short stops into two or three of the small town Ohio beer joints. They were magical places then, with short bars, jukeboxes, and the wonderful smell of fried food and beer.

My dad, who was never a drinker, would have a glass of draft beer with ice, and say hi to his many friends. Perched on the bar stool next to him, I was ignored but rewarded with six-ounce pops and red-dyed pistachios from the nickel machines.

My dad was a short guy with big arms and chest from hand-dipping garbage cans in a scalding galvanizing solution at the steel mill. He started work during the Depression before finishing high school. He fed eight kids from his garden, raised us all to be hard workers, and never missed work or church.

On Father’s Day, I think of this piece from the great Mario Cuomo’s eulogy for his father: “I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. I saw a man uneducated, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.”

William

William, you’re a grateful man and gratitude is a prime virtue. I think our dads were maybe a little puzzled about fatherhood and maybe their dads were too busy to set a clear example. There was a large cultural shift after the Depression and the war and that probably confused them too. But I watched my dad very closely, as you did, and now I sometimes catch myself imitating him. I regret that I’m not the gardener he was, nor the carpenter.

My most vivid childhood memories of my dad are from travels with him in his yellow 1948 Studebaker Champion convertible and later his white 1960 Ford Sunliner convertible. He showed me how to make a hat out of a handkerchief for riding in the sun with the top down. In those pre-air conditioning days we stopped every couple of hours to drink ice-cold orange juice at one of the Giant Orange roadside stands along Highway 99 in California’s San Joaquin Valley. We stopped for the night in Bakersfield, where the motels had pools and you could swim under the stars in the balmy summer night. Then you’d set off early in the morning to tackle the Grapevine, the curvy steep road over the Tehachapi Mountains that marked the boundary between the northern and southern parts of the state. You had to get over the Grapevine while the day was still cool because cars would overheat if you went in the middle of the day.

I loved reading your account of traveling with your dad.

Raoul

California was a foreign country to my family, Raoul, because we had no relatives there and visiting relatives was a main reason for travel. I didn’t see your state until I was in my thirties so the appeal was somewhat lost on me. I held onto my Midwestern bias against the state for as long as I could. We Minnesotans had a knack for looking down on the more fortunate.

Garrison,

I hope that you’ll consider doing your monologues again as an audio piece, maybe with variety show, or at least a piano. It could be very low key, studio only, or a small audience or whatever. Maybe NPR might put you back on Saturdays or Sundays.

C Wagoner

I’d love to hear someone do a live show on Saturday nights but probably it’d be on television, and for sure it’d be a person in his or her 30s, not a 78-year-old. Liveness is a key, and variety, and a rangy monologue that isn’t stand-up, isn’t political preaching, but is good-hearted observational humor. My show got a little preachy sometimes but we did a pretty good job of curating popular grass-roots music.

Mr. K,

I’m just curious, you spoke a lot about your wife keeping you on a strict diet during the pandemic while she had you in her sights. Do you have a meal that you prepare? A GK specialty perhaps?

Julia C.

My wife uses me as her meat chef on those rare occasions when we have steak. I go for something on the rare side of medium rare but she doesn’t like to see too much red, which tells her she’s eating animal flesh, which disturbs her conscience. So I must tread a narrow path. I used to make a decent risotto but it’s been a long time. It’s her kitchen and she likes to cook and so my role is mainly to sit at the kitchen table and entertain her.

Garrison,

When you were dropped from the air I rose to your defense. In a pretty harsh letter, I told MPR that you give far more than you take. I’m glad you’re back.

And I’m glad about your recent “stroke” of luck. But please remember that there are not-so-fortunate, less-happily-married pluggers who also read your words. And some of them are living with limitations caused by real cardiac events.

Your woebegone fan,

Joe

Thanks for standing up for me, Joe. A news guy at MPR told me when all of that came down, “Your offense was that your show was too popular and it was comedy.” Anyway, I’m a lucky guy, as you point out, and I know it very well. I don’t talk about it because it sounds like bragging but it’s the truth: I joined MPR as their sixth employee and we enjoyed a freedom in the early days that, as the company grew and a forest of vice presidents appeared, slowly disappeared. Prairie Home enjoyed great freedom and the company didn’t punish me for it until I was retired, which is not a bad deal at all. I hope your cardio-life is uneventful and that you keep plugging.

Dear Garrison,

I spent many years studying to be a nurse — the book work and tests were easy for me, but my nervous temperament made the clinicals extremely difficult. I kept plugging along, though, until finally I was assigned to a cardiac unit. I fell to pieces and ended up having to leave the program. My failure depressed me for a couple of years … it seemed like I’d wasted so much time, only to fail.

Then my mother-in-law was diagnosed with end-stage pancreatic cancer and wanted to die at home. Because of what I’d learned, and even more because I was NOT tied up by a nursing job, I was able to help keep her comfortable until the end.

Last week, my 83-year-old father-in-law fell and hurt his head and we rushed him off to the ER. The doctors say he has congestive heart disease and can’t ever go back to living alone. So he’s being discharged into our care and thanks to my education I’ll be able to help him live as long and as well as he can. I know it won’t be easy, but with Powdermilk Biscuits I’ll have the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.

Best wishes,
Jeannine

Your nervous temperament has improved over the years, clearly, and when the clear need presented itself, you stepped forward and took on the job. This caregiver role makes you crucial: you were needed before but now you’re essential-plus-some. That is a blessed position to hold and I wish you strength of all sorts to carry on.

Garrison,

I admire the fact that you’re still going full steam ahead as you chug through your seventies and I’m wondering — no offense intended — how long you intend to keep writing and doing shows? Is there a plan for winding down? I don’t mean to suggest that you’re faltering but there are limits to everything and how will you know when you reach the end?

Elizabeth O.

No offense taken. I’m guessing that 2022 is the end of the road. I’ll be 80 and that seems to me to be a good stopping point. I’d still write a column in Substack so long as I can be cheerful and not morbid and gloomy, but I want to slow down in my eighties. One big regret is that I was a slave to an ambitious schedule with dozens of deadlines and I crossed paths with some wonderful people who now I wish I could be friends with. Like Mike Craver, the pianist in the Red Clay Ramblers, and John Koerner and Sara Watkins and Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal and Jevetta Steele and a whole long list of others. We floated past each other, said hello and goodbye, and now I’d like to know them. I wasn’t good at friendship, but it’s never too late.

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**Not a photo of GK’s desk but you get the idea.

Garrison Keillor and Friends

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