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Comments from the week of Nov. 19

Hello, Garrison.

Big PHC fan here, but also a big Prince fan, and I just loved that tribute you did to him on your 4/23/2016 show. It was such a funny and thoughtful and beautiful tribute after he died. I used to enjoy the clip on YouTube all of the time until one day it disappeared forever. Any chance of un-privating or reposting the video of that live performance? It was so lovely.

Respectfully,
Tim Curley

I tried to sing “Purple Rain” several times and the last time I tried, Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele fell apart laughing at how I botched the beat and Jevetta, whose husband worked with Prince, tried to coach me and I was uncoachable. So I’m not going to listen to this myself, but here’s a link to that show. (Can’t find video, just audio. Start at 19:46) GK

https://www.prairiehome.org/shows/51758.html

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Would love it to read that you might be planning another cruise. We were so disappointed — but understand — when the March 2020 cruise was canceled. We did the Barcelona to Venice cruise and would love to someday do another. Our Saturday nights just aren’t the same (and haven’t been for YEARS!). Thanks for reading.

LeAnn

I miss the show too and am having fun writing new ones coming up in New York, Nashville, Galveston, Austin, and so on, but a cruise is beyond us for a couple reasons, lack of staff and lack of capital. And also I’m happy going back to being a writer, living without a schedule, rising early and sitting at the desk. It’s how I started out and how I plan to wind up. GK

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Garrison,

I have just written a book on baseball entitled A Baseball Journey Through Life. And since you are a baseball fan, I thought you might enjoy it. It is available on Amazon. And (tongue in cheek) if you like it, I will gladly send you an autographed copy — only fair since you autographed a copy of Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 for us way back in 2002 when we attended your “Ice Fish to Hot Dish weekend” at the “Fitz.” Thanks.

Joel Allen

I am going to order that book, sir. I like the title. I don’t recall the Ice Fish show being at the Fitz, I thought it was up in Bemidji. We took a whole crowd out on the ice of Lake Bemidji, many of them from down South, and it was a Large Experience for them. They’d never been out on a frozen body of water and didn’t know it was possible. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Writing poems/stories on demand always sounded like a cool gig to me. I used to do poems in my family’s birthday cards as a kid, and then stories featuring my friends and their favorite pop stars as a teen. Never charged for them, but now there is a whole business model of people hired to write personalized stories for children. I think I missed my calling! 

But seriously, if street artists can sit on the sidewalks in Paris and draw caricatures, why not limericks in Central Park?

A maker of limericks for free
      set up shop where the public could see.
   A pigeon on high that was just passing by
      decorated both author and tree.

Best,

   Patricia McCormack

How about

A pigeon who flew 
Above dropped a review
That was not received gratefully. 

GK

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Mr. Keillor,

Due to my Southern upbringing and somehow surviving to this age, I recently felt it time to reach out to three artists I’ve long appreciated and offer a sincere “thank you.” All of you generously share your experiences and observations via the written and spoken word with you adding a good film. One tossed a baseball, one casts a fly rod, and one is spinning yarns. 

Thank you.

Jonathan Chapman

I’m going to take a wild guess and say, Don Larsen, John McPhee, and Grandma Moses. GK

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Dear Garrison, 

I used to think that turkeys were stupid too — until I started hunting them. Then I discovered they were the smartest animal in the woods. If you make one false note on your call, a sour cluck, or a false gobble or a “kee-kee-run” that doesn’t sound right, the turkeys will run the other way, fast. Now I freely admit that I hunt turkeys just to get out into the spring woods because I really don’t expect to get one. 

Clay Blasdel

You’re hunting wild turkeys, sir, and I was denigrating the domesticated ones bred for their enormous bosom who spend their lives in herds and have no chance to exercise intelligence. People would be horrified if you walked into a turkey ranch and started shooting them. GK

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Dear Garrison,

When I wrote to you recently, I forgot to mention that Frederick Manfred, (the other author from Minnesota), was my grandmother’s cousin. Back when his last name was Feikema, and before he became famous, he used to go on double dates with my grandmother in a horse-pulled carriage. He was originally from Doon, Iowa. The townsfolk of Doon later disliked how “progressive/worldly” Manfred’s books were, so they removed his books from their library, even though he was one of the finest people to ever come from Doon. Manfred was the author of Lord Grizzly among other fine works. My father, also Peter DeBoer, wrote his master’s thesis at the U of Iowa about the book Lord Grizzly. Manfred was also Hubert Humphrey’s campaign manager when Humphrey won the race to be mayor of Minneapolis. 

I love how you love old hymns because I do too. I go to a certain church here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, especially because I love to harmonize with these songs.

I won’t nominate you again for the Twain Prize, but it was worth a try. Please keep writing.

Pete DeBoer 

P.S. A YouTube video about Manfred:

I’ve met Manfred’s daughter Freya but never met the man himself. We English majors turned up our noses at popular novelists and I’m sure that was not to our benefit. Maybe when I finally read Moby-Dick, I should look at Lord Grizzly. GK

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Garrison, 

Just watched the movie New In Town on Netflix and it is a great comedy/romance set in New Ulm, Minnesota. It has all the things you share with us — Lutherans, Swedes who talk very strange and warm people. Please watch if you haven’t already but it leaves Netflix at the end of November. A real hoot and, I think, right up your alley.

A Fan,
Jim from Connecticut

I will ask my wife who knows how to operate the TV to tune it in. Thanks for the tip. GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

Thanksgiving greetings from my little Northern Minnesota town of Lard Lake.

The thriving “Lard-O-Lakes” turkey plant is running round the clock. The “Butt Cutters,” Gut Blowers, Mother Pluckers and the assorted Baggers, Hangers, Shockers, Bleeders and Beheaders are laboring at a frantic pace (I hesitate to say, “Like chickens with their heads cut off …”). Frequently a gang of the condemned birds will stage a jailbreak and charge headlong down Main Street causing all manner of mayhem. Turkey feathers are everywhere but that’s just the price of industry in a small town. Some old-timers are still bitter that the neighboring Aitkin High School sports teams beat them to the nickname “The Gobblers.”

All of us Lard Lakeians wish you and your family a blessed and peaceful Thanksgiving!

Yours truly,

Bill Stein

Thank you. My little family had a quiet Thanksgiving meal around a turkey breast that my wife insists was processed meat and I felt was genuine turkey as God intended and if only you’d been there to settle the argument. I know they make turkey into what they call “bacon” and Lord knows what else but if the label says “turkey breast” doesn’t that mean it’s genuine? We may switch to ham next year and then Lard Lake will have wild swine stampeding. Hope it snows for you before Christmas. GK

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Will Washington, D.C., or a venue in the Washington area, be included in the 50th anniversary tour? You always have a good audience here. We would hate to be left out!

Carol Jennings

I’ve heard rumors to that effect. Of course I’d love to do Wolf Trap but maybe that’s too spacious for us. I could settle for a small auditorium, a church, maybe a coffee shop. GK

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