58 Comments
User's avatar
Andrea Stoeckel's avatar

THIS is why I stay connected Garrison. Thank you from a pastor who wrote sermons for 40 years

Expand full comment
Lynda Bennett Valladares's avatar

Yes to all. I love to make my husband laugh out loud. It means he’s paying attention. We are often on the same wavelength and that gives me comfort. You’re not my husband Garrison but close. Thanks for giving us all company.

Expand full comment
Martha Glass's avatar

Thank you, thank you for your wonderful words and sentences and paragraphs, and rambling notes which I would separate into paragraphs but you don’t - thank you. My husband, who I know how to get a chuckle out of - there, two prepositions! Yay, me! - and I sat in his car back in the ‘70s outside our favorite vegetarian (not quite vegan) restaurant listening to your wonderful Prarie Home Companion monologues about our hometown, Lake Wobegon. Thank you for bringing back those marvelous, funny, thoughtful memories now that we have to hold our noses and stifle our stomachs when we have to deal with and are scared of McDonald. Pray for us.

Expand full comment
Elizabeth Kaeton's avatar

I know why your wife is quiet and seems to be reading a book. I'm not sure what is to be said in the face of such brilliance, either. Thank you.

Expand full comment
Lawrence Phillips's avatar

Magnificent Garrison. Thanks again. I love it when you teach me something about my life, and in this case, about my beloved wife. Now I know what she is probably thinking when I ask her about the book she is reading and she replies that "it is interesting." I am a scientist, and as such, I take things literally. Sometimes I need help reading between the lines.

And I am also going to take your advice and work on making people laugh. First victim: Lunch today with my semi-hostile 34-year old daughter. Donald Trump has gotten under her skin and she is now pretty ornery.

Expand full comment
Dana's avatar

As well she should be, along with anyone else with a Trump supporter for a close family member. You've had more than long enough to see the damage he and his cult have done and continue doing to this country, and it's way past time you took her side, 100%, no reservations, no more rationalizing, no more false equivalency, no more dumb talk about country vs. city.

Expand full comment
Kate's avatar

I envy writers. My sister and brother-in-law are famous science fiction writers. I envy the ideas that must bounce around in their heads at all times. I envy that ability to make something out of nothing. A blank page into a magical experience for the reader. I envy being able to do what a writer does every day without having to have someone else let you do it. I am an actress and I can't just get up every morning and perform a play all by myself. But I also do not envy writers. Such solitude! So much pressure to have ALL the ideas. Theater is a collaborative, social process which is so much better suited to my personality. I guess we find the path of who we are.

As for laughter, it's my co-star- in-life who makes me laugh every day. I'm a sucker for funny - which is the main reason I have loved you, Garrison, for so many decades. I wore out my cassette tapes of your "Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall" Lake Wobegon stories. I wish I could find those again.

And I am grateful that you don't let up on the Orange Menace. Please continue. All voices are needed.

Expand full comment
Dana's avatar

Great comment from beginning to end. I'm tempted to ask for your autograph and some science fiction book recommendations, but instead I'll just tell you that I recently bought your Lake Wobegon recordings on eBay. The set is called News from Lake Wobegon. In fact, you can buy it directly from Garrison Keillor's website: https://shop.garrisonkeillor.com/products/news-from-lake-wobegon-4-cds

Expand full comment
Kate's avatar

Thank you for this!

As for SF recommendations, my sister is Nancy Kress and my brother-in-law is Jack Skillingstead. I highly recommend Nan's Beggars in Spain trilogy and Jack's Life on the Preservation. But everything they write is pretty great.

Expand full comment
Dana's avatar

Wow! I bought three ebooks by your sister a while back, but I must confess I have not yet read them. One of them is Beggars in Spain, and it's going right to the top of my to-read list. The other two that I have are Safeguard and Fountain of Age. Thank you!

Expand full comment
Kate's avatar

Amazing! Enjoy! But definitely also read Jack's Life on the Preservation. Really excellent.

Expand full comment
Dana's avatar

You'd already convinced me to buy it. Thanks again!

Expand full comment
KittyB's avatar

Thanks, Garrison. Needed this today.

Expand full comment
Pam Cope's avatar

Oh god I just listened to Lake Wobegon Virus and laughed out loud so much! And I was on a plane when I listened to the part with Pastor Liz and had to share it with the flight attendants. I laughed so much I listened to it twice. And it was just as good the second time.

Expand full comment
Elaine Shute's avatar

Laughter is sooo important right now. Husband & I are film buffs. Usually end the day with a movie. I can't tell you how hard it is to find a decent comedy right now. And there are fewer depressing experiences, movie-wise, than sitting down to a film, expecting to laugh, and finding it incredibly UN-funny. It's easy to do bleak. "Yeah, we're all screwed. And here's a movie about that!" 🙄 Much harder to get laughs.

Expand full comment
Dana's avatar

If you haven't seen it, I recommend Seducing Doctor Lewis (2003), a Quebec film about a doctor who is pressured to stay in a remote island village. It's original French title is La Grande séduction. It's been remade in English, but I haven't seen the remake. Also, The Birdcage is always good for a million laughs no matter how many times you've seen it!

Expand full comment
Elaine Shute's avatar

Unfamiliar with that one. Thanks, Dana!

Expand full comment
PoppiRowe's avatar

Citizens United for Liberty and Truth...CULT...the Republican Party...thank you for finally recognizing us...silent man...

Expand full comment
Nichael Cramer's avatar

PDFTT (Please Don’t Feed The Trolls)

Expand full comment
PoppiRowe's avatar

Trolls…great movie.

Expand full comment
Nichael Cramer's avatar

OK, now I’m getting a bit paranoid.

Have you by chance been peeking into our living room?

She sitting in her chair reading, me in mine studying and writing.

(But you’re right. It can be a wonderful life.)

Expand full comment
Ann Ragsdale's avatar

My late husband Carl (7 months gone now), loved companionable silence. He was a avid reader like your lady fair. We were blessed to celebrate an epic love lasting almost 56 years. He wrote me poems, love letters, and little sticky notes spread around the house. Writing today in his study at his desk, his presence is everywhere. He is in the spaces between my breaths. Thanks for today's note. Carl was my Anam Cara. I found him early in life. Lucky me. Glad you and your lady have complimentary skills. Keep going.

Expand full comment
Betty Kane's avatar

I need your writings more today than yesterday. The world needs something joyful to wake up to every day. Thanks a million.

Expand full comment
glen grady's avatar

My wife says I write a lot better than I talk- maybe that is why we sit for hours, less than ten feet apart- enjoying our mutually imposed silents I with my laptop and she with her phone.

Expand full comment
Carolyn Goodart's avatar

I wish I had someone like you next to me in bed! I love your stories!

Expand full comment
Bill's avatar

I hope you read this NYTimes article (attached). At the end of it, Judge Alioto compared a “Ghost Gun” to a western omelet in his dessent🤣🤣🤣 I hope you can use this humorous stupidity in a column or monologue somewhere.

Love your writing. I’m now 82 like you. Years ago, when my kids were young, we had an old fishing trawler for salmon fishing. At night, my sons and I would lay in our bunks and listen to Lake Wobegon on a tape recorder. A special bond we still recall. Thank you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/us/politics/supreme-court-ghost-guns.html

Expand full comment
Elaine Shute's avatar

Bill, although I'm sure you meant "dissent", Alito certainly has "descended" to new levels of sanctimonious blather in his opinions.

Expand full comment
Dana's avatar

If his wife weren't equally idiotic, racist and bigoted in general she would say he has no vergogna.

Expand full comment
Bill's avatar

Yes. Sorry. I just fixed it. Thanks.

Expand full comment