Post to the Host

Comments from the Week of 11.20.22

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I love classical music, good writing and feel-good stories with a dash of reality. I really enjoyed your piece Mozart kept his suffering to himself, gave us sunshine in my Sunday Detroit Free Press. I’m an ex high school math teacher and could immediately identify with the usher in your story. Along with imparting some math, I was very much the usher for 38 years.

Thanks again.
Ron DeCarlo

We walked into the theater to see a dark play and here was a man in the aisle handing out programs and guiding people to their seats and he did it with great enthusiasm and endless patience and special kindness to the elderly and inept. He made a bigger impression on me than the play did. GK

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Salutations, dear Garrison.

I am currently in Saint Peezy, as the kids say, getting on the Empire Builder westward to talk turkey with my 18-year-old son. I am a just a Zamboni driver that recently moved from Nordeast Minneapolis to the Vermilion Falls neck of the woods, Hastings way. Please come back and do something here in Minnesota. We sure could use a li’l Wobegon.

Jedediah Lacroix

Hope to do a show in Minnesota someday, sir, but that day hasn’t arrived yet, apparently. I am just an old white guy and the market for us is rather limited these days, which of course is perfectly just and I don’t complain. I had plenty of opportunities back years ago and that is all one can expect. Maybe we should meet in a café and have a cup of coffee. GK

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GK,

Years ago, at a Gopher hockey game, I heard behind me someone singing harmony to the National Anthem. Impressed, I walked up the stairs at first intermission and saw that the voice was yours. When our eyes met, I said simply, “I like your work.” You said, “thank you” and I kept walking.

Our paths crossed another time in the men’s washroom at the Grand Theater on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. But this time, neither of us spoke.

In a couple of weeks, I will receive a new mitral valve and, like you, I am grateful for the swine donation. My wife is looking forward to living with a man who takes fewer naps.

The question I have really is one that we can’t answer. Will our paths cross again in NYC, where my wife and I are retiring?

WBJ

St. Paul

Good luck with the surgical procedure, sir. We’re lucky fellows, coming along at the right time when this operation has been pretty well perfected. As for the national anthem, the bass harmony is pretty easy, and the sopranos get the showy part. I miss the Grand Theater and my ordinary life in St. Paul. I was happy living on Portland Avenue and then made an unfortunate move to Summit and became an object of curiosity and it was time to leave. I can’t drive anymore, so NYC is the place for me, and my wife loves it here, so that settles the matter. Drop me a line when you’re in town and I’ll buy you lunch at a nice café with large murals of ladies on the walls and we can discuss things. GK

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I’m curious about your Christian beliefs. From what I recall, you were brought up in a conservative household. Do you (or did you) believe that the Bible is literally true? What’s your definition of God? How has your faith changed from when you were a younger man?

Always a fan; you would have made a great preacher. There’s still time.

Bethany Johns

Bethany, I grew up in a Bible-believing fundamentalist group, the Plymouth Brethren, and I was faithful to them until I was 18 or so. I loved the democracy, no clerical hierarchy, farmers and truckdrivers and postal clerks discussing Scripture, though I was uneasy about the legalism. Women weren’t allowed to speak and my aunts were very intelligent about Scripture and I took guidance from them. I left the Brethren when I was 20 and dropped in at various churches from time to time but didn’t find a solid place until I landed in New York and joined an Episcopal church thirty years ago. I don’t believe God can be defined. My faith has become mysteriously imbedded in me and I go to church and am often struck by a text, a hymn, a prayer, a line in a homily, and I sort of fall apart and weep. I don’t know how to explain this. I find it overwhelming that the Creator loves us, his creatures, and sent his son to become one of us and so comprehend our situation. I love the fellowship of other Christians in New York, a city where we’re a tiny minority, just as we were back in early A.D. And I love walking to and from church on Sunday. It’s all good. GK

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Inspired by Thanksgiving, my wife and I want to try to start saying a brief grace before meals. Do you have a few favorites?

Thankful for any advice,

Gregory

Lord, we thank Thee for this food,
For every pleasure, every good,
For earthly sustenance and love
Bestowed on us from heaven above.
Be present at our table, Lord, 
Be here and everywhere adored.
Thy children bless and grant that we
May feast in paradise with thee.

GK

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Hi, Garrison.

One of the many things I miss about not having A Prairie Home Companion on the radio anymore comes around in December, hearing The Carolers at My Door once a year. If I recall correctly, it was the winning song in a contest you held to come up with a new Christmas carol. I always thought it was a lovely addition to the canon and looked forward to hearing it every year. I don’t know who owns the copyright, but it sure would be nice to hear again. I wonder if some talented singer might want to record it. I think it would be a shame if was eventually forgotten. Just a thought for your consideration. Thanks.

Christopher Young

Mr. Young, here is the song.

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

I’ve known you since I was 10 years old when my mom, a homesick Vermonter living in El Paso, would tune in your show and I’d listen along with her, even when it was well past the age of cool to still hang out with your parents and listen to a radio show. She and I played Scrabble while listening to it and drank Red Rose tea and were at peace for a few hours. I went on to college and beyond and fancied myself a writer a few times a year and your Writer’s Almanac would catch me off guard each time I heard it … reminding me how, as a teenage girl constantly at war with her mother, I found peace with her while listening to you.

I read your columns and hear your voice in my head and I just say thank you. You were a huge part of my life growing up. Now that my kids are all getting older, I find myself writing more, too, and am always inspired by your essays. I wish you the absolute best.

Sincerely,
Megan Applegate

Megan, this is an amazing letter and I can’t find the words to respond to it adequately. Back when you and your mother were listening to PHC in El Paso and observing a truce, I was a man living in confusion, torn by contradictions, and the radio show was sort of the solid rock in my life and every week, I sat in a little room and wrote it, trying to re-create the sort of radio segments that I had enjoyed as a kid, re-creating a type of show that had died long before. It was a complete alien on public radio and most people in public radio were embarrassed by it, maybe resented it, were grateful when it crashed. But I was quite happy for those two hours and I was very happy last Saturday night to do PHC for an audience at Town Hall in New York. We did Guy Noir, the commercials for coffee and catchup and Powdermilk Biscuits, and I got to sing a duet with Heather Masse, “Why Worry,” which says exactly how I feel. Thank you so much and good luck with the writing. GK

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hanks to all of you who did some shopping in our little store this past week and also to everyone who watched our Town Hall livestream Saturday. What fun it was! We will livestream our Christmas show on December 15 (again available for 48 hours after the performance).