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I realize it is less than conventional to reply to reader feedback. But, I was doing the math. Your Wife's older Sister was a classmate of your younger Sister. Does your wife know (no using the google machine) how many States Eugene McCarthy won in 1968? Of course, her answer may have nothing to do with age and everything to do with where she is from-I get that. Your Boston show was very entertaining. Filled a void.

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She was 11 in 1968 and was working hard on violin to keep up with her siblings and though she kept up with the news growing on on Rice Street in Anoka, I don't think Gene McCarthy lit a flame in her heart as Eugene Ormandy would've or Tchaikovsky's Eugen Onegin. I recall that Gene did well in the New Hampshire primary and another primary out east and then Bobby Kennedy entered and LBJ dropped out and everything changed.

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That may be the understatement of the day. I was 11 in 1968. Life is full of coincidences.

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founding

Al Cleek, it seems to me that there might be more than one reason why it seemed as if there were many writers. If I recall, it might have been in "Love Me" that Garrison Keillor admitted to using pseudonyms to give the impression that he was having two-way discussions with other living, breathing people. Look at some of those names you listed, Al, and exercise your mental facilities! "PETE MOSS" - have you ever spread peat moss around your garden? "SANDY BEACH" - our favorite picnic spot was "SANDY POND", a sandy beach on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. A GUY WIRE helps keep things like flagpoles straight up. Of course, when the French sailed across the channel and defeated the English, wasn't that the NORMAN CONQUEST? I have a guess for XAVIER ONASSIS, but it might be censored here. Who knows? AMANDA RECKONWITH could be Tricky Dick, or the Disgrace of NYC with the weird hair (A Man To Reckon WIth). NEAL DUPREE is what folks do in some houses pf worship - Catholic, Episcopalian, Mosques and such. Lev Tolstoy comes to mind when I see WAR-&- PEACE. Fred Astaire, Michael Jackson or Prince come to mind when I think of folks who are NATTILY DRESSED. Then of course, when you stand with your back parallel with the ground, you either BEN [D]OVER OR if you're speaking in the first person, "EI - LE[E=a]N OVER. Have you found the pattern yet?

For me, I hardly think that a writer who is creative with puns deserves to be called a "tyrant!"

Pun On, Dear Host! We love all your various faces! Long may the Puns roll!

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So glad Mr. Shawn sent you to Nashville. My wife and I had the pleasure of bringing her parents to one of your Ryman shows in '90s, they'd last set foot in that building as teenagers on a date at an all-night revival meeting in the '40s.

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