Post to the Host

Comments from the Week of 10-30-22

Dearest Garrison,

Your response to the latest Post to the Host from Stephen Jay has made a deep impression. “Power and joy are strangers to each other” are words to remember and live by.

Bless you Bless you,
Alexandra Seymour

I am trying to console the losers while yet holding out hope. I was on public radio for forty years, got kicked off via a shakedown scheme by two former employees, and nobody at NPR would interview me to let me explain, not even old pals. Well, I’ve never been happier. That’s the truth, Ruth. So don’t be afraid of trouble. Trouble may turn out to be good luck. GK

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Dear Garrison,

As a writer of substance who has scaled the heights to 80, it is time for you to look your age, an age with the wisdom and veneration of a sage or Minnesota sachem. You should wear the part, including a distinctive beard. I have seen photos of you with a ferocious black beard: a youthful firebrand with the fervor of abolitionist John Brown. A new incarnation will put you in the company of top American writers, including the first and greatest, Hemingway, his short, bristling beard connoting virility and boldness. Other giants are Dickens, Melville, Whitman, Pound, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Browning, Victor Hugo, George Bernard Shaw, D.H. Lawrence, Tolstoy, Joseph Conrad, and the Master, Shakespeare.

Modern writers who have had facial adornments include Allen Ginsburg, Philip Roth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Stephen King, Michael Chabon, George R.R. Martin, and Salman Rushdie. Even when out of vogue, beards are welcome on writers, thinkers, philosophers, and in the bastions of academia. Before anything, of course, you need approval from your beloved sweetheart, with her freely given kisses.

So put away your razor. Your final likeness sporting a salt and pepper “Hemingway,” will appear in the newspaper obituaries of Anoka, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and doubtless, both the New York Times and The New Yorker, plus the front page of Lake Wobegon’s Herald Star.

Cheerio!
Vic Befera
Palo Alto, California

You are so kind to care about my appearance, sir, but if I grew a beard, my beloved would change the locks on the doors and hand me over to the Salvation Army. My hero Roger Angell never wore a beard, nor did John Updike. I stood next to Philip Roth once at a urinal and he was clean shaven. Allen Ginsburg read on A Prairie Home Companion once, a little-known fact, and the magnificent thing about him was his rabbinical voice, not the beard. Whitman? Don’t get me started. GK

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Thanks for your short, effective sermon concerning the next election. Our street here in central Ohio is filled with nice people who fly Confederate flags from their yards and trucks. I write a determinedly non-political column each week for the Sunday paper, so everyone thinks I’m on their side. God send that we can maintain this delicate balance. I don’t mind non-crazy Republicans, but I’m afraid that lots of people will be unhappy when their Trump commemorative coins begin to tarnish.

Mark Kinsler

Lancaster, Ohio

I admire a columnist who can stay out of the line of fire. We need more of you and come next week I’m going to give politics a rest. GK

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Garrison,

I enjoy reading what you have to say about politics, and I am looking forward to your reflections after next Tuesday’s elections. I don’t really believe that God has a direct hand in this, but nevertheless, God Help Us All.

Mary Schell

No reflections on the elections, not from me. I’m removing my rearview mirror and parking the car in the garage and taking a walk. GK

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Hello, Garrison.

I have written to you once before to simply express my gratitude for your sharing of your own thoughts and those of many others.

I have noticed with some surprise all the fuss being made about commas and placements thereof.

I attach for your amusement (or not) a short ode to the comma I wrote for myself back in 2015.

Comman complaint

What comma commands sentience from sentence?
Thou reader decode what I say.
My heart was clear when I wrote my thought
I trust your mind to fill in the spaces no comma can fill
If not let us talk and get on each other’s same page
Let commas or not be not source of confusion
So after I’m gone (actually now) you can all discuss and decide and ponder and yes criticize but do you really have time for all that I don’t think so at least I do not depend on that what I’d rather is you and others who need to know what you need will get that quite quickly otherwise what are we doing do you not have somewhere shortly to go?

Who appointed comma the Lord of the Land?
If the thought written down does not pause on command
Will the reader’s mind then begin to disband?
Oh comma oh comma go where you will
Let me think what I must and sometimes be still.
With you or without I shall surely get by
My reader also
Comma or no
Please get what I mean
Will that comma allow
You to know my intent
Without you will my Lord’s house be rent?

All the best, and thanks again for enjoying your life and sharing of that in your many ways.

Pete Walthers

Huntley, Illinois

A brave venture into the darkness without a flashlight. I hope you found your way back. GK

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My dear next-door neighbour is in hospital, and knowing she will never come home we are trying to look after her three cats. The one of us who knows least about cats learned from the one who knows just a little more, that they might be lonely and bored. But she found a book I had given this little family a while ago, Cat, You Better Come Home. And today she READ it to them. “They listened to quite a bit of it,” she told me. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But I love Garrison Keillor’s writing and when people sometimes tell me my writing is similar, I am so honored. And Songs of the Cat is the best!

Sheila Balls

I’m sorry about the neighbor and her poor cats. I suppose she worried about them until the light started to fade. I’m guessing the cats were fascinated by the drawings in the book more than the words. GK

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Too bad my son lived in Princeton instead of Anoka! He said Princeton was boring.

On this day, October 31, in 1920, Anoka, Minnesota, became the first town in America to celebrate Halloween. The town had been plagued by a band of merry pranksters in the previous Halloweens and decided to make a city-wide event to keep the teenagers occupied.

Marjorie French

My father and his friends were active in Anoka back then and liked to tip over privies and once they disassembled a Model T and reassembled it atop the roof of a shed. So my family is partially responsible for the celebration. GK

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This shot of Wimmer Hall in Collegeville reminds us all of the good things you’ve done for the world of radio, writing, and Minnesota!

Timothy Backous, OSB

Monk of Saint John’s Abbey 

I remember Wimmer Hall quite well from the days when I arrived there at 5 a.m. to go on the air at KSJR. I had been a serious writer of serious poetry but there at Wimmer it dawned on me that radio listeners at that hour do not need to hear about the radio host’s difficult life unless he can make it funny. So Wimmer turned me toward comedy and I’m still trying. GK

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GK,

I enjoyed learning that we are related as I did when you wrote: “My grandpa Denham grew up in the tenements of Glasgow back when the residents leaned out the window and shouted, “Comin’ oot!” and threw the contents of the chamber pot into the street.” My ex-wife never liked you. And, it turns out, I’m not sure she liked me much either. Maybe it had something to do with Denham-ness.

Tom Denham

Denhams tend to be rather cautious and self-conscious and you don’t strike me that way, Tom. March forth proudly but put the bagpipes aside. People only want to hear them for about twenty seconds. Enough is enough. GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

For many years A Prairie Home Companion was the highlight of my Saturday afternoons … so sad when it finally ended. Having just read A Lake Wobegon Virus and Boom Town, I feel like I have reconnected with a good friend. You have such a wonderful insight into the human condition, sharing so much of yourself and all of your friends and neighbors in Lake Wobegon … real or fictional really doesn’t matter. I live in a small town much like Lake Wobegon … Haines Alaska — 2,500 good people, no stoplights, no box stores, lots of churches, and a few bars and liquor stores. And above all, lots of very memorable characters. Thank you for all the enjoyment of your radio shows and your books. I prayed for you last night, and my prayer is that you are happy and healthy and continue “doing” well into the future.

Carol Flegel

I’m happy, rather healthy for 80, and I get up early every morning and write. Haines, Alaska, sounds like it needs to have a book written about it, but can the truth be told? That’s the question. I’m working on a new Lake Wobegon book and trying to make it truthful. But first I need to finish THE HOME STRETCH about the beauty of being this old. GK

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Good heavens, I miss you! Will you ever be in the New Orleans area? 

With much love,

Brigitte

New Orleans is too high-class. I went to see your local band Tuba Skinny and they’re way above and beyond what I do. Check them out sometime. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I respect your sense of optimism and joy in your recent column, but your statement “Congratulate the victors and resume life” sort of pisses me off. When the crazies decimate Social Security, abolish Medicare benefits, continue to ignore climate change, and take away the rights of women and our LGBTQ+ friends, those who decide to go for long walks instead of speaking up will regret it. I’m not calling for violence on the steps of the United States Capitol (we shouldn’t stoop to their level), but we can’t just sit idly by while they ruin our democracy. Your complacency surprises me. Was this satire or were you serious? It was hard to tell.

Sandra Thomasin

You assume too much, Sandra, and give them too much credit. Taking a long walk facilitates thought and that’s something we need right now. We’re at a dangerous point in our history and we have to take some responsibility for that. When public officials are elected to office by such a skinny margin, it shows that there is no broad consensus and I think we need to look for one. Social Security and Medicare are part of the broad consensus. So is education. I think that a solid majority of Americans want public servants of good character. And we need to speak to that consensus and not drive a wedge. GK

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