Post to the Host
Comments from the Week of 01.08.23
Dear Garrison,
My ancestors are buried in the Prairie Home Cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota. You lived up to the name, smartly. You have been a companion, friend, and teacher. That comes from Henry Husebye, resident of Prairie Home.
Thomas Albert Swenson
It’s the oldest cemetery in town, as you surely know, so all the immediate survivors and their survivors are gone who might’ve tended the site and when I visited it fifty years ago it looked a little worse for wear. I liked the name so I picked it up for a radio show and the last time I was in Moorhead, the grass was mowed and some of the headstones were set right and demossified. I don’t plan to be buried there but rather among Keillors and Crandalls and Hunts in Ramsey, Minnesota, near the Rum River. But not for a while yet. GK
Hi, Garrison.
Now that I’m retired, I have been listening to old shows of A Prairie Home Companion. You may not remember this, but on your 12/16/2000 show when you were talking about the election, you said the Trump sign was going up, and everybody laughed. It was almost as if you could see far into the future!
Always a fan,
Barry
I have no idea what I meant by that, sir, but evidently the audience did. Back in 2000 it was still laughable. GK
GK,
Regarding your column about prison reform: I’m all for compassionate care, of course, but I wonder why we should spend millions of dollars on monsters who have committed serious crimes and are basically a curse on society. They’re in prison for a reason, and it’s not our job to make them comfortable. It’s supposed to be the hellhole you describe, not a health club with daily massages.
Sharon
In the case of Rikers Island, the prison I mentioned, many inmates are people who’ve been indicted and can’t afford bail and spend months awaiting trial. Our society guarantees accused a fair trial, including legal representation and the right to appeal, and the public defender system needs fixing: too few people, working for too little pay. And the proportion of prison inmates who are mentally ill is maybe as high as a third or a half. And in our culture, which is Christian-based, torture is not considered acceptable. But prison reform is a hopeless cause, so your fear of creating luxury spas for felons — it ain’t gonna happen. GK
Mr. Keillor,
Now that Biden is coming out as another politician who steals classified documents, maybe you bleeding-heart Democrats will realize that he’s as much of a slimeball as you claim Trump is. He’s just better at pretending to be a nice guy, but yet here he is, a white rich dude backing his beautiful Corvette into his garage where he has boxes full of documents he shouldn’t have. Both sides are corrupt in Washington, and I’ve lost faith in our political system and probably will never vote again. I mean, why bother? At one time, I was proud to be an American, but I’m afraid that ship has sailed.
Paula T.
San Francisco, California
Sorry you’ve lost your faith. There are differences between the Mar-a-Lago story and the Wilmington one, but you know that. I’ll wait to hear what Biden says and what the special prosecutor finds. I’ve held onto my faith and plan to vote and hope you will too. GK
Hello, Garrison.
I would like some advice about what to tell my son about his choice to be an English major. There is still time for him to change his mind. I worry that all this tuition we’re paying won’t pay off for him once he’s out looking for work that pays a living wage. Maybe this liberal arts education won’t be worth it.
H. Paulson
Minneapolis, Minnesota
You know your son and what sort of leverage you have in the matter. (If you’re paying the bill, you have veto power if you choose to use it.) I’d suggest a sympathetic conversation, attempting to understand the process by which he came to this choice. What is his sense of vocation? I majored in English, had a couple of teachers who had a big influence, but I paid my tuition and living expenses, which took a good deal of time away from my studies. I regret that. Your generosity will make it possible for him to devote himself fully to the task at hand, whatever it turns out to be. That’s one thing you should insist on: his complete dedication in exchange for your support. GK
Hi, Garrison.
Based on your Facebook page comments today about your trip to L.A. and then the pleasant return home to your wife, I extend my compliments to you and your partner for making that work.
My wife and I have survived our 35 years of marriage by reminding ourselves whenever one of us had to travel away for any time period with this comment to the traveler: “How can I miss you if you won’t go away?”
Enjoy this day!
Mark Larson
Arcata, California
That line comes from a song by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, Mr. Larson, a band you’re too young to remember. I used to play it on the radio back in the Vinyl Age. It wasn’t bad. GK
Good day,
Not a question ... a short note: Bill (Billy) Pedersen was married to my second cousin Marilyn (Titterud).
Marilyn was my mom’s first cousin. It was nice to see Bill’s name referenced in your 1/4/2023 column.
Best wishes for 2023.
Julie Wurtzel
I’ve known Billy since we were in the first grade at Benson School on the West River Road and we still get together for lunch now and then though he lives in St. Peter, but you know that. Marilyn was a great beauty with a warm heart and beautiful soul, and when she walked down the halls of Anoka High School, it felt like royalty passing. Lucky you, to be related. GK
Hi, Garrison.
I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your show in Torrance, CA, last Saturday night. I love your humor and stream-of-consciousness delivery and very much miss hearing A Prairie Home Companion on the radio. Would you consider coming back here and bringing the whole show next time? Please! It would be such a treat for all of us Torrance PHC fans!
Wishing you good health and continued happiness in this new year.
Barbara Blundell
I loved standing on the stage in Torrance and letting my consciousness stream but the big show with band and actors and guests is quite a production and I’m afraid we don’t have a good business model for making the thing viable, what with airfares and hotels and all. It might be viable to do it in Minnesota but I’m afraid our hometown audience is gone. I did a reading in St. Paul a year ago and 20 people came. It’s the fate of most performers, and I keep trying to fade away, but I still enjoy doing it, especially when the audience wants to sing, as they did in Torrance. GK
Dear Garrison,
I recently finished reading Serenity at 70, Gaiety at 80 and thoroughly enjoyed it. There is a limerick on the cover of the book, about Lena and Ole dancing sprightly and slowly. I am 74 years old and enjoy country-western and line dancing. Like Lena and Ole, I find dancing to be joyful and holy. I want to quote the limerick, but I cannot find any author attribution. Did you write it? If not, do you happen to know who did?
Thank you and Best Wishes for a great year in 2023.
Dan in Atlanta
I did, Dan, and you go ahead and use it and don’t bother to give me credit. All limericks wind up with Anon for the author. I’m glad dancing brings you joy. If you get tired of line dancing, try salsa. GK
I was an English major. Tried engineering of several kinds and then decided, if I was going to stay in college and play football (that’s the real reason I went to college, to play football, become a pro, and get rich), I’d better find something else to study besides math and science, because my brain was getting tired of keeping track of the multitudes of formulas needed to take tests intelligently, my interest was waning, and my GPA was looking grim.
So I changed, but not to English. I changed to journalism. But the type of writing one does in journalism is formulaic also, and the precision required in that field is a universe away from admiration for Dickens and love of Twain. But I hung in there until I had to take philosophy classes, and my plans for a financially secure future were dashed upon the shores of DesCartes. The man’s ruminations and cogitations forced me to ask, “If I am, and if I am to continue being, must I think?”
Well! I would think so, but I was not going to be a teacher! Are you kidding? Teach school to naughty children? But I had to settle on plans for a degree. And that was BS, specifically, a B.S. in English, a teaching degree. Football wasn’t going to take me very far; that was becoming obvious. So maybe I could just get my degree and then I could drive trucks or do something else when I’d finished college. That became the plan.
I did so enjoy being an English major, much more than I intended. I even liked writing research papers. And the creative writing classes lifted me out of myself. Several of my classmates became writers of some fame! It was an honor to hear the young authors themselves read out loud, the music of their voices singing their poems, oh, my! I also read out loud, and some of these angelic voices even gave me support. So I continued writing my drivel, to this very day. The literature I read laboriously slowly, but with joy, even the tragedies and comedies of Shakespeare. Three o’clock in the morning and trapped in a play, imagining the stage, the actors, the emotions, the spectacle, then I’d be up at seven and off to class!
Cut to the chase: One of my professors was an incredible teacher who performed his classroom duties with joy and opened my eyes in much the same way DesCartes had done. I decided, what the heck? I wonder if I could do that? I’ll try teaching, if I get a chance. I can always get out pretty easily.
So I tried, and I was destroyed by the naughty children in a matter of several weeks. I pushed on, finished that contract, and started looking for something else to do, but then another opportunity to teach got laid at my feet. Imagine that, getting laid at my feet! That one went two years.
“No more!” I cried. Finished those two years, then I applied at many places for various jobs, and “got laid” again with another opportunity to teach. What was happening?
So, reluctantly, I married teaching. The extra marital affair with the profession hadn’t been working, so I married her. I found advice and help in my new job. Some fine professional educators showed me a few things. And at last, English teaching embraced me, and she never let me go.
And in that way, I am so, so fortunate. I taught for over thirty years, retired, and then found a job driving trucks until I couldn’t do that anymore. It was also kind of fun.
To "Sharon" who thinks the prison system is just fine, just like it is, and everybody in there got there as a result of their own life decisions and are all "monsters", I'd like to remind her of the 19 year old man who was taken Riker's Island in the late '90s because a snooty sales person in an overpriced boutique falsely accused him of shoplifting an expensive hand bag. After three years waiting for a trial, during which time he was repeatedly beaten and raped, it was found that he was accused simply because the woman didn't want one of his "class", or, let's face it - color, sullying up the joint, and needed a reason to have him removed.
Within his first year out, he took his own life.
When someone "Sharon" knows, respects or loves ends up in one of those places, we'll see how her view of the prison system is affected.