Post to the Host

Comments from the week of September 5, 2022

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Comment/Question of the week:

Mr. GK,

I have a Mayo story for you. Many years ago, I was at SMH (St. Mary’s Hospital) in Rochester, Minnesota, for a medical procedure called a Fine Needle Aspiration, abbreviated FNA. I was lying on a table in a procedure room getting prepped by an all-female team who were professionally going about their work while throwing around the letters FNA when I finally spoke up and said, “You know how that sounds to me, right, ‘effin A.’” The room went silent for a long moment, then everyone burst into lovely laughter. The procedure started with many FNA comments and much rollicking laughter, all of us women enjoying a rare, splendid moment between ourselves. And then the door opened, and a short, heavyset man walked in, frowning. The room instantly became silent. The procedure continued. The man in a brown suit walked around for a while, hands clasped behind his back, sternly looking at monitors and such, and then finally left. The room remained silent for a while, and then, after a few moments, I said “F!N!A!” in awed wonder and everyone erupted in laughter again. A very satisfying moment. (The results were good. I dearly hope no one got into trouble for laughing that day.)

JFL

Beautiful. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

I implore you to stop referring to the toilet as the “john.” Perhaps, instead, the water closet, the necessary, or as we used to say aboard ship in the Navy, the head? Let’s make an agreement. If you honor my request, I won’t call the legions of men who stupidly mustered at Verdun to die Garrison(s).

Speaking of dying, thank you for the continued observations post-surgery — especially the part where you survived to eat mediocre food. America needs you more than ever, Garrison, to speak truth to power. And then there are the fart jokes, too.

Get well, keep up the good work, and by all means continue to just get better and better at what you do.

Best,
John W Mitchell
Western Slope, Colorado

I only referred to the john as a witty reference to my parents John and Grace who used this cane, which I’ve inherited and with which I “walk gracefully when I go to the john.” I never say “john” for “toilet.” Never. I wasn’t in the Navy so. I can’t say “head.” “Water closet” is pretentious. I do like “privy” though. GK

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Is this a sufficient limerick about a limerick?

A boy’s Canadian “Limerick”
Set some goals for his new hockey stick
Make one quick and slick score
Then to slap in two more
And ice that game with a hat trick.

Yours truly,

Walt Lindgren

Cheney, Washington

It’s a brave attempt at an impossible goal. How about —

Walt Lindgren attempted a lim-
Erick using the word, God bless him.
He is from Cheney,
Ambitious and brainy,
But his chance of success is quite slim.

GK

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Dear GK (not Chesterton),

Your essay this morning shows that your mind is still sharp as a tack despite all those procedures and anesthesia, but it also shows that you still have not overcome the nasty prejudice into which you were indoctrinated as a youth. 

What “dreadful theology” did the Sisters of St. Mary inherit? Catholics believe in purgatory because of Maccabees, in praying to Mary because of the Wedding at Cana, in going to confession because “if you hold them bound they are held bound,” and in the pope because of St. Peter.

None of this is dreadful, so stop it. 

And continue to get well soon.

Maria

DeKalb, Illinois 

I’m an old Protestant, Maria, and you’re asking me to make a late-life conversion. I honor the spirit of the Sisters who, much more than Protestants, followed Jesus’ teaching to care for the sick and the poor, and I put down my fellow Protestants for our love of the performance art of preaching. When I was in college, I applied to a monastery but then thought how it would hurt my mother’s feelings so I withdrew it. I do think the early Church, in imitation of the Romans, created a hierarchy of goddesses, which they called “saints,” and I believe the Reformation attempted to bring the faith back to Jesus. But I don’t need to use the word “dreadful.” Forgive me, please. GK

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GK,

You have said that one of your great erotic moments was when you were at summer camp, and every day at the end of the afternoon you would go into the woods with your older, dark-haired counselor and just watch her smoke her cigarettes slowly and deeply. Do you remember her name, have you kept track of her, what is she doing now? How do you “keep track” of others?

Another one. In a Mr. Blue column about negotiations in a marriage, the punch line was something like “OK, dear, the blue flocked wallpaper it is then.” Have you used this technique often? Are there others that you have developed since then?

Cheers,

Bill

I don’t think she was a counselor, just a classmate, and I believe we were parked in a car, not in the woods. I haven’t kept track of her closely. I hear that she is in rough shape and meanwhile here I am floating down this lazy river of rehab. Life can be so unfair. As for the “Yes, dear” aspect of marriage, yes, it is enormously practical and helpful. My wife is a smart independent woman of broad experience. When she took note of my double vision — I told her I saw two center lines on the highway — she took away the car keys. No discussion, just a clear verdict. She is a caregiver but with a satiric bent. She has excellent taste; I grew up in a basement. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

I just read your piece “What was done for me back in Minnesota” and I couldn’t agree more. I have had the a-fib and the valve replacement and am currently in dialysis three times a week. I am 95 and constantly reminded how remarkable nurses are. I write plays that are occasionally performed — the last non-Zoom production in 2013 at Shakespeare & Co. in Massachusetts. I mention that because I have found dialysis to be great writing time. Three times a week I sit beside a machine and pass the time for three and a half hours at my laptop. I’ve never been so productive and always the nurses, supportive, kind and with good spirits there to care for me.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery,
Bob

I am going to hold off on dialysis until I reach your age, and I’m giving up on writing plays. Mine just aren’t good enough. It was a crazy ambition but what’s life without some wasted time, so long as you’re having fun. GK

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Dear Garrison,

So happy to hear of your progress toward healing. After reading today’s Post to the Host (09-05-22), I thought I would give the limerick limerick a try. Here is the result of my brain fart.

The challenge was somewhat ephemeric:
To make up a rhyme using “limerick”
Writing verse on the beach
It stayed just out of reach
So she went back to being a swimmer chick

Doug Congdon-Martin

West Chester, Pennsylvania

A valiant attempt, sir, but I think the gender should’ve been established before the last line. GK

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Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Garrison. And don’t feel too bad about the trail you blazed trying to get to the bathroom … it certainly does happen, and at least you were in your room when it did! When I was an intern rotating through internal medicine at the V.A. Hospital in Pittsburgh, while making rounds with the team one morning we discovered a trail from the phone booth in the hall down to a communal bathroom some distance away. (In those days, the patients were all in wards.) And to top it off, it was Christmas morning! Many years of good health to you!

Pat McC.

Pat, this is priceless. It could be the beginning of a fine novel in which the trail is made by a young woman who is abjectly apologetic and the intern, in reassuring her, falls in love with her. I was lucky not to be in a ward at St. Mary’s and after the nurses plied me with various highfalutin laxatives, what did the trick was prune juice. It also got me out of some physical therapy: I told the PT, “I just drank a quart of prune juice” and she left me alone. GK

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GK,

The urinal dance reference made my day. 

Most Norwegian immigrants to Minnesota back in the day would probably misunderstand that reference thinking you might be dancing in your skivvies while reading the Wall Street Urinal. I’m sure you get the picture.

Glad your medical procedures at Mayo were successful. The people in blue are all amazing.

Don Knudson

They are amazing. I’m still amazed. I like to make people laugh, which is useful, but I lack the empathy for those in misery. I’m curious if maybe it has something to do with my own aversion to sympathy. I do not want visitors to come and offer me comfort, I want them to tell me about their lives on the outside, what their kids and grandkids are up to. A friend came and spent twenty minutes expressing his great pride in his granddaughter and how she’s overcome adversity to get through college. It was inspiring. GK

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Hello, Garrison.

Time for a joke inspired by your love of blizzards.

A little old man shuffled slowly into an ice cream parlor and pulled himself slowly and painfully up onto a stool. After catching his breath, he ordered a banana split. The waitress asked kindly, “Crushed nuts?” “No,” he replied, “arthritis.”

Richard W. Hingst

You got me, sir. I laughed. GK

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Um, Mayo Clinic is not far from Wisconsin, so I’d expect Mr. K. to know that Tony Evers is not competing with Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. That’s a governor vs. a senator mentioned in today’s email.

Mandela Barnes is Ron Johnson’s opponent.

Ms. K.

You’re so right and thanks for the correction. GK

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Hello, Garrison.

Have been a fan since the earliest days when you would mingle with the fans after the show at the Fitzgerald. Been following your column in the Manchester Union Leader thanks to the kindness of my sister-in-law who faithfully has taken a photo and sent to me. This prompted me to seek the articles online where I came across your website — sparing my sister-in-law the inconvenience of sending it. 

It seems we have at least two things in common:
1. Our Plymouth Brethren upbringing — mine in the PB hotbed of NJ/PA. Resonate with all the colorful images you painted of those times — filling me with all the longing and nostalgia that comes with it. Still am filled with the ancient hymns sung a cappella, which is locked in my memory.

2. My upcoming heart valve replacement surgery at Mayo. In the genetic lottery I drew the bicuspid heart valve. Am a 68-year-old Wayzata resident who is so thankful for the proximity to some of the greatest health care in the world.

Wishing you all the best on your recovery.
Bob Mann 

I wish you well, Brother Bob, and assure you that you’re in good hands. The kindness and amiability of men and women of great competence is worth having heart problems to enable you to observe it. As for our Brethren past, it’s like having grown up in a vanished civilization, Aztec or polygamous Mormon or dancing dervishes. We never quite fit in with the world around us, which I take as a pleasure and privilege. GK

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