29 Comments

I WOULD LIKE TO BE PUT ON YOUR NEWSLETTER POSTS.

SEND TO

TED JOHNSTONE

ottertej@gmail.com

Expand full comment

Or perhaps I just thought so because the first part about nature's joke of April 1, 2023 disappeared when I tried to paste in the part that you will recognize...many thanks to your reminder.....I think it was 3 years ago about Sidd Finch.

A half foot of snow in St Paul today

Expand full comment

Somehow I failed to add this to my comment

Until now happiness and peace prevailed, yet

another possible reality is looming,

full of one's loneliness, suffering,

despair, and yearnings.

Expand full comment

Let's try adding the codicil to my tale of whoa by adding that I meant to write BISHOP GENE ROBINSON. Keep on going and writing and hoping that this damn state of affairs will improve.

Expand full comment

My father-in-law and mother are both octogenarians; they both teach me a lot! 😉

Expand full comment

I miss GK's Good Poems series. i own one of your anthologies. PHC should consider a reboot of sorts. it was a slice down Lake Wobegan days where the women are above average. I even enjoyed the PHCompanion on dvd. i hear two wild & crazy guys are performing again. Steve & Martin. Thanks for all the old-time religion & satire. i miss radio that speaks with a fluid sense of belonging and a tinge of nostalgic bliss.

Expand full comment

Susan Causey wrote: "I remember one of the episodes of PHC had a graduation speech that was made up of almost all clichés strung together."

I remember the speaker made it as a parody of graduation speeches, to make fun of all those clichés, but it was well-received, and the speaker won the prize for the best speech!

Vern Padgett

Expand full comment

Perhaps I misspoke. I meant to say someone to whom I could talk and not feel that all the world and Aunt Sadie would know what I had said. Lord, if I got counseling, it would be many years before I got past the first day of school! I miss the priest we had when we first joined this church, but he and his wife and sons decamped to Illinois, and since then, we have had several priests who truly pissed people off. We live in a town that split up the current church back in 2003 when Bishop Gene Johnson was made thus, and those who clutched their real pearls at this church started an ANGLICAN church, don't you know, where men like women, and women do as they are told. It is most disheartening. I do enjoy your posts very much, look forward to your next book, and will "sing hymns," as my dear mother would say when things got tense at dinner. I am thankful for YouTube. You are so kind to respond; I am grateful.

Expand full comment

Garrison: Dickensian librarian recommending a "good path to TROD..."!!... should TREAD lightly among English majors! The past participle "to have TROD", by God, will out, if must be trod!

Roger Krenkler - "F in English - 1960" , Not "F-in' English!", as Wallace said.

Expand full comment

No, but I love "The Black Bonspiel of Willie MacCrimmon which is a short story, Novella and a play by Wesley W. Bates. One of the funniest things I have even come across

Expand full comment

Dear Garrison

I teach creative writing and hockey literature at The University of Maine. Regarding classics we have not read, I find solace in the words of the fine writer Clint McKeon who said, "What I haven't read would make for two literate people." We'll never get to it all. And in the words of our mutual friend Dave Moore, "Never enough time my man, never enough time."

Expand full comment

Hockey literature? Wow. That's something I've never come across! Is that a real thing? In that vein, have you ever listened to the only hockey rock/folklore song I am aware of, Warren Zevon's "Hit Somebody"?

Expand full comment

The Zambonis record only hockey songs and have several albums. There is also a wonderful Ron Hynes song about Terry Sawchuck and, of course, Stompin' Tom Connors and his T"he Hockey Song." My favorite might me Dave Gunning's Hockey Night. The number of novels is staggering to many. I have a self full and have many I've not read.

Expand full comment

I believe that my class at Maine and one at University of Vermont are the only ones in the US. At Maine we read novels and poetry and see some short films that deal with hockey. No autobiographies, how to play books etc. It is a literature course and while all the books involve hockey they involve much more. Virtually all of the material is written by Canadian writers. It is part of the ever growing area of sports literature something the Sport Literature Association has pioneered.

Expand full comment

Do you veer into Curling prose?

Expand full comment

I think there's just enough time but so much of it was wasted at bad plays and dinner parties and vacations.

Expand full comment

Your reference to a "Lake Wobegon TV series pilot " sounds very interesting. It could connect with somany people who value small-town life like "The Andy Griffith Show has for many years. It's still watched on television today.

Expand full comment

I think this will be earthier than Andy Griffith and the males will be more mortal.

Expand full comment

Garrison: I am so grateful for your comments on the joy and pleasure you receive whilst attending church every Sunday. I became an Episcopalian in 1994, and have attended a number of equally great and miserable churches since then. The music has always been wonderful, but oftentimes I find a priest who either is a priest who really, really wanted to be a RC priest, and acts accordingly. I digress. The church to which I belong, yet no longer attend, has a visiting priest who is essentially there to run the business, and help make a welcoming space to interview for a new priest. I have been enduring some crises in which I need to talk to a priest, yet I find this particular priest does not give the impression he wants to be a counselor, or even listener. The closest I have come over the past few years to hearing the music and witnessing the Spirit is viathe mentions throughout your column of what being an Episcopalian means to you. I am thankful for YouTube in being able to access church music (as well as the various forms of music I love). It's a sad thing to me that one can't access the priest of one's church when a familial crisis is occurring. Am I incorrect in assuming that I am on my own? Thankfully, Ann Flynt

Expand full comment

We have two smart women priests at my church and I don't go in for counselling, I get that from my wife and a couple friends. Our organist is a good man who grew up Baptist down South and he believes in fomenting a singing congregation, which he does regularly. It's very very moving. The Episcopal church I went to previously was cold as January. I'm glad I found this one.

Expand full comment

Mr. Blakeman: Not all hayracks are (were) stationary. If one wanders through Google, there are many examples of pullable hayracks to be found. "In mid-summer, it was used to transport hay from field to barn." ( https://www.farmcollector.com/restoration/hayrack-gets-new-life-zm0z20augzbut/ ). Hayrakes can be pulled as well, but serve a different purpose, of course. Be careful about correcting octogenarians - I've found that they usually know what they're talking about. 😉

Expand full comment

Thanks but you give me too much credit.

Expand full comment

Re: Michael Giltz and “timor defectus librorum”, do you know of the Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”? My very favorite of all the TZ episodes, and Burgess Meredith is splendid in the role.

Expand full comment

Dear Mr. Keillor: I certainly agree with your observation that there are few faces of color in Lutheran churches in America. At one time, when as slaves they were invited or forced to attend, the southern Lutheran churches actually had a large number. Ironically, due to colonialization and "evangelization" there are now approximately seven times the number of Lutherans in Africa as there are in North America. The number of Lutherans in Africa continues to increase which the number in North America, as with almost all traditional denominations, continues to decline. Why would be a long conversation. Thank you for the joy you bring on a daily basis.

Expand full comment

Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for the elucidation and I shall start doing some research.

Expand full comment