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Comments from the week of 04.28.24

I was listening to one of my favorite guitarists, Leo Kottke, and saw where he is an English Major with a degree from St. Cloud University. I have listened to you since my college days at the U of U and saw you there for the first time in the early ’70s. You did not look like anything I had imagined! I got my BA in English from the U of U but have made a living as an architect for the last 35 years. Odd combination! Have you had, or considered having, Leo as a guest on your show? He may already know some of your characters.

Frank

Leo has been on PHC many times and I still remember the show we did at Radio City Music Hall where Leo and Chet Atkins rose from the pit on an elevator, playing “Tishomingo Blues,” as I recall. He has a fine baritone voice and he sang a beautiful “Banks of Marble” with Iris DeMent on the show. My wife was a big fan of Leo back in her student days and I think it was to my credit that I knew Leo. GK

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I was amused by your neurologist’s precise and thorough assessment. I once peeked at my chart when the doc left the exam room for a few minutes. He described me as a “cooperative mesomorph.” That fits me to a T.

Cheers!

Esther Hope

I used to be an ectomorph and now I seem to have morphed into a shambling old man. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

I wanted to write this on real paper with a fountain pen, the way I imagine you’d want to read it. But I don’t see a mailing address and I’m pragmatic myself, so here you are. Just — thank you. For a thousand moments of warm companionship tinged with the sweet loneliness an author and his audience must allow. It is past midnight here in Montana, past when I should be in bed, but here I am thinking thoughts in your voice, because somehow your voice connects me to a time that is now lost but was dearer than I imagined when I had it. I just want to say thank you, and though it feels inadequate, I think surely you must know the way I mean it, the way you’d hear it if I was a longtime fan and met you after a show we were both happy with. But with so many people behind me waiting to shake your hand and say the same thing, I can only clasp your hand a little tighter, look you in the eye, and will it to carry all the gratitude I feel, but cannot say. I think you understand. Thank you.

Aaron Smith

I hope the lost time is not weighing too heavily on you, my friend. It is possible to let go of the past, the dear past along with the regretful past, and live cheerfully in the present. What works for me is to savor the immediate. Proust had his madeleine and I have my Pearson’s Salted Nut Roll but still one savors the cup of coffee, the hand of the lover on the shoulder, the gladness of schoolkids, the affection of friends. I did a show in Spokane at which the audience sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” so strongly and sincerely that it made me weep. Small miracles count for so much. GK

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Garrison,

In your column of April 29, you stated that “Half of all people are below average …” That is not the case. Ninety-nine percent of all people could be below average, if the remaining one percent of the sample sufficiently exceeded the rest. You would have been correct if you said that “Half of all people are below the median,” since the term median defines the point at which half of the sample values are above that point, and the other half are below it. I realize that you are a man of letters, and of humor, but since I am a man of science, I must note this error. Rest assured, however, that it remains entirely possible in Lake Wobegon — as well as in the field of statistics — for all the children to be above average.

Coleman Hood

Bishop, Georgia

Now you know why I did so poorly in science. Of course, you’re right, though I’d argue that in a town like Lake Wobegon, there aren’t sufficient Einsteins to bend the curve so sharply. And in common English, the kind I use, “median” is the stripe on the highway and “average” is not so distinct. It just means “middling.” GK

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Dear GK,

Recently you wrote: “Friends of mine are nearing the end, going through the Seven Stages of Dying: Dismay, Distress, Dread of Cheerful Visitors, Demanding More Drugs, and Delivery Into Divine Paradise, Discovering They’re All Catholics, Devoting Oneself to Daily Rosary Recitation.”

I find these words brilliant and worthy of that other “GK”: Chesterton.

As a Catholic Deacon, I fully intend to use your thoughts in my next homily, with proper attribution of course.

If you are contemplating “Devoting yourself to Daily Rosary Recitation,” might I suggest that you purchase a “Scriptural Rosary” booklet, which offers a short biblical passage before each “Hail Mary” to aid in your meditation of each of the four Mysteries of the Rosary.

Devotion to the Rosary is becoming more common among our Protestant sisters and brothers especially among the Episcopal and Anglican believers.

Keep up the good work.

Deacon Bill Stein

I will take you up on Rosary recitation when the Roman Catholic Church comes around to ordaining women. But I’ll get that booklet so as to be ready when the miracle occurs. GK

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I have been a fan of yours for many years. I attended your show in Spokane, Washington, on Saturday, April 27, 2024. I went with my 28-year-old daughter and friends. All of us were very disappointed in the “off color” nature of your delivered material. It was something we never heard or expected based on your radio shows. Also, without the past skits as performed on the Radio Shows, the performance lacked all the humor that used to be delivered. 

Alan Roach

Sorry you were disappointed. Perhaps the title of the show “GK & Company” was misleading. It was a three-person show, without the acting company and the SFX man who would’ve performed those skits, Guy Noir, Dusty & Lefty, Duane and His Mom, and so forth. It was stand-up, poetry, duet singing, and the News from Lake Wobegon. It’s challenging to gauge where the line of good taste lies — I guess that probably Spokane is different from Seattle, but my feeling that night was that the show was very well-received by that crowd. Since I retired from radio in 2016, I’ve found that audiences enjoy some material that I wouldn’t have done on the air, some stories venturing into human experience that lies outside the Beatitudes. I read Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” in college English, which weren’t taken up in high school English, and I enjoyed the bawdiness. But I am sorry you were uncomfortable. It’s in the nature of show business: some people will not go away happy. I was very much impressed by Spokane, I must say — a thriving city, beautiful downtown, a ballet company, opera, symphony, and that old Fox theater was a beauty. GK

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Hello, Mr. Keillor.

I played trombone in your first National Broadcast live from Northrop as a member of the Wolverines Classic Jazz Orchestra.

Do you ever write a sentence or two for the back cover of book?

All good wishes,
John Boblett

I don’t do blurbs for books anymore. For my latest book, BRISK VERSE, I wrote the blurbs myself using pseudonyms. It worked beautifully. GK

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Garrison,

With Mother’s Day approaching, I’m hoping you might share a limerick about your mother. Also, are there limericks in your new book?

Claire D.

My mother’s name was St. Grace
And she worked at a furious pace
And at ninety-seven
Ascended to heaven,
And rests, having finished the race. 

Yes, there are. GK

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