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Comments from the week of 03.24.24

GK,

My question is, why not plan a trip to the Berkshires to visit the house in which Melville wrote Moby-Dick? It’s called Arrowhead. The docents make it interesting, so I won’t include any spoilers here. You will love it. Twenty years ago, I was a reporter and then editor for The South Advocate weekly newspaper, Ellen Bernstein, graduate of the Business School of the University of Chicago, publisher. Our salaries were a pittance, and we always wondered if that was a cruel whim of hers or if her deft administration made a difficult business financially possible. It was the latter, and the waves of merger and consolidation that beset the newspaper business in the last 20 years left me grateful to receive some financial support from my family so I could be part of it. As a reporter I visited the place for free when I wrote a story on it, but it’s well worth the price of admission. Again, you would love it!

Brigitte S. King

Brigitte, I do feel I should read the book before I go to visit him. It’s only polite. But I do plan to take the No. 4 subway out to Woodlawn to visit his grave. It’s a nice ride. GK

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GK,

I beg you, don’t waste the time you have left trying to read Moby-Dick. I drove deliveries and borrowed a 20-disc audiobook of Moby-Dick for my trips between Hastings and Lake City.

After the coma-inducing history of every sailing ship, every whaling town, every whaling company, etc., the white whale finally showed up on DISC 18! Spare yourself or see it as penance for some sin.

Leslie Ritchie

Hastings

I have sins worthy of the book but I shall consider your advice. I’m not all that interested in whaling. Or wailing, or Wales. But my friend the late Jon Pankake read the book 12 times and insisted it was very funny. I should at least have a look. GK

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Salutations, Garrison Keillor.

My name is Leon Nguyen, I am a high school student in eleventh grade doing a class project. My English teacher, Mrs. Brown, made us pick a columnist to read from a list on Wikipedia. At first, I was not going to enjoy this project from reading boring articles that detailed politics or current events, that was until I came across your name. I first read “We need a cold winter to pull us together,” I got a good laugh from reading your sense of humor and storytelling. I got more intrigued as I kept reading and wanting more, so I delved into your other stories. I was not disappointed; I was glad I came across your skills. It made me inspired and want to perform near your abilities. My most recent favorite is “We need each other, it’s a fact” as I thought your anecdote was very convincing and your use of appeals. I had a theory that your usage of Flaco was allusioned to young adults and their freedom of adventuring out and you asking them to come back home from their long journey. I wanted to know whether this theory of mine was close to your visioning, but that was how I interpreted your story. I hope you continue to write more; it was very entertaining to read about your thoughts and experiences.

Leon Nguyen

Leon, you’re my only 11^th grade reader and I treasure you. I’m conflicted about Flaco the eagle-owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo. His keepers wanted to capture him for his own good but the public outcry would’ve been fierce, Flaco having become a hero and a symbol of free-spiritedness, but the keepers were right. He crashed into a window and the autopsy revealed large amounts of rat poison and herpes he’d contracted from eating pigeons. I don’t think his days of freedom were happy ones. I also believe in protecting young people from dreadful dangers that have cropped up, but this too may be unpopular. But health is an important subject for study. GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

I have never written a fan letter. (I’ve fired off a few explicitly-not-fan letters to certain politicians, starting with Nixon, but never a fan letter. I guess I thought that popular entertainers probably get plenty of gushing fan-praise.) Here goes ...

I discovered APHC in the late 1970s. It was probably 1979 when I was a 20-something single girl, working in corporate America and fearing that I had perhaps sold my soul.

Like probably many of your fans, I stumbled across your show by accident. I fell instantly in love with Lake Wobegon and all of its interesting residents. I loved your voice from the first minute I heard it flowing languidly out of the speakers. I was immediately hooked.

After that, once a week I would sit on the floor in front of my entertainment center (which was actually a sort of jury-rigged collection of TV, radio, record player and cassette-tape player connected by a tangle of wires my dad assembled for me and which I was afraid to touch other than the on-off button) with wine and snacks ready for my weekly laughing-and-crying visit to Lake Wobegon.

After I got married in 1983, I stopped listening to the show on a regular basis because I always seemed to have something else to do. 

In 2010, when I got divorced, I took up listening to your show again as a part of my healing process. I hadn’t listened to the show in more than 20 years, but I felt right at home (and welcome) once again in my imaginary “home town” — this time listening on my smart phone.

Healing and living my life sort of interfered with my visits to my radio friends. I’d listen occasionally, but I was too busy to tune in regularly on a schedule.

After I retired in 2019, an event that was followed shortly by a total emotional breakdown that landed me in the hospital for months, I rediscovered your show ... online repeats of all the wonderful shows you had broadcast over the years.

I have established your daily Writer’s Almanac clips as the opening for my daily meditations celebrating my life today. I have created a morning ritual that begins with a visit to Almanacand ends in a personal liturgy celebrating things I have to be grateful for.

In view of the fact that one of the things that I am most grateful for of all is your work, which I have treasured for decades, and which I visit every day, I decided it’s about time I should thank you personally.

I love your voice. I love your stories. I love the amazing and wonderful people you’ve introduced me to — starting with the dear folks in Lake Wobegon and now the daily dose of interesting writers, thinkers, and often totally wonderful weirdos that I’ve met through your Almanac. 

I treasure your work that has graced my life all these years.

I guess I finally decided it was about time I said thank you.
So, thank you, sir!

Cindy Long

Cindy, you have quite a story and I hope you find time to write it down, not the part about the radio listening but all the rest. And now you’re ready to do heroic things of your own. Your soul is eager to make itself felt in the wider world and you do have a way with constructing resounding sentences, so maybe you should write more letters but now address them to people in positions of power. I’m just an old man amusing himself. GK

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Hello, Garrison.

After reading your note from Olaf in Germany, I have to share my latest favorite. It’s hurkle-durkle, which I’ve just discovered is an old Scottish term that means to lie in bed “when one should be up and about.” Now that I’m retired, I admit it’s a great pleasure some days and I love saying hurkle-durkle. 

Laurel Hill

Laurel, I have avoided this all my life. My Scottish relatives avoided it too. I get my best ideas early in the morning and I jump out of bed and put them down in black and white. But thanks for the word for what I don’t do. GK

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Dear Garrison,

I’m finding that the younger generation does not want to vote. Voting was instilled into our generation from our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Voting was something we just did.

When I remind the younger generation that it’s Election Day — go vote. They take offense and basically tell you that “I can’t tell them what to do.”

My take on this is that if our world goes to hell in a handbasket, they are going to blame our generation for wrecking the world.

What is your recommendation as what to tell the young generation? 

Rose from Illinois 

Rose, you need to meet some smarter young people. They’re out there and they’re going to do the right thing in November. They’re certainly not going to vote for a conman and crook who’s selling $59.99 Bibles. GK

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Hey,

I am a deacon in the Episcopal church. I sing a little whenever I can. Get this, my priest asked me to sing the Exultet for Easter two days ago. I think I may just need to wing it. Then again, I may just read it.

Deacon Rachel

Cantonment, Florida

I hope you sang it, Rachel. GK

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Dear Garrison,

As a fellow prairie person, I’d like to know what you would consider as the quintessential Midwestern novels. I live near Seattle but was born and raised near Omaha. Since Omaha is east of the 100th Meridian, it is still considered to be Midwestern. And despite my years in the PNW, I consider the Midwest to be my home. Just curious to see what your list would be!

BTW, I’ve been listening to you since hearing a PHC broadcast while repairing the roof of a veterinarian clinic in New Jersey in 1985. None of my East Coast acquaintances would believe any of your stories. But they rang true with my own experiences growing up as a middle-class Lutheran in Nebraska. Thanks for the laughs and the memories! Go Whippets!

Dan Schuttler

I’d suggest Huckleberry Finn and Little House on the Prairie and My Ántonia, for starters. Jim Harrison’s Legends of the Fall and Patricia Hampl’s Florist’s Daughter and Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. That should do you for a while. Oh, and also Theodore Roethke’s poems. GK

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GK,

In your recent Easter musings, you noted that those of us who identify as Christians often have different beliefs about the resurrected life, likely due to the strange and different resurrection accounts about Jesus in the gospel stories themselves. Here in Texas the competing brands of Christianity are very stark and many wonder if Jesus would even recognize his contemporary evangelical disciples at a PTA meeting or in a campaign rally today. But let’s fear not, because the epitome of Christian righteousness running for President has now edited a MAGA bible that should provide clarity on all things Christian. Have you ordered your copy?

Billy Criswell

Waco, Texas

Haven’t, Mr. Criswell. Have my boyhood Bible still with me. GK

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My great-aunt Gertrude was very sharp, but tact was not her strong suit. One day (in the 1930s? ’40s?) she was in her doctor’s office. The man who left just before she went in to see the doctor was someone she knew, and she asked the doc, “I just saw Mr. So-and-so leaving. What’s wrong with him?” The doctor said, “He has an impunct on the pizzarinctum.”

Now, how did this story get around the family, and come down to me? Gertrude asked people what is an impunct on the pizzarinctum! She didn’t get it that the doctor was saying, “Mind your own damn business!”

Elizabeth Block

Toronto, Canada

Sort of like a crepuscular dissemination of the fantods, if you ask me. GK

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Garrison,

I read your Everyone’s a member of the subway column at 5:10 a.m. this morning. When it’s available, that’s the first thing I read during my usual nightly sleep gap. It made me think about the quote from Groucho Marx, “I refuse to join any club that will have me.” The rejection was a favor, saving you wasting your time hanging around a bunch of boring snobs. 

A friend of mine just joined a club in Minnesota that you don’t want to belong to either. It’s the “Died Shoveling Snow Club.” Many people join, and the benefits are great, just one meeting to say goodbye, and no other requirements. This last weekend we had the only real snow of the year, a foot of wet heavy snow over two days. More remarkable since the ground had been bare all through February. When I came into the house after clearing the driveway I told my wife “That’s a heart attack snow.” My friend Dave was 76, a wonderful friendly guy who I played racquetball with for several years up until COVID closed the gym. He was remarkable in his ordinariness. He loved his wife, was a proud father and grandfather, a good storyteller, and someone you always enjoyed talking to. 

Your writing has encouraged me to put some thoughts in writing, which has become a virtual email conversation with my 81-year-old brother. I call it “Distraction of the Day” and fill it with things that interest me that are not political or part of the culture wars. My brother is six years older than me so he’s always been the most interesting guy who could do anything and knew everything as I grew up. Dad was busy making a living, so a big brother like that was something special for a young boy. You fit the same mold, interesting, entertaining and a big brother to many people. Thanks for your writing. 

Richard

Saint Cloud, MN

I’m sorry about the death of your friend. My older brother, Philip, died at 71 while skating: he fell and hit the back of his head, seemed to be recovering but there was bleeding and they couldn’t save him. He was five years older than I and now I’m ten years older than he was, and I still miss him sorely. But I am trying to accept my elder status and bring some wisdom into my inherent silliness. Be well, sir, and be glad for spring as it enters the gates. GK

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Hey, Garrison.

I was at the show with my husband this past week in Wilmington. I was trying to remember that joke you sang about the woman having three breasts. Can you help? Also, I’ve already forgotten the limerick you taught us. By the way, we loved the show. Thanks for coming to our part of town.

Terri Miles

Limerick:

There was a young man of Madras
Whose balls were made out of brass.
He could clang them together
And play “Stormy Weather”
As lightning came out of his ass.

Joke:

When God created Woman,
He gave her not two breasts but three,
But the middle one got in the way
So God performed surgery.
Woman came before God
With the middle breast in her hand;
She said, “What shall we do with the useless boob?”
And God created Man.

You’re welcome. GK

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Dear Garrison,

Your column touched me and reminded me of a poem I wrote about what you might see in the Philadelphia subway.

Best regards from a longtime fan (I actually met you at St. John’s University in 1966 when I was a freshman, but I couldn’t think of anything to say).

Hard Times

Tall and thin, erect as at the barre,
With hair in two tight braids tied just above the neck,
With flight attendant poise, quiet and correct,
The center of attention in our subway car
She knew we all would rather not speak of how we are
And, with perfect manners said, please don’t be upset
Standing with humble dignity, her clothing Chaplinesque
Asked for help because, right now, times are very hard
On every ride, most looked away, but sometimes one or two
Would find a bill, and wish her luck, but wonder where she went,
And if she limped from livid wounds where syringes goad
The truth about her hard times was that they would not improve
Her set piece never changed, despite the signs of her descent
The bandaged foot, the spiderweb she’d tattooed on her throat

Thomas Nelson

A fine poem, sir. Thank you. GK

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