Post to the Host

Comments from the Week of 12.18.22

Dear Garrison,

Having grown up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I can relate to your winter memories. Wishing for snow for Christmas wasn’t ever necessary. Now I live in the lower part of the state (those we used to call trolls because they lived below the Bridge), and we occasionally have a green Christmas. Your wish for a white Christmas seems to have summoned a REALLY white Christmas this year. Winter Storm Elliott (when and why did storms acquire names?) is bearing down upon us and our relatives are scrambling to get into their desired locations early. Such is winter in the Midwest, I guess. 

Merry Christmas!
Laurel Hill

Grand Rapids, Michigan

It sounds like a thrilling Christmas to me, Laurel. Here in New York, we departed church on Christmas Eve, having stood in the dimness holding lit tapers and singing “Silent Night,” and were hit by an arctic blast so painful I waved down a taxi though home is only eleven blocks away. The wind hurt. As for Elliott, there’s been a tendency to dramatize snowfall that older people like me notice. The word “dangerous” is used and verbs like “slam” and “punish” whereas we northerners know there’s no such thing as “bitter” cold, only inadequate clothing. But the cold contributed to the jollity of Christmas, making the indoors feel cozier. GK

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We saw the show in St. Louis last week. We thought the Alexa routine was the funniest thing we have heard in a long time. Laugh out loud, falling down funny. How could we go about finding a transcript of that bit of the show? 

Gary and Janet Robison

Comedy fades with repetition, friends. You don’t need a transcript, just a vague memory that the tall man with the gravedigger’s face amused you once. Maria Jette was a terrific Alexa, filling in for Sue Scott. And she did a wonderful drunken “O Holy Night,” which I’m afraid has damaged that song for me, but so be it. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Have enjoyed you for decades. Today’s writing was hilarious — a word I haven’t used much of late. I read a few months back that we’re not living a full life unless we think of death at least once a day. In fact, I think there’s an app that reminds us daily to do just that.

You are definitely onto something with the metal mom story. Happy Holidays. Go Vikings?

L. Marceau

Heather Masse sang that slash/metal lullaby on the show in St. Louis. She is a tall, graceful person with a beautiful voice who, I discover after knowing her for years, loves to do low comedy. Probably it comes from having small children. GK

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Garrison,

The mention of Paul Harvey made me remember my very first job in radio. I was a freshman in college and got a production assistant job at a ramshackle AM “daytimer.” One of my jobs was to punch up the Paul Harvey Show at noon. Harvey was famous for his sign off. “This is Paaaaauuuulll Haaaarveeeeey … (pause pause pause) Good Day!”

I was getting ready to quit the station, so, as a joke, I recorded the “Good Day!” and put it on a cart (you remember carts). So on Friday of my last day, I punch up Paul Harvey. When Harvey said, “This is Paaaaaauuulllll Haaaaaarveeey ...” I rolled down the feed, let 45 seconds of dead air go by, then punched up “Good Day!” I thought I’d get fired on the spot, but the Program Director burst into the production studio and said, “WHAT in the HELL is that PAUL HARVEY THINK HE’S DOING???”

R. Lee Procter

Yes, I know what a tape cartridge is, young man. I was familiar with them when you were but a tyke on a tricycle. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I always enjoy your columns, which run in our Union Leader here in New Hampshire. I am a Presbyterian minister here in New Boston and have been here forty years — the people here are very tolerant. I just wanted to tell you I have shared your The Old Scout — The Season of Letter-Perfect Families” many times over the years in sermons and I am putting it in our newsletter this week. It brings a lot of chuckles but also the message that parenting is not easy and that none of us are perfect. I discovered it in Caroline Kennedy’s book A Family Christmas. I am happy that you are doing well after your recent surgery and just wanted to thank you for all you continue to write.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

Woody Woodland

It’s an honor to be published in a grand old Republican paper like the Union Leader, once published by the famous kingmaker William Loeb. The McQuaids run it now and someday I hope to run up to Concord and buy them lunch. I don’t recall that essay of mine, though I did used to use “The Old Scout” as a pen name, so I guess it’s mine. I imagine there must be a story behind the naming of a town “New Boston,” and probably you know what it is. GK

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Dear Garrison,

Thirty-eight years ago, I’d had a terrible day teaching English to junior high school students who wished they were at the beach. When the bell rang, I asked the teacher across the hall if she would meet me for a glass of wine at the local fern bar.

It was Friday night, and the place was packed. A man stood next to an empty seat at the bar. I asked him if that seat was taken. “No, it’s yours,” he said, and then he disappeared into the crowd.

I sat down but soon saw him sitting in another seat across the circular bar. We stared at one another for a long time. He was so good looking and obviously polite but too shy to talk to me.

I knew if I didn’t do something we would both leave and never see one other again. I asked the bartender, “How do you send someone a drink?”

“Just find out what he’s drinking and send it to him,” she said, looking at me the same way I might have looked at one of my students who said, “Tom and me are …”

He asked her (I later learned), to serve it next to the young lady. After Bob introduced himself, he said, “Thank you for the drink; I forgot to eat my Powdermilk Biscuits this morning.”

I had no idea what he meant; I’d never listened to A Prairie Home Companion, but I smiled. He noticed the “I read banned books” button on my purse, and thus began a long, literary conversation — straining to hear one another in the Friday night crowd and loud jazz music.

My friend never showed, so Bob asked me out for dinner. We went to a nearby bayside restaurant, ordered our clams and oysters and took them outside to eat on the dock.

“Let’s go sit on that boat,” I said, pointing to one in a nearby slip.

“We can’t do that,” said my polite, literary, law-abiding (very handsome) new friend.

“Sure we can; it’s my sister’s.”

I will cut this very long, happy story short now to say that I finally understood Bob’s opening line (“Powdermilk Biscuits give shy people the courage to get up and do what needs to be done.”) because every Saturday night after that we ate dinner next to the radio, listening to APHC. And the following year we were married on my sister’s boat.

So, thanks to you, Garrison, for giving my shy husband the line he needed (although I did buy the gin and tonic) to begin the next and happiest 38 years of our lives.

With affection and sincere gratitude,

Sandy and Bob Beck
Tallahassee, Florida

Thank you, Sandy, for giving me a sense of accomplishment. You’ve given the line new meaning. A weary teacher finds a handsome stranger in a crowded bar and he utters a mysterious line. But the crucial element in this story isn’t the line, it’s the boat and your suggestion that the two of you go sit on it. You were bold to separate him from the tumult so he could appreciate having a conversation. That’s where romance begins, I think. And that’s what maintains it. GK

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Garrison, 

I’m glad that APHC lives on in occasional reunion form. After the recent show at The Town Hall, you and I had a chat about the holidays. I mentioned that I cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to enjoy with my daughter and would cook a traditional Christmas dinner as well. You surprised me by replying “next time try cod.” It later occurred to me that, of course, we Italian American families have a Christmas Eve tradition called the Feast of the Fishes. I know: the plural of “fish” is “fish.” One of the seven seafood courses is almost always dried cod known as baccalà, or you could say, “Italian lutefisk.” It is also soaked before cooking, but to remove salt rather than lye. 

I mentioned to you that I once tried to prepare lutefisk that I had shipped from Minnesota, and it came out less gelatinous and more flaky, to which you replied, “the words ‘lutefisk’ and ‘flaky’ don’t go together.”

However, in my binge-listening to past episodes of APHC, I found that you have indeed used those words together yourself. In “The News” from December 16, 2000, a Norwegian bachelor farmer states, and I quote: “She really knew how to make it right. Not rancid and gelatinous like this stuff, but really flaky, and like fish.” Have a cheerful and peaceful holiday season and happy 2023. 

Ray D. 

Atlantic City, New Jersey 

I’m glad your cod turned out flaky and not gelatinous. I’ve only eaten lutefisk once and then only had a couple bites. It was at a Sons of Norway banquet that brought me in as a guest speaker and all the Sons were very old, in their 70s, and now I’m even older. It was sad, that they hadn’t passed on their love of this traditional dish to their sons or nephews. My grandson warmed my heart yesterday when he said he’d been listening to Doc Watson’s music and liked it so much he’d gone and bought a guitar. I thought the young man was a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan but here he knew about Doc and Merle Watson. Next thing you know, he may be telling me an Ole and Lena joke. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

We just finished watching the Prairie Home Companion Christmas Show. What a treat! I was impressed at how you altered Greg Brown’s Cheapest Kind and It Gets Lonely ... The show was so full of creativity that I would love to have it to listen to again and again. Will you release it so I can buy it?

Your grateful fans,
Barbara and Don

I’ll look into it but it’s complicated, involving paperwork, permissions, rights, maybe a lawyer or two, and the PHC staff is down to a few survivors. GK

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Last night, my wife Dotty and I attended your Christmas show in St. Louis. It was amazing. It was spiritual. God’s presence was palpable. 

I am a 62-year-old retired USAF officer who is now a special education teacher. I was stationed in North Dakota for 5 years.

From the bottom of our hearts, from my PHC sock-covered feet to the tip of my head, THANK YOU. The show jump-started my true Christmas spirit. 

God Bless you and your loved ones. Be well and Merry Christmas to us all

John T Parker, Major, USAF (ret.)

I liked that show too, Major Parker, especially the part where I stood eye to eye with Heather Masse and sang harmony to her clear contralto. And the audience singing Christmas carols a cappella was magical, of course. And the old Fox theater is a marvel in itself. GK

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GK,

Your recent reflection about enjoying the privileged life at Christmas resonated with me here in Central Texas even though we are often deprived of snow and have to find other means of suffering against the elements to engender some seasonal cheerfulness of our own. Listening to Christmas music in these parts certainly challenges the imagination to transport us to more idyllic places where the snow glistens, chestnuts can be found, and a winter wonderland below 70 degrees may exist. Yet, we can appreciate the spiritual calling within the verses of the old hymn In the Bleak Midwinter that urges us to give from our hearts. Do you ever wonder if the narratives about Jesus’ birth in ancient Israel might be more meaningful if we thought of migrants who are journeying across our southern border with only desperate hopes rather than shepherds trekking in snow or over ground as hard as iron? 

Brother Flynn Fogarty

Llano, Texas

When Joseph and Mary were coming to Bethlehem, they were coming home for the census, but when they went to Egypt they were fleeing danger, as the migrants are who come to the southern border. Herod had ordered a slaughter of newborns and the holy family fled, a chapter of Jesus’s life that isn’t mentioned much in the Gospels. But I love that line from Luke, “Mary pondered these things in her heart.” GK

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GK,

I’m just curious. Will you read the Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol? I admit I have some interest, but I also don’t expect to learn anything I don’t already know. It’s 845 pages long. Do you think it will be worth my time?

G. Leone

No. It’s meant for lawyers and journalists, not for the likes of you and me. GK

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Dear Garrison,

I loved this morning’s column about Christmas and especially loved your last line: It’s about cheerfulness, dear friends. God bless your house and all those whom you love. Be kind. A child is born.

Yesterday I snapped at my husband when he told me for the second time, “Take smaller swaths with the shovel” as we were digging out of our driveway after the overnight snow — our snowblower is in the small-engine repair shop. I had a little temper tantrum, threw down the snow shovel, and said, “Well, I guess I can’t do it correctly, so I’m DONE.” We’ve been married over 40 years, and I can count on one hand (okay maybe two) the number of times I’ve snapped at him like this. I went into some mini tirade about hating it here and being sick of the snow and cold. After about two minutes, I apologized to him, and he apologized to me, and all is good with the world. As you write about cheerfulness, I also think of gratitude — gratitude for a long marriage where two people can apologize and forgive each other with ease. Gratitude for our next-door neighbors who kindly came and finished snow blowing our driveway, for a warm house with a furnace that works in this bitterly cold weather, for loving friends and family, and for a baby who was born and lived among us over 2,000 years ago and knew our common lot, and who still enters our hearts all these years later.

With gratitude for your cheerful musings,

Genny

St. Paul, Minnesota

Genny, good for you for snapping at him and good for him for apologizing. In a long marriage, we become very sensitive to the beloved’s tone of voice and we need to be extremely careful about giving directions or correcting each other, a slight sharpness of tone can be (temporarily) disastrous. Good to hear from you. I miss St. Paul a great deal and often wish I were back there, walking over to Nina’s coffeeshop on Grand and Dale. GK

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A few more videos from St. Louis are available via a subscription to The Back Room

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