Podcast 156 - "Thanks to simple repetitive exercises ,,,, I can now, with the help of the left arm, pull on my trousers while standing up, which is an important accomplishment for a man."
We can always find those timeless moments, but they’re fewer and farther between. In Austin I can still drive past the Sandy’s hamburger stand and Peter Pan golf course that my grandfather took me to in 1960, although they lie obscured in the shadows of corporate monstrosities. More often I recall, “that’s where the Nighthawk or El Azteca used to be.”
My grandfather gave me a Rambler American that cost $250. I loved it most because the front seat folded back into a bed, although I was too shy to use the feature to my advantage.
I was shopping for my first car as a teenager in the sixties, and found a bright red and white Rambler I really liked- but my parents wouldn’t let me buy it BECAUSE the seat folded down into a bed!
My Dad gave me a 1959 Nash Rambler—no idea what it cost. The love of my life and I never did try out the fold down seats—we have fond memories of ... .
So do you remember that wonderful song on the AM radio about the little Nash Rambler whose horn went Beep Beep Beep and who beat the Caddie because the driver couldn't get the Nash Rambler out of second gear Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep!!!
You nailed it. The relevant factor is apart from current trends, since they often act like wild windstorms, always changing. GK's relevant writing is timeless and human,
and when people remember to take control back from their digitized life, they slowly recover...IF the remember to see that they make all the decisions. Thank you!
I love you so much! You remember the world we lived in and where we were going .It’s so nice to have somebody that understands how much it hurts to look at our country today. I just watched Robert Kennedy‘s speech that he gave called “ On the Mindless Menace of Violence”— after the assassination of MLK. We have to do this. We have to bond together. We have to find the tribe and get the tribe reconnected . The devices have driven us apart, but the majority of the people in the country believe as you and I and we have to bring that message of universal love forward. We can’t wait any longer. Thank you as always I love your voice i’ve been listening to you for as long as you’ve been saying things. I hold you in my heart.💜
Kindness is not a political act, nor is demonstrating consideration and helpfulness.
They are choices that can appear as if from heaven, and WHEN we choose to treat ALL people the way we would want others to treat us, THEN the size of the differences we all have will come down in proportion and no longer act as barriers or triggers of hate, fear, division and worry. GK is one of our best reminders of not so much the wonders of our youth, but of the potential that exists in every one of us,
I’m 74 years old and this year I began to attend the No Kings rallies. In the past my protests were always done by my vote. After the Petrie and Goode murders I decided I can no longer just sit in front of the tv and shake my head. I pick up my cane and sign and stand in the rain. The response is mostly positive with honking horns but I’ve also been called names I never encountered. I am no longer intimidated.
This past week the bones of 44 soldiers from the Continental Army were interred in the Battlefield grounds of Lake George, NY. They were in their teens and early twenties believed to have marched ( no roads or honking horns) from PA and headed for battle in Quebec. It is believed smallpox ended their lives. People lined up Route 9 from Albany to Lake George to pay their respects and give these young patriots a solemn burial after 250 years in an unmarked mass grave. They were found during a constructional dig .
Our current commander and chief probably would have considered them “suckers and losers “ because he doesn’t get it. What’s in in for them?”
Don’t give up your fight GK regardless of your aging aches and pains. Continue to use your gift of words.
Glad I read this entry by you. So familiar to my 80 year old body. I almost didn’t live to bear witness to this time of meaness in every sense of the word.
My first car was a 1950 Plymouth Custom that cost me $25 in 1971 dollars. I bought it from my uncle, but it had been my grandfather’s car. I still have the brass commemorative medallion from its key ring. It celebrated the Shelly Cooperative Creamery’s 50th anniversary in 1960. Olaf made the 12 mile drive from his farm just north of Climax to Shelly. That would have been a long trip for my grandfather. Since buying the car in the early 50’s he had racked up a total of 40,000 miles.
But today’s podcast wasn’t about classic cars and antique drivers. We are helped through this stage in life by younger people, often people originating in other lands. We rely on them in so many ways and yet all too often some resent their youth or their accents. I don’t get it.
My own lifelong feelings of inadequacy also stemmed from elementary school P.E. classes too, G.K. I could never climb a rope if my life depended on it, even in my fittest shape. I'm sure that it was mostly mental. One or two humiliations can do that to a boy or to a young man. And forget sports like basketball which require bodily coordination and teamwork, two other skills that I've lacked all my life. I remember once in six grade gym somehow finding the basketball in my hands after a long rebound sent it my way and the coach yelling to me "RUN!" It was a perfect fast break opportunity for me, and I did what the coach said, and running the length of the floor toward our team's basket, I kept thinking to myself, "Oh GAWD! I don't know how to do a layup!" When I got to the basket, I stopped short to just chuck the basketball up in the air in the direction of the hoop. The ball didn't even make it up to the net but went out of bounds behind the basket. Both teams burst into laughter. I almost burst into tears. Our coach just shook his head. The other team hadn't even given chase when I started my fast break. They instinctively knew that there was no need to do so. I'm now six months shy of three score and ten and not in need of physical therapy yet myself, but from your description of it, I'm somewhat looking forward to it as a place where Father Time has made us all equally decrepit and inept. Thanks for the preview. And keep up the good work.
Do NOT let it get you down....so many people want to hear your stories and thoughts...and so many people feel like you do. It is a very depressing time...and I have to work hard to be positive....so many of my dear pals love that dumb guy...the greedy egomaniac who is tearing our country in two...but Still believe that sanity can return...don't let me down friend...83 is a good age.
My numerous experiences with PT, over the last decade, have given me an appreciation for the work the therapists do. They kept me upright and ambulatory now that I am within reach of my 90th year. It is amazing that they have motivated and manipulated me to continue moving on.
I bought a 1956 Ford in 1960 and paid $400 for it. I bought my first car in 1946, a 1910 Model T Ford. Paid $125 for it. Just sold in recently after owning it for 79 years. I will be 94 June 21.
I also know those feelings, being in a small southern town where I grew up, Yazoo City, named after the Indians, and meaning "river of death." It is a dying community and this woman will die here too. I still manage much more slowly than before but I paint for therapy instead of going to it. There is only decay here with few advances - one step forward, two steps back all over again.
But it is here that I exist with an old man and a dog to love until I die. That is more than I deserve.
In 1963 I got a 1952 Studebaker from my brother. He paid $125 for it a year earlier. He installed used lavender carpet and it started by depressing the clutch and striking a starter button on the floor. I was a “cool” HS junior and senior before heading off to college in 1964.
My first car was a $300 Chrysler land yacht with enormous back fins. It was equipped with a push button gear shifter that was in a panel on the dash. One day, as I was attempting to change gears, the panel fell backward inside the dashboard, leaving a gaping hole and leaving me with the only option of going forward.
Beginning in the 70's my cars were often seen parked outside social events while I listened to News From Lake Wobegon before joining the party.
We can always find those timeless moments, but they’re fewer and farther between. In Austin I can still drive past the Sandy’s hamburger stand and Peter Pan golf course that my grandfather took me to in 1960, although they lie obscured in the shadows of corporate monstrosities. More often I recall, “that’s where the Nighthawk or El Azteca used to be.”
My grandfather gave me a Rambler American that cost $250. I loved it most because the front seat folded back into a bed, although I was too shy to use the feature to my advantage.
I was shopping for my first car as a teenager in the sixties, and found a bright red and white Rambler I really liked- but my parents wouldn’t let me buy it BECAUSE the seat folded down into a bed!
Ha-ha!! That's where the name came from, our ancestral nomadic days.
My Dad gave me a 1959 Nash Rambler—no idea what it cost. The love of my life and I never did try out the fold down seats—we have fond memories of ... .
So do you remember that wonderful song on the AM radio about the little Nash Rambler whose horn went Beep Beep Beep and who beat the Caddie because the driver couldn't get the Nash Rambler out of second gear Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep!!!
I remember...I loved it!
Beep Beep!!!
You are a blessing and we loved your visit in Arroyo Grande last week. A packed house of folks who love you and you are relevant!!
Thanks for giving us your time, thoughts, jokesand songs.
Unforgettable.
Bonnie & Vern
Fans since the ‘80s
You nailed it. The relevant factor is apart from current trends, since they often act like wild windstorms, always changing. GK's relevant writing is timeless and human,
and when people remember to take control back from their digitized life, they slowly recover...IF the remember to see that they make all the decisions. Thank you!
I love you so much! You remember the world we lived in and where we were going .It’s so nice to have somebody that understands how much it hurts to look at our country today. I just watched Robert Kennedy‘s speech that he gave called “ On the Mindless Menace of Violence”— after the assassination of MLK. We have to do this. We have to bond together. We have to find the tribe and get the tribe reconnected . The devices have driven us apart, but the majority of the people in the country believe as you and I and we have to bring that message of universal love forward. We can’t wait any longer. Thank you as always I love your voice i’ve been listening to you for as long as you’ve been saying things. I hold you in my heart.💜
Kindness is not a political act, nor is demonstrating consideration and helpfulness.
They are choices that can appear as if from heaven, and WHEN we choose to treat ALL people the way we would want others to treat us, THEN the size of the differences we all have will come down in proportion and no longer act as barriers or triggers of hate, fear, division and worry. GK is one of our best reminders of not so much the wonders of our youth, but of the potential that exists in every one of us,
at all times.
I’m 74 years old and this year I began to attend the No Kings rallies. In the past my protests were always done by my vote. After the Petrie and Goode murders I decided I can no longer just sit in front of the tv and shake my head. I pick up my cane and sign and stand in the rain. The response is mostly positive with honking horns but I’ve also been called names I never encountered. I am no longer intimidated.
This past week the bones of 44 soldiers from the Continental Army were interred in the Battlefield grounds of Lake George, NY. They were in their teens and early twenties believed to have marched ( no roads or honking horns) from PA and headed for battle in Quebec. It is believed smallpox ended their lives. People lined up Route 9 from Albany to Lake George to pay their respects and give these young patriots a solemn burial after 250 years in an unmarked mass grave. They were found during a constructional dig .
Our current commander and chief probably would have considered them “suckers and losers “ because he doesn’t get it. What’s in in for them?”
Don’t give up your fight GK regardless of your aging aches and pains. Continue to use your gift of words.
Glad I read this entry by you. So familiar to my 80 year old body. I almost didn’t live to bear witness to this time of meaness in every sense of the word.
My first car was a 1950 Plymouth Custom that cost me $25 in 1971 dollars. I bought it from my uncle, but it had been my grandfather’s car. I still have the brass commemorative medallion from its key ring. It celebrated the Shelly Cooperative Creamery’s 50th anniversary in 1960. Olaf made the 12 mile drive from his farm just north of Climax to Shelly. That would have been a long trip for my grandfather. Since buying the car in the early 50’s he had racked up a total of 40,000 miles.
But today’s podcast wasn’t about classic cars and antique drivers. We are helped through this stage in life by younger people, often people originating in other lands. We rely on them in so many ways and yet all too often some resent their youth or their accents. I don’t get it.
Thank you. Your voice speaking your words comforts me. Thank you.
New York was the first place that T-Rump tried to conquer. His legacy there grows smaller every day.
My own lifelong feelings of inadequacy also stemmed from elementary school P.E. classes too, G.K. I could never climb a rope if my life depended on it, even in my fittest shape. I'm sure that it was mostly mental. One or two humiliations can do that to a boy or to a young man. And forget sports like basketball which require bodily coordination and teamwork, two other skills that I've lacked all my life. I remember once in six grade gym somehow finding the basketball in my hands after a long rebound sent it my way and the coach yelling to me "RUN!" It was a perfect fast break opportunity for me, and I did what the coach said, and running the length of the floor toward our team's basket, I kept thinking to myself, "Oh GAWD! I don't know how to do a layup!" When I got to the basket, I stopped short to just chuck the basketball up in the air in the direction of the hoop. The ball didn't even make it up to the net but went out of bounds behind the basket. Both teams burst into laughter. I almost burst into tears. Our coach just shook his head. The other team hadn't even given chase when I started my fast break. They instinctively knew that there was no need to do so. I'm now six months shy of three score and ten and not in need of physical therapy yet myself, but from your description of it, I'm somewhat looking forward to it as a place where Father Time has made us all equally decrepit and inept. Thanks for the preview. And keep up the good work.
That last sentence gives me hope for mankind Mr Keillor. Maybe now I can fall back to sleep.
Do NOT let it get you down....so many people want to hear your stories and thoughts...and so many people feel like you do. It is a very depressing time...and I have to work hard to be positive....so many of my dear pals love that dumb guy...the greedy egomaniac who is tearing our country in two...but Still believe that sanity can return...don't let me down friend...83 is a good age.
My numerous experiences with PT, over the last decade, have given me an appreciation for the work the therapists do. They kept me upright and ambulatory now that I am within reach of my 90th year. It is amazing that they have motivated and manipulated me to continue moving on.
I bought a 1956 Ford in 1960 and paid $400 for it. I bought my first car in 1946, a 1910 Model T Ford. Paid $125 for it. Just sold in recently after owning it for 79 years. I will be 94 June 21.
I also know those feelings, being in a small southern town where I grew up, Yazoo City, named after the Indians, and meaning "river of death." It is a dying community and this woman will die here too. I still manage much more slowly than before but I paint for therapy instead of going to it. There is only decay here with few advances - one step forward, two steps back all over again.
But it is here that I exist with an old man and a dog to love until I die. That is more than I deserve.
In 1963 I got a 1952 Studebaker from my brother. He paid $125 for it a year earlier. He installed used lavender carpet and it started by depressing the clutch and striking a starter button on the floor. I was a “cool” HS junior and senior before heading off to college in 1964.
My first car was a $300 Chrysler land yacht with enormous back fins. It was equipped with a push button gear shifter that was in a panel on the dash. One day, as I was attempting to change gears, the panel fell backward inside the dashboard, leaving a gaping hole and leaving me with the only option of going forward.
Beginning in the 70's my cars were often seen parked outside social events while I listened to News From Lake Wobegon before joining the party.