Post to the Host

Comments from the week of Dec. 4

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I am sending you a Thank You Note.

You are unaware of your contribution to my success, and I want to explain. I am a retired attorney. I have repeatedly been asked how I developed my style of jury presentations. I started listening to you in 1974 virtually every Saturday. I saw you multiple times in New York at Town Hall. I learned how to talk, phrase, pause, and body language from mostly you but some other like Paul Harvey.

So, in short, I am stating a very demonstrative thanks for “pirating” much of your style.

Albert Parnell

Atlanta, Georgia

I’m worried about you having learned from me, Hon. Albert Parnell, Esq., for the simple reason that I’m in the fiction business and it would be easy for you to have learned too much and said things to juries that could get you disbarred and even indicted for fraud and, Lord help us, wind up in an orange jumpsuit. Say it ain’t so. GK

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GK,

I like the line in the Bible where the Psalmist says that God sits in the heavens and laughs. It doesn’t say what God laughs at or about but humor seems to me to be a divinely sanctioned way to deal with contradictions and ironies such as old age and dying. Now that I am catching up to your age I resonate with what George Burns said in his twilight years — “First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down.” So, where are you on this continuum of aging?

Fred Benney,

Gun Barrel City, Texas

George Burns kept working as a comic until he took a fall at 98, kept smoking cigars, was booked for a gig in Vegas at the age of 100, but died before he got there. I’m only 81. I forget some names and try to forget others. Some faces are more forgettable than others. As for my zipper, my wife keeps an eye on it. I still make it to the toilet when it’s time. On the other hand, there are dozens of things I used to worry about when I was young and now I just say, “Piss on it.” GK

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I hear that Minnesota is in the midst of picking a new flag and state seal. Many of them involve a loon. Any comment?

Jo Schaper

A commission was formed this year and got right to work, invited public submissions of ideas, narrowed it down to a few finalists, most of which involve a star (Minnesota is the “North Star” state, “l’étoile du nord”) and finally decided on the state seal. I haven’t seen it but I hear there’s a loon on it, and maybe a star. The current flag shows a farmer plowing his field and waving to an Indian on horseback who, as I recall, waves back to him. I saw this in grade school and didn’t see it as racist, but the commission has set out to create a flag and seal that better represent our cultural diversity. How a bird and a celestial body accomplish this is anyone’s guess. A flag with Prince and Jesse (“The Body”) Ventura on it would’ve been more interesting. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

Oddly enough, less than a minute before I read your column, one of the morning shows on television revealed the Time magazine Person of the Year … Taylor Swift.

After reading the column, I mulled over the natural process of change through the generations. Somehow it fits that the most influential person for the younger generations would be an entertainer, and there is no question that Taylor is at the top of the heap there. I am not familiar with her music but have often heard stories in the media about her kindness to fans, and she has demonstrated that rare ability to reinvent herself and her music over time, making her success durable and lucrative. She always looks lovely, is a capable performer, and apparently a savvy businesswoman as well. There are many loftier choices that a Baby Boomer woman like me could envision, but this is not my time … it is for the young to prevail.

At least they didn’t pick He Who Must Not Be Named …

Best,
Patricia McCormack

I was impressed by what I heard about the huge bonuses she paid to her crew after her Eras tour. Not so impressed by her writing or singing: I asked a woman singer if she’d do a TS parody for my show and she said, “There’s nothing distinctive there to parody.” But it’s interesting to read about the religious devotion of her followers, one might say obsession. And the testimony of some professional therapists who think it can be beneficial. Depression can hit the young hard and loving an entertainer may be a road away from depression, I don’t know. I wish her well. Eventually, some longtime employee of hers will write a tell-all book about how creepy and cruel she is, but I don’t intend to read it. GK

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Thank you for the column about Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. I too found Justice O’Connor direct, practical, and quite refreshing! In one interview, she used phrases such as “I did the best I can,” “it’s all water under the dam now,” and rather than deny a statement she matter-of-factly said, “I hope I didn’t say that.” Justice O’Connor brought my mother and aunts to mind, all their wisdom and no-nonsense get-to-work attitudes! They are all sorely missed.

Sincerely,
Ginny Sharp Franz

I heard women relatives say, “We did our best” and thereby settled their regrets. They talked about water over the dam, not under it — they said “water under the bridge” — but Justice O’Connor was an Arizonan and maybe dams are different there. I don’t seem to have people reading through what I’ve written to find glaring stupidities there, so I haven’t had to say that I hope I didn’t say that. The one wretched mistake she made, according to some Court scholars, was her swing vote in Bush v. Gore in 2000 that stopped the recount in Florida and sent George W. Bush to the White House, a glaring partisan move by the Court. I haven’t seen where Justice O’Connor defended that vote; I’m still looking. GK

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