Post to the Host
Comments from the week of 10.25.21
Garrison,
I have a theory I want to run by you. My theory is that there are two kinds of people in the world: smart, kind people and mean, dumb people. Mean, dumb people like the world as it is, which drives smart, kind people crazy. That's why God gave smart, kind people a sense of humor, so they could laugh at all the mean dumbness and carry on with what always looks like a hopeless task of making the world smarter and kinder. Does this make sense?
R. Lee Procter
P.S. I know you will get a lot of posts on this from mean, dumb people who feel they're being defamed.
I don’t see it that way, R. Lee. For one thing, I don’t come in contact with much stupidity or meanness. At least, I don’t notice it. I might feel that way if I made my living as a truck driver trying to make a hundred deliveries a day in Manhattan but I’m only a writer and so am free to take a more romantic view and see people as heroic whom the truck driver would consider idiots. We’re all trying hard to get where we think we want to go. At the moment, I’m where I want to be, sitting about ten feet away from my wife, who’s reading a book. She is smart and kind and has a sense of humor, and I do my best to fit in.
GK
Dear Garrison,
Do you remember Harold’s Bookstore in St. Paul? My father took me there once when Harold was still alive. Dad used to go there when he was a kid; his mom would leave him there for the day and he could read about WWI aircraft to his heart’s content.
Many thanks for any memories you wish to share.
Thank you.
Steve Seibert
I never went to Harold’s but I remember McCosh’s and Heddon’s bookstores, a block from each other, in Dinkytown in Minneapolis. Heddon was an old Norwegian whose books were stacked according to a system that only he understood. Used books, for sale cheap. Phenomenal chaos to my eye. Melvin McCosh was an anarchist who kept his books in good order and he kept anarchist sayings posted around his shop, such as “The last capitalist we hang will be the one who sold us the rope.” For an anarchist, he was a very genial man.
GK
Dear Mr. Keillor,
I read a lot of back and forth about whether older folks should stay involved or let the younger generation deal with problems. A big factor that isn't mentioned is the value of institutional wisdom. Only an older person would remember that we tried that solution back in the ’50s or ’60s and here is why it did or did not work. Older people have the perspective that younger people might not have. Many of them are walking historians. This notion that old people have nothing to offer is BS. Furthermore, they're not shy about saying so. Some of us remember the horrors of Nazi rule and need to remind the rest of us what carnage they did. Many of us understand how pollution can collapse the planet’s ecosystems and need to scream about it, without apologies.
Bob Catalano, Derby, NY
Yes, older people have plenty to say, but we don’t have a sterling record of success except in medicine and some other sciences — in government policy and diplomacy not so much, and in public education, disaster. The U.S. Senate is tied in knots by the influence of fat cats and progressive Democrats are abandoning economics for identity politics and the Supreme Court has a majority of Ayn Rand believers who don’t feel the government has the right to control the spread of firearms or require children to attend school. I don’t see that the generation that gave us Vietnam and Iraq has the brains to deal with climate change, which threatens to make the planet uninhabitable. And we’re old, and tired, and we’re self-righteous, and nobody trusts us. Time for new leadership. I keep hoping for a charismatic conservative to come in and do what needs to be done while there’s still time.
GK
Dear Mr. Keillor,
(How Long, Oh Lord)
You finally wrote something without so much as a single syllable of far-left propaganda. It was refreshing. And very good too, I might add. I can't imagine how sick it must make you feel.
Faithfully Yours,
Lee D.
Sorry. I feel terrific. You must’ve missed something. Go back and read it again.
GK
Dear Garrison,
I see that you are out and about doing shows. I’m guessing that this makes you feel happy, and how wonderful that people can see you after all this time away. We need laughter these days, and you are just the person to bring it. However, I’m worried. I would bet that many of your fans are in their “more-mature” years (as am I), and COVID is still on its rampage throughout the country. Even with vaccines, I’m hearing about breakthrough infections and new strains of the virus that will continue to plague us. I went to a show recently where there was no social distancing in the crowd, but at least we all had to prove we’d been vaccinated, and we had to wear masks. I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. From a performer’s standpoint, what do you think about all of this? When is it okay to take risks, and when do you decide that the risk to yourself and to your fans isn’t worth it?
Best of health to you,
Mary, Rochester, NY
You raise sensible questions, for which I don’t have ready answers. My wife raises them too. I believe the vaccines have been shown to be highly effective, with a small number of lapses. Each person has to gauge the risk and do as the spirit leads. I’m planning to attend the opera soon and I don’t want the singers to wear masks.
GK
Dr. Mr. Keillor,
RE: “The Amazing Grace”
The title should have read “Leftist Spin Disguised as Literature” Or “I’m 79 and in Crisis, Help.” Another thing. In regard to your career. Please stop playing the victim. It is disingenuous and unbecoming. Not to mention insulting. You are better than that.
An avid reader, Lee
I shall put self-pity on my list of things to avoid and also disingenuity.
GK
Hello, Garrison.
I so envy you, in your being swept away singing music in church that lifts you like a wave. I have been tempted so many times to leave my (Catholic) church and become an Episcopalian, solely because the music we have been forced to endure during our services for decades is pithy, trite, corny, and just plain awful. The old stuff is so much better, but it has been abandoned for a bunch of “hymns” that I could swear were written by the same handful of mediocre composers. Granted they meant well in wanting to praise the Lord, but sadly there is no comparison. if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I refuse to sing in church anymore.
Pat McC.
The Episcopal church would always welcome you, Pat, but choose one that’s not bound to the Anglican hymnal.
GK
Well, here’s a note of encouragement and thanks from a fellow Episcopalian. You know, when I was a member at St. Michael's, I suggested that we all ask you to narrate the Christmas Pageant. Isn't being surrounded by all that Tiffany artistry something? Blessings on you.
Best regards,
CCS
I vote for a child to do the narration, not an old man. I just want to stand in a crowd of people and sing “Silent Night” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Beautiful Savior” and go home with tears in my eyes. That’s all the Christmas I need.
GK
There's a city on Lake Erie at the western terminus of the Erie Canal, and it even has a name! It's Buffalo, TYVM.
It’s the anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, a canal to connect New York City and the Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes. The canal was 360 miles long, 40 feet wide, and 4 feet deep — just deep enough to float barges carrying 30 tons of freight. It was built by European immigrants — mostly Irish — who were paid $10 a month. They were also given whiskey, which was stored in barrels along the construction site.
When the canal was finished, cannons were lined up along the towpath just barely in earshot of each other. They fired one after another from Lake Erie to New York City, finishing the relay in 81 minutes, establishing the fastest ever rate of communication in the United States at that time.
Pat
Pat, thanks for the history lesson. We sang about the canal in grade school, but I never got my facts straight until just now. Feel free to educate me whenever you’re moved to do so.
GK
Hi, Garrison.
If it’s any consolation, women are also grappling with the new normal, or at least I am. I can’t say I blame you to be afraid of how a woman might react if you even pat her arm … but I came of age in a time when a purely friendly gesture or slightly ribald/bawdy joke was just that and nothing more. I could sling it with the best of them and was proud of it, too. I learned the art of a snarky comeback if necessary and blew off minor stuff without a second glance. Now I am never sure if I even make a remark/joke whether it might be considered non-P.C. I hate it. Things have gone way south. Be assured that some women are aware of the precarious shifting sands that guys stand on now, and do not envy you in it.
Pat McC.
Pat, thanks to the lockdown I’ve led a very monastic life for a couple years and I’m done with flirtation, back patting, eye contact, anything that could be misinterpreted, except with my wife. It’s been good, being quarantined.
GK
Sir,
Do stop complaining about your age. YOU ARE NOT SO OLD. It is tiring to constantly keep reading about it.
Jo
Jo, I’m sorry that you misunderstand. I very much enjoy being 79. It’s a high point in my life. I just wrote a book about it, SERENITY AT 70, GAIETY AT 80.
GK
I just saw a story on how the Vikings got here well before Columbus (link below). Those we call Native Americans got here first and after that the Vikings. We need to at least do something about the name of the Columbus Day holiday — not so sure I like the Indigenous Peoples Day because Indians were immigrants too and may have come in separate waves and often warred with each other (the human condition). For instance, the Ojibwe/Chippewa of Northern Minnesota came from the East in the 18th century and violently chased the Dakota from those lands. So are the Dakota indigenous to Minnesota and the Ojibwe not? I suppose it depends. Indians are just people after all and subject to the same frailties we all are. All just Homo Sapiens. In New Mexico, the Spanish descendants like to think of themselves as indigenous, but they actually took the land very violently and brutally from the local tribes — things like slavery and hacking off limbs. Since we are all immigrants, original origin Africa, and they are still coming and we need them, how about changing the holiday to Immigrant Day to honor everyone who made the dangerous journey. What do you think? There might be a better name. Refugee Day?
https://www.openculture.com/2021/10/new-research-confirms-that-the-vikings-landed-in-north-america-471-years-before-columbus.html
Dan Fuller
Dan, I’m going to let you propose changing it to Refugee Day or Immigrant Day and I am going to glide on into November and start thinking about what I’m thankful for, starting with readers. This week’s Post To The Host is rather short because most of the mail was fan letters and we read those but don’t print them, preferring the argumentative and informative and the occasional hate mail like the brief note from Lee. This note was rather tame compared to the great ones he’s sent in the past, but we printed it anyway. I’m a fan of angry letters, ones with a cutting edge, that are wickedly funny, and now that I’m too old (sorry, Jo) to be angry, I appreciate them all the more. Liberals like me aren’t good at caustic letters. We just aren’t, I can’t explain it. I’m hoping to regain my cruel wit someday. I grew up admiring Ambrose Bierce and H.L. Mencken. Happiness is the problem, surely. Next summer, when I turn 80, I’m going to make an effort to be a vicious satirist. Starting with my fellow Democrats and go on from there. Have a wonderful week.
GK
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I wonder, Illustrious Host, if your voting for a child to perform at Christmas services comes in part from a memory of your performance one year at Christmas time in Bethlehem, PA? You gave a fine performance there at Lehigh (?) University early in Christmas week. Afterward, I decided to hang around and attend a nighttime Christmas service at the Central Moravian Church. The entire service was beautiful. The highlight for me, however, was when a child soloist sang from the elevated choir loft in the back. It was almost as if it were the voice of an angel! Perhaps you were lucky enough to attend a Moravian Christmas service there in that church, with a child soloist as well.
Speaking of churches, I recall attending a performance of yours in the Washington National Cathedral! What an edifice! What a fine show you broadcast from there! But what I remember most was a comment from a woman in the audience at the audience participation segment afterwards. "For me, when I listen to your shows, I feel as if I'm attending "The Church of the Prairie Home., " she said. There, in that august building, and ever afterwards, I've felt again and again that listening to APHC is very much akin to attending church!
You may make jokes sometimes about your Brethren childhood. During our childhoods, U.S. Church Membership was fairly high. [Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Timehttps:[//news.gallup.com › poll › church-membership-falls-...Mar 29, 2021 — U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades]. For those of us in your audience who have graying hair, or perhaps less hair then we had back then, it seems that nearly 3/4 of us had some experience with organized religion. Going with you to Lake Woebegon on the weekends included hearing a parable or two, on a weekly basis! There was a certain source of extra comfort, for many of us, I think, in hearing about Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility on the one hand and Pastor Ingqvist's Lutheran Church on another. The church suppers with Minnesota hot dishes (we called them casseroles) - my goodness! Every time they came up, I could see myself in the upper room in back of our Methodist Church, as clearly as if I were still wearing pig tails and trying to get an extra slice of pie! Your shows were so good at evoking shared memories! Your show has truly been an American Treasure for the multitudes! Thanks without end!