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Comments from the week of 09.17.23

Garrison Keillor

Sep 25

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GK,

One of my memories of my one and a half years at Cornell (transfer student, graduated a semester early) was walking back to my dorm in the evening to the sound of a student practicing his (her?) bagpipe. For obvious reasons even their fellow students in the dorm that had many music students in it didn’t much care to hear the bagpipe. I always thought the bagpiper was walking in one of the gorges there.
Melissa Yorks

No matter what is said to the contrary, I believe the instrument was designed to arouse homicidal fevers in men in plaid skirts. It’s sort of like playing an air raid siren. But each to his own, as they say, and when a bagpiper goes deaf I suppose he can learn sign language though it will limit his social circle, especially when it comes to the sight-impaired. GK

Dear GK,
My wife has a gift for gift giving. For years and years, I have admiringly watched her buy or make or cook, then package and gift, just the right thing, at just the right time, for just the right person. For my birthday, she bought two tickets to your show at The Caverns in Pelham last night (September 17). See what I mean?!
How does a man, in this case an 81-year-old man, stand before a thick crowd of hundreds seated inside a middle Tennessee cave and weave a humorous and interesting and worshipful patchwork of stories, anecdotes, poems, limericks, hymns, and most notably, eulogies, for two hours, without so much as a cheat note or a five-minute intermission or latrine break?
After the show, knowing you to be famous, and famously shy, the way you ended the show and exited out back made an impression on us, milling around as you left with all of us as we were leaving. Do Powdermilk Biscuits actually help? You were right in the thick of us, among us, vulnerable to fawning or, being in the South, receiving an invitation to supper. Had we asked, would you have joined us at the nearby Cracker Barrel?
Do you visit cemeteries? You strike me as someone who would. Had you joined us at the Cracker Barrel, we might’ve offered to show you around. Just down the road from Pelham is the University of the South (Episcopal). I bet you know about the Sewanee Review. We would’ve taken you by the University Cemetery where, among others, Allen Tate (1899–1979) and Andrew Lytle (1902–1995) are buried. We might’ve even taken you down to Brinkwood, the old summer home of Will Percy where Walker and Bunt Percy lived for a year after they married in 1946. If your appetite was whetted, we would’ve then driven westward to my wife’s hometown of Smyrna, over to Idler’s Retreat, the former home of Lon and Frances Cheney. That home was the hubbub for the fugitive poets and agrarians a while back. Flannery O’Connor was a guest there when she read A Good Man Is Hard to Find in 1959 at Vanderbilt. It is down the road from where Townes Van Zandt was living when he died on New Year’s Day in 1997. There’s more ...
Maybe you can give us a call next time you are passing through? The Welcome Mat will always be out, sir.
P.S. With the changing of the times, are the women of Lake Wobegon no longer strong, the men no longer good-looking, and the children no longer above average?
Michael Pepper
Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Did I do some limericks at that show? I’ve forgotten. Anyway, I had a wonderful time with that crowd. I wish my Episcopal pals had been there to join in the singing of hymns. I exited first because there’s no backstage at The Cavern, it’s a dead end, and I was feeling a little claustrophobic with that low stone ceiling. If invited to take a tour, I would’ve considered it. Allen Tate was my teacher at the University of Minnesota, a courtly man, and he even said some nice things about a poem I wrote. I love Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy. So I guess I’ll see if I’m invited back. GK

GK,

Re: Waking from wacko dreams ... you write, “And the unprecedented dilemma of a presidential candidate under multiple indictments and his trials possibly delayed until after the election.”
Dems should contribute to the Trump for President fund. He is the least likely candidate to beat Joe because he is most Wacko. The others are too “rational,” and may appeal to swing voters.
On the day after Inauguration, commence the trial.

Jack Fuller

Thanks for the suggestion, sir, and I think I’ll leave it to others to support that fund. I get about 50 political fundraiser emails a day and I am contributing to candidates whose pleas are succinct and get my attention and aren’t whiny and maybe even sound cheerful. Not many measure up. GK

Timing is everything. Thus, that means we will have to miss Garrison’s appearance in Escondido, California, on October 1. It will be the first performance we have missed here in the San Diego area for at least the last 15 years.

Sure miss the fun cruises. We made seven cruises with the PHC family. Family is the reason, of course, that we won’t be in SoCal on Oct. 1. But my wife’s cousin will be there.

Winston & Sharon Wade

Knowing you two won’t be there means I’ll be able to make you characters in Lake Wobegon. You’ll be the only Wades in town and I think I’ll make you Unitarian missionaries and devoted bagpipers. GK

GK,

I am looking forward to seeing you on October 20 here in Newberry, South Carolina, and I work for the Chamber of Commerce. Also, I am a member of Central United Methodist Church and because you have had so many lovely on-target comments about Methodists, we would love to show you the windows in our church. Trust me, you really need to make time to visit our windows. You will be amazed! If you are interested, just let me know.

Liz MacDonald

That’s awfully kind of you, Liz, but I’ve had to postpone the Newberry show and also the Greensboro one due to a surgical procedure scheduled for the 16th, for which the surgeon wants me to remain in New York for a week after. I hope the show will be rescheduled. The procedure is fairly minor so there’s no need for the Methodists to hold a prayer meeting for me in particular. GK

Special thanks for coming to The Caverns near Pelham. The image of a bunch of gray hairs singing hymns in a cave never crossed my mind before. The performance was outstanding!!
Thanks again!
Bob Childress (The guy from Mora)

There were younger people there as well and I believe I saw a woman with green hair –– part green and part purple. GK

GK,

I think there are three survival skills today: typing, driving, and lying. Lying is the most important. People who cannot lie are at the mercy of those who can. It’s also a social skill. My stepmother had a little list of things to say when she went to a concert by someone she knew and didn’t like it, e.g., “Only you could have done it!” [Cf. the man who thanked an author for the gift of a copy of his latest book, saying “I shall lose no time reading it.”]

You’re going to get flak from bagpipers and their fans. You love ’em or you hate ’em. A favorite New Yorker cartoon: full page, shows a shop called Big Al’s Banjo, Bagpipe, and Accordion Palace. In the corner of the window is a sign: “Closed Due to Geneva Convention.” And an old joke: Why do bagpipers walk while they play? To get away from the music.

Elizabeth Block

Toronto, Canada (not a bagpipe fan, though I love the banjo)

I shall lose no time repeating your line about losing no time. GK

GK,

I have had a great career in public education from teacher to superintendent and now I am retired in my twilight years. One big thing the country needs now is, as Aretha Franklin sang, RESPECT. Different views of opinion are healthy, but it is critical that we respect our country, respect each other. I have been doing a lot of reading about our Founding Fathers and our country from the beginning years was very fragile with serious disagreements. However, they disagreed respectfully remembering at the end of the day we all are important no matter our background or beliefs. I will see you again in your upcoming Greensboro show and would love to shake your hand as I feel we are all family.

Joel Ritchie

There were some differences in the country that couldn’t be respected, and some of my colonial ancestors who were royalists were driven to Canada and lost their homes on account of it. And eventually slavery came to be considered obnoxious and immoral and then the denial of the right to vote to women. And racism and sexism in general. And though there are people who consider homosexuality to be contrary to God’s will, they know that this is not looked on with favor by the general public and they should be careful about expressing it. And there is a deep political divide these days that is not easily bridged, as we all know. But I’m happy to shake your hand, of course. GK

Garrison,

As a fellow Episcopalian convert and reasonably sane person (these terms are not mutually exclusive), I have to say I usually agree with most of your commentary. But not always. I find myself in the unfortunate position of having to castigate you for your reference in today’s column to the wrestler’s law school education at “a church school in Columbus” in what seemed to me to be an inappropriately snarky and derogatory manner. The only “church” law school in Columbus is Capital University, and I happen to be a graduate. (I also took and passed the Ohio Bar exam.)

For starters, it was wrong to suggest that any law school associated with a “church” can’t be a good one or that the quality of education there is somehow questionable. Check out Southern Methodist or Notre Dame law schools, for example. I think their ratings are pretty good. But your comment also belittles anyone who went to that one particular “church” law school as somehow undeserving of respect. While that may certainly be appropriate for the wrestling coach guy himself, it doesn’t apply to all graduates from Cap’s law school.

I come from humble roots. If I wanted anything, I had to work for it. I was fortunate that Capital University had a night law school program because the only way I could go to law school was to work during the day, attending class and studying at night and on weekends. For four years! Cap gave me the education that opened career opportunities for me I never would have otherwise had. I won’t bore you with my resume, but I think by most people’s standards, I’ve done pretty well. Among other gigs, before my retirement I was an international tax attorney partner at a global tax firm, responsible for negotiating complex and contentious tax cases with multinational taxpayers and foreign governments.

I think an apology to “church” law school grads is in order, sir!

Steve H.

I’m glad you stand up for your school and glad you’ve had a great career. The Capital U law school, from what I could gather, is a rather small one, and the point I wanted to make was the inappropriateness of Mr. Jordan’s contemptuous treatment of Judge Garland. I don’t think you can compare SMU and Notre Dame to Central U, frankly. But more important is the fact that Jordan never took the bar and never practiced law. And his bullying doesn’t speak well for your alma mater. GK

Hi, Garrison.

I cringe when I hear or see the name Jim Jordan. I confess that somehow, I managed to avoid awareness of this incredibly rude individual prior to the pandemic, but thanks to the necessity of keeping up with developments regarding COVID (I am a retired physician and therefore an advocate for science and a believer that knowledge is power), I soon saw him in action. I particularly loathed watching him attack Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom I consider a class act and a true professional. He makes accusations and then cuts off the accused when they start to speak in response. He is a bully, pure and simple. I immediately change the channel if I so much as hear his name. Thanks for mentioning him in your column — I nearly lost my lunch.

Best,
Pat McC.

Be well. I promise not to mention him again. GK

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