Post to the Host

Comments from the Week of 03.26.23

How dare you refer to that murderer in Nashville as a woman! Does that person have a Y chromosome? Then that monster isn’t a woman, it’s a man and always will be.

Francine Cochran

The Nashville police said that the shooter, Audrey Hale, was born a female and that she used female pronouns. I saw the word “trans” in various stories but the focus of my column wasn’t gender, it was the heroism of the Nashville police against a person armed with assault weapons, the 14 minutes it took them to bring the crisis to an end. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I used to listen to A Prairie Home Companion with my father when I was a kid and I just found it again online and look forward to listening to the episodes again. Thank you for all your work. And if you ever want to talk about poker, please don’t hesitate to ask any questions.

Mixed Game Matty

I wish I knew something about poker, Matty, but my game is Scrabble. Since COVID, I’ve played it every day with my wife, who usually beats me. I love sitting at a table with her, thinking about words. She has a keener mind than I, she sees combinations that I don’t. I took some wild chances in my life that, had I been a poker player, I might’ve avoided, and a couple of them turned out very well, so I’m happy without being smart about odds. GK

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Good morning!

One Saturday afternoon, long ago, I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion. The skit was about “Arlene” and “Sally Jo” (“SJ”). They were friends and Arlene was having a shower for Sally Jo. My name is Arlene Alexandersen and my best friend in junior high and high school was Sally Jo Caputo. It tickled me to hear a skit with our names! I thought that maybe one of the writers for the show must have gone to Elias Bernstein Junior High School or Tottenville High School, or somehow knew me and Sally. Small world.

Tusen takk for listening. I hope you have a good day.

Hilsen,

Arlene

I’m the writer of the show, Arlene, and I never went to your school nor did I know an Arlene or a Sally Jo. But if you know of a Garrison who is married to a Jenny, I absolutely want to know about it. GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

I could have written the letter that Cathy Walker sent for the April 3 Post to the Host. I too just read That Time of Year and loved it. From the moment I first saw the title, the line from Shakespeare’s Sonnet # 73 played on the edge of my consciousness and yes, you brought it home and nailed it at the end. Along the way there were passages that were laugh-out-loud funny, and poignant (the time in NYC when you had your dad all to yourself for the one and only time). I called up my sister in Toledo and read her the section where you had lunch with William Shawn and realized that he was the provincial, not us.

After I finished the book, I too got out the DVD of the Lake Wobegon movie and watched it again — twice — for the first time in many years.

Let me say, while I have your ear, that I still remember the monologue that started with the story of the randomness of the gum ball and ended with the Korean babies all “coming down the chute” at the airport in the arms of the nurses. And when you left the show the first time, to move to Denmark, I joined with a couple hundred Lutherans (despite being Catholic myself) in a church basement in Milwaukee over a potluck dinner featuring a lot of mushroom soup casseroles, for a listening party. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop during the monologue.

Laura Gellott
Racine, Wisconsin

You’re a treasure, Laura. The move to Denmark was the dumbest thing I ever did in my life, a disaster, an act of pure arrogance, and it took me a long time to dig myself out of that hole. I saw the Altman movie once and never dared look at it again. I went to Grand Central Station Friday with my Danish stepdaughter and her husband and I remembered being there with my dad when I was 11. The grand arcade is as stunning today as it was then. Somehow I survived my mistakes and life today is extraordinarily good. I’m writing like a crazy man and doing shows hither and yon and next year we’ll do a bunch of 50^th Anniversary PHCs with the troupe and I want them to be memorable. I’m doing a show. If you ever want to come see a show, I’ll provide you with a bunch of tickets, front row where I can keep an eye on you. I owe you. GK

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Dear Garrison,

A letter from Clay Blasdel of Buffalo contained an important misstatement. I’m sending you this because you thanked him for his “elucidation.” The latter was no doubt accurate on the actual ammunition, but it was bilgewater on the matter of law. The Nashville killer bought seven weapons legally because of lax and irresponsible Tennessee laws, not federal laws. In fact, I’m sure you remember the real problem is the LACK of federal law, particularly regarding deadly assault weapons. Without getting into politics, this kind of misstatement is a pandemic in so many areas:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nashville-school-shooter-guns-legally-bought-used-tennessee-rampage/

Of course, you had no way of knowing you were misled. Even I, an ex-Army infantry officer, didn’t know all that stuff about the bullets. It never came up at Fort Benning. So, thanks to Blasdel for that.

Your correspondence with us these days is a blessing … from you. 

With warm gratitude,

Don Paul

Thanks, Mr. Paul. What I know about guns you could put in a peashooter and still have room for the pea. My point about the Nashville tragedy was how a troubled person was able to obtain deadly weapons with no problem and though she gave all sorts of hints, her family and friends didn’t take action, so innocent people were slaughtered and the Nashville police ran into the face of gunfire to bring the shooter down. I do believe that if law enforcement got fully behind gun control, it’d give courage to lawmakers. GK

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On your November 26, 2022, PHC show, you performed a duet with Heather Masse in which you thanked the pig that gave you your porcine heart valve that made your heart function efficiently as a pump and saved your life.

That song has universal appeal to physicians and, more than a humorous homage, it represents a window into the world of cardiovascular rescue surgery, which saves many lives every year. I am a family physician in a small town in Alaska, and I personally have five patients who are alive today because of this important technological advance.

I have looked in vain for that song and the lyrics. I would love to share with colleagues and patients. Do you plan to post songs from your revival shows on YouTube or other platforms? It would mean much to your fans!

Thank You!
Peter Marshall, M.D.
North Pole, Alaska

Glad you liked the song, Dr. Marshall. My porcine valve was installed by Dr. Joseph Dearani at Mayo Clinic and it replaced my mitral valve that had been repaired twenty years before. Heather had always wanted to portray a pig and so I wrote a sketch in which she plays the donor pig Emily and she sings, to the tune of You Are My Sunshine:

I am your heart valve, your mitral heart valve
I keep you beating steadily
The surgeon sewed me into your heart, dear,
And now part of you will be me. 

People make fun of my species
The word “pig” is a slur.
But when people ask your gender,
Remember part of you is a her. 

I’m looking down from hog heaven
Glad I gave you a new start. 
I know there’s lots on your mind
But I am there in your heart.

Each creature is complicated
And contains a multitude 
And you may (SNORT SNORT) feel my presence
When you’re in a cheerful mood. 

GK

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Garrison,

Apparently, people haven’t been sharing their love of your memoir, especially the audiobook version. 

Here’s what I loved about it: you didn’t spare yourself. It takes courage to tell your story with such honesty. This was no “celebrity memoir” — this was the candid story of an eventful life. A comedian named Rick Reynolds had a one-man show called Only the Truth Is Funny — all the humor in your book comes from your truth-telling about what happened to you. 

I also enjoyed tales of your childhood, especially your trip to New York City with your father. 

What’s the best you can say about a book? “That was a trip worth taking.” Yours is the first book in my Audible account I’ve listened to twice. Thanks.

R. Lee Procter

Thank you, sir. The book isn’t completely honest: a couple people who were important in my life asked me to leave them out of it and I struggled with that issue and decided to accede to the request. A person has a right to tell his story but what I would’ve written was not worth the trouble it would’ve caused. I’m an awfully lucky guy and I have no cause for complaint whatsoever. That’s the wisdom of old age. I lost three friends in their 20s and now I’m 80 years old and having a wild good time. Nothing hurts and I do whatever I feel like doing and when I feel like having steak and eggs for breakfast, I do. GK

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I have enjoyed your singing over the years and the way you harmonize lower than the melody. It is harder to vocalize that way than singing higher notes. You are good singing that way.

Thanks.
Phil Adams

Charlotte, North Carolina

I’m a baritone who has a few bass notes and you’re wrong, Phil: singing bass is simplicity itself and very satisfying. I sing a sort of alto part when I sing with Prudence or Heather and that’s easy because my aunts were all altos and so the interval is in my head. But I love bass. When I wake up in the morning, I have a fine bass voice for about three hours. Unfortunately my church doesn’t have a sunrise service, or else I’d be in the choir. GK

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I wanted to tell you how much you’ve meant to me through my life. We live in the country, with mountains all around us (bad art, as you once said at a concert in Washington), and every night when I went to bring in my old cat Andre, I would hold him, look at the sunset with him, and sing the Lake Wobegon Hymn. I sang it to him when he died, and when his friend, Peanut died, and have now played it in honor of my gone Binky. I guess I just wanted to say that you remain in my heart, and I hold all you have done as dear and wonderful.

Tony

You sang I remember O so well how peacefully among the woods and fields you lie to your deceased cats? Okay. All I wanted was to be of use to people and this is a use I never contemplated but I’m glad you told me. GK

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Thank you, Mr. Keillor, for your precisely to-the-point piece on the Nashville school shooting. I am a retired RN — spent my entire career in emergency and trauma care in different parts of our country. Was on duty that horrible July day in San Francisco when the 101 California shooting went down in a law office. Nine people died, including the gunman. It was 30 years ago (July 1, 1993) and I will never forget what I saw and experienced that day.

I don’t know what it will take for the people of the U.S. to rise up and tell Congress and the courts and our state and local legislators that we have collectively had ENOUGH of the killing and injuries caused by guns in our country and it is their job to fix this!

Sincerely,

Chris Wachsmuth, RN (retired)

I think it’s going to happen next year, Chris. The gun lobby and the Second Amendment absolutists have taken a radical position that a great majority of the voters don’t agree with. It’s up to candidates to make this an issue. GK

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I have been searching through my books by Garrison Keillor for a passage that I would like to cite in an upcoming sermon. The passage concerned a series of small churches who split from one another over doctrinal minutia. I thought it was a great description of something that I have witnessed all too often during my years in church service. I want to say the passage was in Wobegon Boy but cannot find it. Can you please help me locate it so I can quote it accurately?

Brad

It’s the schismatic history of the Plymouth Brethren whom I grew up among. The major issue had to do with Communion and the grounds for excluding Christians from Communion, which goes contrary to the spirit of love and forgiveness that Christ preached, at least as we Episcopalians would feel. But the issue of exclusion appealed to the righteous Brethren who felt threatened by the powers of the world, but in the end it diminished them severely. GK

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As a huge fan that’s seen you at Ravinia twice and the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, I had tickets for the Champaign, Illinois, event which got canceled. Any plans to get back to the Midwest for a performance?

Ray Moen

We sure hope so. We are in the process of adding a number of 50th anniversary shows over the next year, stay tuned. GK

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You’ve managed to write a fine essay on cheerfulness without once mentioning your degree in English. Kudos. (The urge to mention those of the “Honorary” stripe could not be resisted).

I am cheered by the thought that you might continue your outstanding career as author and humorist without continually whacking us on the head with your academic accomplishment.

(Do I feel a whack of chagrin for this diatribe? Indeed I do. I have been transported countless Saturday evenings sitting outback tuned to PHC, eagerly waiting to hear the news from the lake. Did I ever send so much as a word of appreciation? No.

We Midwesterners are bad about that: “Hand full of gimme — mouth full of much obliged.”

K.W. Harris

I was not a good student and I don’t hang my degree on the wall nor do I mention it except as a joke. The University of Minnesota made an enormous difference in my life: I encountered some fine teachers, made some lasting friends, got published there and made my way into radio, but as a student I was a slacker. I found a vocation but I was never serious about learning and now I’m old and I still have this vocation, feel it even stronger, and for that I’m grateful, but I live in profound ignorance. I know some authoritative people and I’m very impressed and I keep my mouth shut and listen. GK