Flying around America, looking at crowds

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The Column: 10.02.23 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

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Flying around America, looking at crowds

The Column: 10.02.23

Garrison Keillor

Oct 4

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I imagine that someday at America’s boarding gates, after the wheelchair passengers are boarded and Those Who Need Extra Time, then active military, there will be other categories of merit to be given precedence, Persons Traumatized By Flight, Persons In Need Of Affirmation, Persons Trapped In Bad Relationships, and why not add Unappreciated Poets and Third-Grade Teachers to the list. And then you let the Fat Cats board for First Class, and then the peons and peasants.

I am a Fat Cat, to tell the truth, and I’m sheepish about it so I walk, eyes averted, down the empty Elitist lane between long lines of the underprivileged, and I come to the TSA agent and am eyeballed and pass through the scanner and off to the gate and if this were Christian Airways the agent would ask, “Have you loved your neighbor as yourself? Have you extended a hand to the fallen? Do you love the Lord with your whole heart?” and of course the answer is No, no, no, and so I’d be seated in 27B next to a talkative Scientologist and denied a screwdriver and not allowed Wi-Fi and my seat wouldn’t recline and I’d be given a crying infant to hold, but I fly Delta so no questions are asked.

I am a privileged white male. I acquired a vocation in eighth grade when my teacher Mr. Anderson showed me a story by A.J. Liebling and I decided I wanted to Lieble. I attended college when tuition was $360 for the school year and now Medicare has paid a bundle to replace my mitral valve and if it hadn’t been done, I’d be dead and not gallivanting around the country doing shows as an octogenarian stand-up as I did last week in California.

My audiences skew older than Taylor Swift’s (and also they’re smaller) but in California for some reason I drew a lot of millennials, which is a tougher crowd. They don’t want to hear jokes about aging. To them, it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. Part of my show is an a cappella sing-along, which old people find very moving, to stand and sing “How Great Thou Art” into “Kumbaya” into “Brown-Eyed Girl” into “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” but the millennials don’t want to sing. It strikes them as juvenile. Plus which, they don’t know the words. Millennials have been flooded with data all their lives, there are gigabyte marks on their foreheads, as a result of which they have no memory. I sing “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty” and they look at me blankly: what is this?

I want to give them a communal experience, standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers and feeling the fellowship based on mutual knowledge of “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” but they refuse. I get it. I used to want to be cool myself. Back in 1970 or so, I saw the Grateful Dead play at a hockey rink in Minnesota and they sang “Brokedown Palace” and I felt euphoric, one of the select, even though I wasn’t smoking, but the Dead are gone and I’m on my way out myself, and now I find myself feeling fellowship with Kentuckians and Indianans, doing shows in reddish cities, and hiking around the parking lot I see plenty of dreadful bumper stickers but during the sing-along it turns out they know “It Is Well With My Soul” and we sing it softly in dim light, four-part harmony, a thousand of us, and I’m sure the baritones include men of authoritarian bent, but still peace is flowing like a river, and we feel transported by it, the unity of souls, at least in this moment. For me, a transformational moment, to be united with people I keenly disagree with, who are pledged to the Orange Lunabomber.

But I cherish those harmonious moments. I had a beautiful crowd in Tennessee who knew the Battle Hymn, even the verse about the circling camps and dews and damps and flaring lamps. I love those people. It’s a privilege to know them. I could’ve become a valet parker and instead I wound up befriending strangers, some of whom would deplore me if they knew me better. What a good life. I have no complaints. I was good and unhappy when I was young but I’m over it. And I do believe that the truth is marching on.

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