Post to the Host

Comments from the week of July 30

Dear Mr. GK,

I am rounding to 62. You have 20 on me. We are the same. You are my sage. I will take my hints from you and get the most sap I can muster out of the jug.

Thank you for giving me a large outlook on life.

Thomas Swenson

I never heard that phrase “sap out of the jug.” Did you invent that? Are you from maple syrup people? As far as sagacity goes, I will appear more sage to you if you ignore my blundering middle years, but that’s okay. I’m sure you can separate the gold from the dross. GK

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I’m really glad they figured out how to keep your ticker going with one of Wilbur’s relatives. I just retired (forty years of teaching public school music will really give you an education) and like Jimmy Buffett said a few months ago, “This aging thing is NO JOKE!” I’m getting some insights into this like you and Jimmy have. Kind of like one of your book characters who said something along the line of “Life isn’t for the timid.”

With Great Appreciation,

Deb Morris

I hope those schoolkids didn’t bruise you too badly. Music requires a great degree of confidence and confidence comes from experience and kids are lacking that. I grew up in a family of thinkers, brooders, non-musicians, and music ed was torture for me; my wife is the youngest in a family of sterling musicians and she trotted right along in the path of the others. I was fortunate to meet her thirty years ago and also to find work I love and that’s my story: be prepared to accept good luck. And it helps to learn perseverance from your elders. Good luck to you. GK

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I loved your writing on moving and can relate to the issue of memories and packing. But I must query to where you did move? Thanks for your writing, it gives us light in sometimes a dark world.

Sasha Russell

Manhattan, New York City. I lived for about 40 years in St. Paul and then suddenly felt unwelcome after I was accused of writing a suggestive limerick about a young employee at my bookstore. (It wasn’t about her.) I moved to Minneapolis just as crime and COVID and chaos overtook the town. I am much happier as an anonymous pedestrian on the streets of New York. GK

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GK,

Greetings from Balsam in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Your columns are among the highlights of my week, and I am working to overcome the guilt I feel at reading your work for free. I am succeeding. It may seem trivial to you, but I can assure you, you are deeply appreciated.

Kindest Personal Regards,
John Richard Roberts

I love having readers, nothing trivial about it. People pay or they don’t, same as in church Sunday morning. The basket is passed so the church can know if it’s worthwhile to continue or not. The old minister may get along on Social Security but the organist needs to be paid and also the janitor. GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

If you have any time to yourself in daylight when you’re in Boothbay Harbor and wish to do a bit of sightseeing, ask a local to take you to All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal Chapel on Southport Island. It’s a lovely hand-built neo-Gothic, very spiritual little place. I regret missing you in Riverhead — we had tickets, but life got in the way — but look forward to Town Hall in December.

Yours,

MK Brennan
(Current Long Islander planning to “retire” to Boothbay Harbor.)

I’m sitting in a hotel room right now looking at the harbor and thinking about my late brother who loved sailboats. This would be an ideal place for him. He’d be 87 now and might need a deckhand but he’d still be at the helm. I’ll look around for that church. I don’t think of buildings as inherently spiritual but I might be convinced. What I really look forward to is the opera house tonight and a crowd of 300 and I’ll sing, “My country ’tis” and see if they come in on the “of thee, sweet land of liberty.” If they don’t, it means they’re cranky individualists, and it’ll be a long evening for me. GK

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I am not interested in your politics! Stick to what you are good at and stop pushing your political agenda on us! I’ve always enjoyed Prairie Home Companion … I thought this was a place where I didn’t have to hear about how terrible it is to have a different political view than yours!

I don’t care if you are a Democrat!!! It’s none of my business!!! Stop shoving it down your loyal audience’s throats!

Patti Bethel

Patti, there’s nothing in the world requiring that you read the column. You can read “Mein Kampf” or the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal or watch videos of Congressman Jim Jordan or Senator Tuberville of Alabama. It’s of no concern to me what you read, it’s a free country. But I don’t accept volunteer censoring from the readership. Be happy, go elsewhere. GK

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GK,

You are going to have a wonderful time on the train and in the Grand Canyon. Will you be tempted to drink? I thought it funny that you quit 30 years ago just so you wouldn’t have to go to AA.

I must disagree with one thing in your last letter: “It is harder descending and easier coming up.” This only applies to hiking, which you should have clarified otherwise readers like me in between the lines will call you out.

Stay sober. Love you, man.

Jon

I think the line applies not only to hiking but to some other things, too. I found sobriety to be easy. I just stopped doing it. And I had been a hefty drinker. But when I stopped, I immediately noticed how much better life was, and that made it easy to stay off the sauce. There’s nothing about the Grand Canyon that’d make me order a martini. Not even a grasshopper. GK

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GK,

I saw that you are a secret monarchist. So am I. Decades ago I noticed that the best functioning democracies in the world for the welfare of the people seemed to be those old northern states, most of which were constitutional monarchies. Have you ever seen question time in Parliament? The Prime Minister is still a member of Parliament. The PM has to regularly sit in Parliament and endure the shouts of the opposition. And bow before the Monarch as a reminder they are only the leader of the party that currently has the most political control, not a representative of the entire population.

We combine head of state and head of political government in the same person and expect that person to perform both roles even though there is an inherent contradiction in that. Constitutional monarchy is strongly supportive of democracy because it provides a national identity that is beyond greed. As humans, symbols just happen to be very important to us. Our founders thought they could improve on the nascent British parliamentary system. They were wrong. King George was attacked in the Declaration of Independence as a symbol, but the problem was really Parliament who levied the taxes. And that was strongly debated in Parliament. George III, although he had influence but not so much actual political power, had decided we had taken too much of the native land and had supported the Indians’ rights. That was one of the only indirectly stated “offenses” in the Declaration by the settlers who had wanted unlimited ability to move Indians off their own lands.

DCF

Our chance of instituting monarchy is slightly greater than the chance of replacing English with French, but it’s fun to consider it. I don’t argue with your history, I only ask, “How do you find a king or queen?” The life of royalty looks easy but who wants to be a symbol? GK

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Greetings!!

I contacted you, 1 1/2 years ago about doing a program here in Rochester, for the Coffee Connection (we work with women in recovery from addiction, trauma, and incarceration!).

I grew up in Rush City, Minnesota, so not too far from your world. I’m a Baptist minister and in 1995, I attended the PHC show at Eastman. I once served an extremely dysfunctional church (right out of seminary) with some very mean people. You were like a pastor to me back in those days.

Back to work. I am the executive director of the Coffee Connection and I share a temporary co-pastorate with my husband at a Presbyterian church nearby.

Peace and safe travels! Train is the way to go.

Joy

Coffee Connection sounds like a noble organization and I admire your good work even at a distance. But I think an old faded performer such as I is the wrong person to entertain those women. You want a woman whose experience connects to theirs, not a guy who recites limericks and talks about a small town on the prairie. But thanks for the compliment. GK

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The calendar is filling up.

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