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Comments from the week of 06.30.24

GK,

On your recent writing one of my favorite scriptures, you quoted: “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.” A friend gave me this version: Cast your bread upon the waters, and it will come back buttered! Also, in Mark 1:30 talks about his mother-in-law and I Corinthians 9:5 talks about other apostles, including Peter, had wives ...

My sister, Dee, enjoyed you in your younger days, me: not so much ... but now she sends me your recent writings (emails) and I now also appreciate your aging well! 

Polly E.

Thanks for the clarification, my dear, and say hello to Dee from me. There was much not to enjoy back in my younger day, a love of pretense, a definite self-righteousness. Looking back I wish I’d had more fun. I hung out with serious people in high school, all of us trying very hard to be 45 as soon as possible. GK

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Because I renewed my interest in Garrison Keillor again through the Substack “publisher,” I started rereading some of his books. Last week, I read, We Are Still Married. The opinion piece he wrote titled “Reagan” should be featured now. I think it is brilliant.

I want all my friends to read it, so putting it on Substack might be the place. I weary of social media apps and stopped subscribing to many formerly cherished newspapers. Please consider this piece’s timely educational value for young voters.

Sincerely,
Doris Jean A. Heroff 

I think we’ve moved far down the path from the Reagan years. His combination of entertainment and politics seems rather benign today as does the successful Bush campaign to wipe out Michael Dukakis. I just don’t know why they call it “political science” — it’s rather artistic in parts and chemical in others — acid kills grass — and of course psychology. And fiction can be, as we all know. Powerful stuff, especially in creating fear. GK

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Sorry you have fallen but great strangers at least noticed. On Father’s Day my daughter and I went to the famous coffee shop to do a BOGO. We took them with us in 100-degree Grand Junction, Colorado, heat as we didn't want to leave the frozen drinks in the car. As we stepped out and shut our doors, a microburst hit both of us and knocked us each to the hot pavement. She hit her head, and since she has stage four brain cancer, I called 911 after I managed to stand up and put my sandals on. We were there in front of a store and gym and people ran out to see if we were OK. I said I had called 911. One angel handed my daughter a bottle of water with the gym logo. The EMTs came, loaded her for an ambulance ride, and found my newly implanted cochlear device feet from the car. No breaks, just scrapes and deep bruises. That wind was swift and quick and made us more grateful for every safe step we do take. Thanks for the reminder and your great stories. Safe walking.

Longtime fan and Oriental Theater (Denver) buff,

Cheryl Brungardt 

Wheat Ridge, Colorado

I never heard of a “microburst” before but I’m glad you know about the kindness of strangers in the city, the awareness that surrounds us. I worry that this may be missing in the empty downtowns of so many cities, such as Minneapolis, which has a real gang problem that people don’t dare talk about lest they be considered racist. But race is often a real factor in gangs. I get this from a friend who is not afraid to talk about Asian gangs because she is Chinese. GK

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Dear Garrison,

I’m glad you are back walking the streets of Manhattan and no longer under observation at Mayo clinic. Which means, I hope, that you were given a green light.

Your right-turn-on-red-reckless-and-mendacious-driver story is very disheartening. My own story, of the car-hits-bike-and-police-make-false-report genre, had a better eventual outcome. I was cycling to my college in Grand Rapids one morning, and just as I pulled away from a light that had turned green, I was struck from behind and knocked to the pavement, damaging my bike and my right hand. The bike was readily repairable. The hand required two rounds of surgery for a broken trapezium (not a circus performer’s aerial support but a bone in the wrist). 

The driver who hit me apologized immediately, explaining that she was talking to her son who was late preparing for school, and she didn’t see me, even though I was riding far to the right near the curb. She was beside herself with concern, for me and for her son who would now be marked tardy. I told her I could not ride my bike — she kindly offered to take me to my destination — and assured her (falsely, it turned out) that although I was bleeding in several places no bones were broken. 

A police officer arrived ten minutes later and talked to both of us. The driver was still distraught, barely coherent; I was still trying to calm her down. The officer verified that no ambulance was needed and went on his way. But when I obtained a copy of the police report, driver and cyclist were said to be equally at fault for inattentive driving/riding.

I protested this to the chief of police, arguing, as did your friend, that bicycles cannot back into cars. He listened sympathetically but declined to change the report.

The driver’s insurance company, however, on reviewing its client’s account and mine, paid for all of my medical bills and for repair of my bike — a rare example of an insurance company that has a heart. And my hand eventually healed up without any functional defects. I can still play the piano and the ukelele and the Autoharp as well as before, which is not very well but gives me pleasure all the same. (You may recall that I was among the invited Autoharpists at the potluck you hosted during a visit by Bryan Bowers in your place at Marine on St. Croix, when I was on the faculty at St. Olaf. Our infant daughter was with us, so that must have happened in 1979.)

That was the only day in my 41 years as college administrator and faculty member, by the way, when I did not change my clothes but taught my classes in Lycra biking shorts, which I could not bear to remove. The bloody wounds on my calves no doubt distracted students and colleagues from noticing how unflattering the shorts were to my middle-aged middle. 

David Hoekema

I remember the Autoharp party and our opportunity to sit at the feet of Master Bowers. I’m glad to hear how calm and rational (though medically inaccurate) you were when struck suddenly by a ridiculous driver. We expect no less from St. Olaf faculty. My editor, by the way, is a St. Olaf graduate and she has talked me out of numerous off-kilter and fainthearted columns. I make a point of never appearing in public in shorts for the very reason you suggest, vanity. Men sometimes come to church on Sunday morning in shorts and I am unable to look upon this mercifully. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

I am the “poet laureate” of our Minneapolis community (Linden Hills) and was a longtime editor of the poetry section of our local newspaper, The Southwest Journal, now defunct. One of our poets was an old guy, now deceased, who smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish. He also loved limericks. He wrote this one about … limericks.

Doug Wilhide

The Limerick
George Scott

Dirges and sonnets, ’tis true 
Reflect topics of most somber hue 
If you like twisted logic 
Or themes scatologic 
Then limerick’s the verse form for you. 

A limericker has no compunctions 
About dealing with bodily functions 
Or putting wry faces 
On all human races 
In spite of our modern injunctions. 

So if your limerick is bawdily tinted 
Or you’ve some new blasphemy minted 
You’d best write it on 
The wall of some john 
Or else it will never get printed.

May George rest in peace and rise in glory. And I wish that in my time remaining I could write a good dirty limerick, one as good as the “young man of Madras” or “the couple from Aberystwyth.” I did write about the young fellow from Pocatello who wondered why his urine was bright yellow. Was it something he ate, or could it be Kate whom he dated on Saturday? Hello! GK

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Garrison, were you consciously quoting this?

If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.

W.H. Auden, "Under Which Lyre," 1946, quoted from memory

I like to quote another verse from the same poem, especially to people doing surveys:

Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Nor quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians, nor commit
A social science.

Elizabeth Block

Toronto, Canada, English major (a long time ago!)

This is turning into a poetry column. Well, one could do worse. Bring it on. GK

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Dear Garrison Keillor,

Powdermilk Biscuits came into my life in August 1977, the same week Elvis died. I had a countertop AM/FM radio always tuned to WABE. A radiophile by genetics and environment and never much of a television fan, I kept that radio tuned. The Saturday night I first heard your stories I was pretty sure my then boyfriend of three years was cheating on me again. Yet somehow, I was okay with it, since I had determined he was just a boyfriend and not marriageable, and marriage and children and family and all the hometown things in Wobegon spoke to my young adult, small-town heart.

That first Saturday, I listened while I scrubbed and cleaned a gigantic porcelain sink and contemplated the layers of paint I had been stripping from the glass panes in the kitchen cabinets. I imagined you in overalls. My surprise came when the then bad boyfriend described you to me, a man with glasses in a suit. I believe I almost never missed a Saturday night after that. Whenever you came to Atlanta, I tried to get tickets. I saw you at Chastain, The Fox, and my favorite location, the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

The last time I saw you at the Garden was the summer before my second open-heart surgery. You left the stage and walked right up to me while you were singing Amazing Grace, and I sang right back with you. Then you smiled and moved on.

I write all of this because during the years of my work life, through graduate school, the death of my second brother, multiple miscarriages, the serious illness of one of my children, my own serious illnesses, the loss of my mother, my failed first marriage, and while you were moving professionally from Minnesota, trying out New York, divorcing, having a late-life baby, all of the life things you spoke about in your monologues and while you performed, I had a secret fantasy that I, having just stepped out of the green room, was backstage right wearing a tea-length summer dress with cap sleeves and a heart-shaped neckline, ’50s style, flowing, with a full skirt and butter yellow. I was waiting for my name to be called, for my introduction to be made. And I come on stage, and you take my hand, and we look at one another and then sing a few lines, and then we turn to the audience, and sing to them, and then with them, and it is just a perfectly lovely evening. I curtsy, you bow, and I go home.

When I sit with my childhood crush and watch you from the audience at the Fitzgerald Theater week after next, I will be watching you and loving Prairie Home Companion as I have always loved you and the show and Lake Wobegon. And I will also be backstage right, wearing a yellow summer dress waiting to sing.

Thank you for all that you bring to America our Beautiful.
With warmest regards,
Debra

Debra, I feel honored to have been carried through your life without being aware of it, a voice in a box, a distant figure on a stage. You’ve had a big life and mine seems rather simple and basic by comparison. Work was my therapy. In any sort of crisis, I turned to the laptop and started typing and something always came of it. The show went coast-to-coast in 1980 and plenty of beautiful musicians came our way, the Red Clay Ramblers, Gillian Welch, John Prine, Chet Atkins, and the production had excellent audio engineering, men and women who were intrigued by live broadcasting, and the business was run by a series of women producers, and except for my own erratic moves, it all ran pretty well. Those people were the ones who kept it on the tracks and I’ll pass on your thanks to them. I was just the pony. GK

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Dear Garrison, 

I truly enjoy reading your columns but in the past few years your topics have narrowed to adoration of your wife, going to church on Sunday, leaving activism to the young, phone calls with friends, the story of your early life and the rise/fall/rise of your career. These are all notable topics, but I feel you could expand and give us your thoughts on some broader relatable ideas. I would love to know your thoughts on:

·      Saving the Public Libraries and independent bookstores

·      How to fix the scalper (third-party resale) ticket buying

·      Books read that made a huge impact

·      Same with songs heard or concerts attended

·      Vote for Biden proudly (if he remains the only Dem option)

It sounds like you want a bit of pushback from your readers rather than adoration. That might mean you need to go down a more controversial path with political opinion.

I will read all that you write, but just wanted to offer a little poke.

Sincerely,

Paul W.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Thanks for the poke. I lead a small life and that’s the truth. I’ve written about the NY Public Library I like to sit and work in, surrounded by Asian students. People go there for quiet. I’m not a book reader these days; I feel my eyesight dimming and I feel I should do my work instead. I wrote about a wonderful dinner with four teenagers and their parents, about the wonder of early morning light, about a trip to Colorado, about the Met Museum crowded with high school kids, about limericks, but you’re right, it’s all small stuff. I do appreciate your reading what I write and I can only suggest you acquire my skill at dropping out of something that doesn’t interest me. It saves a lot of time. I am not patient with the newspaper or websites or even email — if it doesn’t catch my interest, I’m gone. GK

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Garrison Keillor will perform live at a number of venues all over the U.S. and even at a couple of stops across the pond. Check out the lineup and see if you can catch a show!

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