Post to the Host

Comments from the Week of 11.22.21

Mr. Keillor:

I’m not a writer, I’m a teacher, but I’ve been trying to write about my daily life because I think people ought to know what it’s like to be a man teaching third grade in a public school. I love my job and it wears me out and I wish I understood why. I also wish I felt I am doing some good in the world. But after three months I still haven’t written anything I’d ask someone else to read. It’s so stiff and pretentious, I hate it. Give me some advice, please.

Derek Martinson

Baltimore

You’ve got good motives for writing, sir, and don’t lose heart but at the same time don’t beat yourself over the head trying to make something happen. Start with something in your workday that makes you happy and without preface or footnote or explanation try to put it in three sentences so that the reader gets the feeling. Imagine a friend reading it, not the general public. See where it leads. Maybe it’ll lead to a whole page of writing in which, looking at it a day later, you’ll find a few lines that resonate. Scratch out the dead material, keep the blossom. There’s a lot of fishing around involved in writing and so the computer is very handy, allowing quick cuts and rejiggering, but everything you write on a computer needs to be printed out on paper and reworked by pen in hand. There’s a mysterious connection between the hand and the ear and once you discover that, you’ll be a happier writer. You’re aiming to capture your own voice at your best, when you’re excited but thinking clearly and wanting someone you care about to know you. It’s a sort of courtship. Good luck to you and I’d only add that you cannot write about third-graders without being funny so go ahead.

GK

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Dear Garrison,

Growing up in the country my heroes were Davy Crockett and Tarzan. Davy told us kids to always do the right thing, and Tarzan could swim far under water and wrestle gorillas. When I got into HS, I looked a bit like Johnny Weissmuller and was a peaceful soul but I got into the face of any bully I encountered. So I know bullies very well.

Today’s right-wing gasbags are mostly old men who wish they were young and tough, but most of them couldn’t run 100 yds. to save their lives. Their tough talk is to impress other men that they can still kick ***. But they can’t. They need their guns to feel important. I’ve owned many guns so I know that ethos.

The orange-haired leader who pushes for another civil war is not the tough guy he tries to portray. He bullies women and his hero is Hitler. But even a fake mafioso can be dangerous. What I learned from my Tarzan days is that a punch in the nose will stop most bullies cold. But punches are not woke these days and neither is manliness. What we need is more Tarzan to stop the bullies and more Davy Crockett to restore the morality we seem to have lost. And if it takes a punch in the nose to get there, so be it. Rationality and poetic verse are not enough. We need to get tough.

Best regards,

Clay Blasdel, Buffalo, NY

It’s good to hear from upstate New York for a change. New York took a big step forward when it got Kathy Hochul, a Buffalonian, for governor, replacing the Cuomover. She’s a straight-talker and a hard worker. Things are looking up already. My Buffalo pals prefer wakefulness to woke. They’re skeptical of socialized medicine, seeing how many Canadians cross the river for certain procedures they need. They favor feeding hungry kids and giving a good education rather than fussing about diversity and hurt feelings. I’m not likely to punch anybody in the nose, since I’m a writer and very leery of hand injury, but I’m happy to have a Buffalo reader.

GK

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Hi Garrison,

I’ve been missing my dad lately and remembered this beautiful song by Chet Atkins when he’s singing about missing his dad. I wanted to share this with you, it seems like one that you’d appreciate.

Best,

Stan Dalton, Huntsville, Alabama

It’s a sweet song. Chet’s dad left home when Chet was a lad and he grew up in hard times, missing him. His dad was was a musician and Chet pulled wires off a screen door and made himself a banjo and got to where he could sort of play it. He went to live with his dad after and I don’t think they ever really reconciled, but “I Still Can’t Say Goodbye” was an emotional song for Chet and he was moved by how it moved an audience. So simple, but people wept to hear it. Chet was a complicated man who felt more in touch with jazz than country music but when he sang this song, he touched something deep and true and he knew it.

GK

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Hello, Garrison.

Just wondering if you have any plans to visit here in Ontario, Canada. My wife, Jude, and I have seen you in Buffalo, Lewiston, NY, Chautauqua, and would dearly love to see you again.

Rod Scott, Chaffey’s Lock (near Kingston), Ontario

Now that you Canadians have opened the border, I’m just waiting for an invitation.

GK

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The Listener Replies

Oh Garrison Keillor, friend of old,
You need not fear the volume is turned low!
I listen while I work: you fold
Me in that voice, like kneading yeast-sweet dough.

I hear the Almanac, is all,
Recalling daily all the many years
We’ve shared, those tones that never pall
Bring satisfaction to the one who hears.

In one-way friendship we’ve grown old!
Our radio must be turned up loud to hear,
And still I listen and I fold
You in my daily bread, my distant dear.

Sasha Bley-Vroman

Sasha, that is not a bad poem and if it weren’t about me, I might find a way to use it on the Almanac, but I appreciate our friendship. That’s a complicated bread metaphor, me baking you and you baking me, but maybe so.

GK

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Dear Mr. Keillor.

I am a longtime fan: thank you for your work, it has resonated deeply in my life! I received one of the monologue CD box sets for Christmas a long time ago: I remember listening to “Hog Slaughter” for the first time, it took my breath away. Did you really attend such a hog slaughter in your youth?

I was pleasantly surprised as I’ve seen some of those early monologues appear on Spotify so that I could hear some of the ones I’d heard before, and also some ones I missed. Here’s hoping some more of them appear. We’re still listening.

You and yours are in my meager prayers.

Thomas W. Viola, Princeton, NJ

Yes, I did see a hog slaughtered when I was a kid, my uncle Jim went to help a neighbor with a hog, and I think the two men were a little out of their depth because it was a messy business, a struggle to control the animal, a couple attempts to cut its throat, but the butchering went fairly smoothly. I’d only seen chickens slaughtered, which my aunts did, and I once saw my grandma wring a goose’s neck and kill it. I had no wish to do likewise but I was impressed by the efficiency, the determination to minimize suffering.

GK

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Dear Mr. K,

Did you admire any newspaper columnists while growing up in Minnesota? The demise of our daily paper saddens me. 

Mike Silverman

Chicago, IL

Chicago had a great one in Mike Royko and I’m sorry I didn’t get to read him, but we had Cedric Adams who now and then wrote a humorous column. Mostly he was busy being a “personality” and he worked too hard and died too early. Amy Klobuchar’s dad, Jim, was a hardworking columnist who leaned toward sports and the outdoors, neither of which interested me, but now and then he got into real storytelling, which was a beautiful thing. The last of the local columnists is Joe Soucheray, whose “Garage Logic” presents the working guy’s view on things, as opposed to the pinhead intellects on the Opinion page. Joe is always worth reading, amazing durability.

GK

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Ever wonder what sins the rest of us will be found guilty of by the next generation? Statuary only made sense when the media didn’t rule the world. They do rule now, tearing apart whatever and wherever they can. 

Darn good thing if we’re not memorialized on a square circle somewhere. We will all be recontextualized and come tumbling down in time for some reason or ‘nother. 

Excepting the greatly famous … are there any anymore? The last to remember us will be a grandchild or two. Ignorance has nothing to do with it. It’s a national demential.

Tom King

I don’t think it’s the media who are tearing down statues but rather activists who manage to gain the attention of the media, and the real work is done by boards and committees in meeting rooms. Fame is precarious, times change, the culture shifts, and each generation raises its own flags and life goes on. Columbus was the hero of a generation of Italians and the statues of him were in recognition of their political power. For some reason, Asians and Hispanics didn’t get in on statuary much that I’m aware. These days, not many people care one way or another.

GK

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GK,

Like you, many of us cultural conformists are weary from the feuds inherent in today’s socialist and grievance politics. We long for the simpler days of the past when we didn’t have to worry about the planet bursting into flames or white supremacy being challenged or having familiar landmarks being “recontextualized.” Please keep doing what you can to help us return to the mythical places like Lake Wobegon where punk teenagers don’t bring their assault weapons to town and there are no suspicious-looking Black guys to chase down and shoot. Many of us in our generation would like to enjoy a White Christmas without hearing about America’s ugly racist history or the supply chain blues of parents who can’t get desired toys for their kids. All the existential folderol going on right now is only turning the holidays over to the Grinch. 

And thanks for your posts that are devoid of profanity. This in itself helps some of us feel a measure of civil tranquility and E Pluribus Unum. 

Norman Rockdale

Paradise, Texas

Thanks for the post though I’m not sure I follow it but I wish you a merry Christmas though I don’t think it gets white down in Texas and I wish more civil tranquility for us all. My vocabulary was formed at my parents’ dinner table and my mother’s strongest language was “Oh for crying out loud” which, if you shouted it at me, would honestly sting.

GK

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If you mean Columbia U. as the university named after Columbus, you have a problem re-naming it Smith since there is already a Smith College. Interestingly enough, my daughter is a graduate of Smith College and also a graduate of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons now called Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. And the name Columbia University and Med school was actually a name change as it was initially King’s College. It got changed during the revolution for obvious reasons.

Melissa Yorks

Bravo to your accomplished daughter, Melissa, and of course I was joking about changing Columbia to Smith, but it would be no problem since Smith is a College and the Columbia/Smith would be a University. But I don’t see this as an imminent development.

GK

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We continued our Thanksgiving tradition of listening to one of our favorite News segments: “Rick the TV Dog.”

In it, the Roths — David and Amy and three little people — are stuck in a blizzard in LW and knock on the Bunsen’s door. Stranded, they stay there three nights.

When they left, Mrs. Roth said, “I don’t know if we will ever see you again but I know 40 years from now I will remember you.”

It’s now been 36 years. Have the Roths and Bunsens reconnected?

The Trices

I don’t believe they have but I’ve been gone for five of those years so they may have. Many things happen in Lake Wobegon unbeknownst to me, in fact most things. I’m in New York most of the time now and very poorly informed. People don’t share the news with a writer for fear he may write about it. It’s a little-known fact. Half the time we’re just guessing.

GK

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For Your Information, my great-great-grandfather, Winfield Scott Chadwick, ran away from home at the age of 13 to join the Confederate Army. He served four years as a drummer.

When he returned home to Beaufort, North Carolina, he started several businesses that employed persons of all races. He was a community leader who was well respected by the public he spent the rest of his life serving.

You recently referred in one of your posts to Lee and Jackson as being traitors. That’s your opinion. Here is mine: my ancestor was no traitor. I am not ashamed of him, I am not going to spit when his name is mentioned, and I’m not going to urinate on his grave, no matter how many calls there may be to do so by the extremists.

Normally, I enjoy reading your posts but this time, not so much.

Chris Davis

I can understand your taking umbrage and I don’t doubt a word of what you say about your ancestor. Lee and Jackson, however, are held to a higher account because they were officers of the U.S. Army who were sworn to defend the United States and in taking the steps they did, they crossed a line. They were held in high regard by their people and so their accession to secession persuaded many men to join the Confederate army who might otherwise not. They were leaders and they led in the direction of a tragic and murderous conflict that did grave damage to their own people and the republic as a whole. What good came of that war and all the carnage? Nobody expects you to dishonor your ancestor. A decision made at the age of 13 is in a whole other category than choices made by mature well-educated men of the military.

GK

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I appreciated Garrison’s comments at the end of today’s column on prayer and thanksgiving. I recall him singing the table grace that he has on his wall on A Prairie Home Companion a number of times. I realize that this won’t reach him in time for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal, but perhaps he will find occasion to recall it at some point during the holidays. This is a poem that he once featured on A Writer’s Almanac, and it has stuck with me through the years. Ironically, the poem is Table Grace by Gary Johnson.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!

Coleman Hood

TABLE GRACE

By Gary Johnson

Here we sit as evening falls
Like old horses in their stalls.
Thank you, Father, that you bless
Us with food and an address
And the comfort of your hand
In this great and blessed land.
Look around at each dear face,
Keep each one in your good grace.
We think of those who went before,
And wish we could have loved them more.
Grant to us a cheerful heart,
Knowing we must soon depart
To that far land to be with them.
And now let’s eat. Praise God. Amen.

“Table Grace” by Gary Johnson. Used with permission of the poet.

Glad you liked the poem and we’ll pass your comments on to Mr. Johnson.

GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I’ve noticed of late that you seem to be getting down off your high liberal horse and writing about things that we commoners can relate to. What happened? Are you tired of beating up on President Trump? Or do you sense that when he is re-elected in 2024, the posses may be out looking for treasonous Democrats who pulled off the electoral heist of 2020? You referred to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as traitors but if you look around, you’ll see the American values they fought for, and Jackson gave his life for, are returning to the forefront. Big changes are coming and either you get in sync with them or you’ll be run over. A word to the wise.

Jim Brooks, Holland, MI

What happened is very simple: I saw a great many columnists devoted to writing about politics and Washington, most of them smarter than I, and I decided to write about what we have in common, daily life in America. Love and marriage, breakfast, kids, table talk, work, memory, fast food, and aging.

GK