Post to the Host

Comments from the week of 01.28.24

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I hope you are faring well. My wife and I met you in San Antonio when you and the cast performed APHC and my brother and I entered the duets contest and let me add that we were pretty good though we didn’t make it to the finals. We sang “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Walk Thru This World With Me.” I am sure you remember it well, ha ha. So may I say back to you: Be well, Do Good Work, and Keep In Touch. 

Thank you for the books, the shows, and the inspiration. 

All the Best,

James Rodgers

I never won a music contest in my life, Mr. Rodgers, never even had the courage to enter one. I had to go to the trouble of starting my own radio show, learning to be amiable and tell stories, invent sponsors, so that I could have the supreme pleasure of singing in a duet. I sing with a woman, since none of my brothers had an interest in performing, and it’s a high point of my life. Mostly I sing with Heather Masse who is my height and we look into each other’s eyes and sing “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” which I can’t imagine singing with a brother, and we’ve done Grateful Dead and Dylan and had a great time. I’m at that stage of life when pleasure becomes a principle. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

A few years ago, we met in Normal, Illinois, and I told you I had written a true crime book about a member of the Plymouth Brethren once convicted and later found not guilty of the axe murders of his wife and three young children. I also told you I had to pay you (or, at least, your people $50) so I could quote your Lake Wobegon description of a Brethren service in my book. “Aw, you didn’t have to do that,” you told me. “Well,” I said, “you could refund the $50 to me right now, or you could sign this copy of Lake Wobegon Days I happen to have with me.” You chose to sign the book. “To Steve Vogel,” it reads. “Use anything you want.” It’s among my most prized possessions. Thanks for everything you do!

Steve Vogel 

Portraying a Plymouth Brother as a possible axe murderer is a tremendous leap of imagination, sir, and though I’m glad he was found not guilty, I’m still curious what led you to this story. The PBs I grew up among were gentle souls except when delving into Last Days cosmology and separation doctrine and then they came close to beheading each other. They are now such a tiny shred of Protestantism that you’d need to spend the first half of the book explaining who they were. GK

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I know California is morally adrift, but I beg you, please do a show here. I live in the most drifting spot (L.A.), but I’d happily brave the freeways to find you.

Judy

Just waiting for some producer to invite us to come, meanwhile I keep in touch with my niece Erica who loves L.A. and seems quite happy there. She’s a stand-up comic. Look her up. GK

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GK,

Bill Stein mentions many good things about New Ulm, including Schell’s, but he left off Hermann the German, a 32-foot-tall copper statue atop a 70-foot-tall base. It’s something to see. You can go up the stairs to see him up close and get a good view of New Ulm. Now you have another reason to visit.

Blair Laddusaw

Omaha

I feel a little tremulous about heights, Blair. I don’t think I’m going to climb those stairs. Life gets smaller as you pass 80 and I’m okay with that. I am coming to love my own desk in my wife’s apartment. Sitting there now with a cup of fresh coffee. My needs are small. GK

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I do share your longing for museums of joy and accomplishment. My namesake and urologist uncle contributed to the first successful kidney transplant in 1954. He assured the donor that he would be well cared for if he donated his kidney and the transplant proceeded. Way to go, Uncle Hartwell!

Hartwell Harrison

Too Little Information! We need the whole story. GK

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GK,

I have been a fan for 30 years going back to when I had an independent bookstore in Flagstaff, Arizona. I’m also a bagpiper and Celtic enthusiast (as well as a member of the Professional Order of English Majors). But what I really like nowadays are your occasional Scottish bits involving your father or grandfather or anything Scottish. And also your connection with the Irish Cultural Center when you were in Phoenix.

Martha Shideler

Retired teacher, bookseller, bagpiper

And I’m one year older than you are!

Martha, I wish I could offer more, but my Scottish ancestry seems thin to me. My grandpa Denham came over from Glasgow with his wife and five kids in 1906, mainly because he didn’t get along with his stepmother. She was a righteous old biddy who kept him aware of her disapproval, due to the fact that Grandpa’s wife, my grandma, was pregnant when they married. He came to Minnesota, got a good job as a bookkeeper for the Soo Line, and never looked back. Never was a bagpiper. My old aunts carried a Scots accent to the end of their days but that was the extent of Scottishness in my childhood, the pronunciation of “girls” as “gettles.” When my mother was in her 90s, the family gave her a deluxe trip to Scotland, which she loved, but mainly it was the daughter and nieces who went with her that she enjoyed. GK

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The couple you met who hunted with an AR-15, what did they hunt? Elephants?

Liz Lancaster

No, they hunted deer, and the woman liked the AR-15 because the recoil was gentler and she had an arthritic right shoulder. I didn’t write about the chance meeting with them to get into a discussion of weaponry. I found it interesting that strangers coming from such different backgrounds could have a civil conversation. I liked them. They didn’t ask me to agree with them, so my opinion is not really relevant. I just liked them, that’s all. GK

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GK

No 50th Anniversary review could possibly be complete a reprise of Tomato Butt.

David Beck

I don’t look back, David. I’m focused on the future, however much of it I have. I’m glad you enjoyed the story of me and my sister and the rotten tomato, but I’ve moved on. GK

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GK,

A true story …

I do little one-hour shows for the staff and residents of senior living facilities, small groups, sit and play the piano and lead a singalong. Tuesday evening, I was met at the door by a masked nurse who escorted me up two elevators and down hallways to the entertainment room. (Nice piano!)

I did the show, with “O! Susanna,” “The Band Played On, ” “Oh! What a Beautiful Morning” (Ray Charles style), and a couple of Sinatra numbers. I did “Blueberry Hill” (where I found My Thrill), and “My Blue Heaven,” “All Shook Up, ” and “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis, and I coached them, when I sang “Goodness! Gracious,” to respond with a heartfelt “Great Balls of Fire!” I said, “I’ll bet that when you rolled out of bed this morning, you didn’t think you’d be shouting ‘Great Balls of Fire!’ at the end of the day!” Big laugh. I was packed up and the nurse was leading me out when I said, “So, it’s all women here?” That stopped her in her tracks. She looked at me and said, “Cliff, they’re nuns. Didn’t you know that?” I said, “Oh, my god.” And she gave a wave and, “Oh, you did fine. They loved it!”

Nuns. Goodness, gracious …

Cliff Adams

It’s never too late to learn bad habits. GK

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Amen, Brother Keillor, about the wastelands represented in Civil War battlefields. As a Southerner who has ancestors that participated in that war of sedition, I wonder about the value of such battlefield nostalgia, especially when the history is polluted by the Lost Cause narrative. In February I will head to a 200-plus-year-old cemetery in a small town in South Carolina to visit, probably for the last time in my life, the gravesites of my grandparents and great-grandparents buried there among the moss-filled live oak trees. My two adult children are going with me out of appreciation for my family heritage even though they didn’t know any of these Geechee relatives from the past. The likelihood that these gravesites will have any meaning at all to my grandchildren and beyond is below none. So my wife and I have opted for cremation as a way to keep from filling up more graveyards. Our progeny can then spread our ashes on the gravesites of our dearly departed. Perhaps your idea about repurposing graveyards will catch on with future generations. 

Troy Calhoun

Smithfield, Texas

I sometimes visit my Keillor family cemetery up north of Anoka, Minnesota, by the Rum River, and the gravesites that are meaningful to me are where people are buried whom my aunts told stories about. It’s the stories that matter. Let the dead be but take any opportunity to let your descendants know who they’re descended from. GK

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There’s an equestrian statue of King Edward VII in Queens Park in Toronto. Whenever I pass it, I think of this story.

Once upon a time, there was a British diplomat stationed in Khartoum. When it came time for him to leave and be reassigned elsewhere, he asked his little 4-year-old son if there was anything in Khartoum he’d like to say goodbye to. The boy said yes: Gordon.

So they went to the equestrian statue of Gordon of Khartoum. The child spent some time walking around the statue, patting the base and saying, “Goodbye, Gordon.” Then he took his father’s hand and headed for home. As they walked away, he said, “Daddy, who is that man on Gordon’s back?”

True story? Who knows. But I think so. Who could have made it up?

Elizabeth Block

Toronto, Canada

Which reminds me of the story of Queen Elizabeth showing dignitaries around her stables when suddenly there was a tremendous fart and the Queen said, “Oh my goodness. I apologize. I am so sorry.” And a man said, “That’s quite all right, in fact, I thought it came from a horse.” GK

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February, March, April, May … Garrison Keillor is out on the road and will be performing every month in the near future to celebrate A Prairie Home Companion’s 50th anniversary!

These shows are not to be missed.

CLICK HERE to see the schedule and buy tickets.