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Comments from the Week of 01.15.23

Mr. Keillor,
Regarding the parent from Minneapolis who is concerned about their son getting an English degree, I’d like to share a few thoughts. I am a retired firefighter and former Fire Chief who is about to turn seventy. I was an English major in college. I went to college thinking I would get a physics degree. Instead, I fell in love with the English language. I have never regretted that decision. I thought your response was too tolerant. Education should be about exploration, discovery, and growth. Too many young people enter college with a master plan and take the shortest path to it, missing so many unexpected opportunities along the way. It is through the arts that our souls are lifted, and we must not lose sight of that.

David Hall
New Hampshire

Thanks for your thoughts. I do think that life was simpler for you and me than it is for young people today and so I was addressing an anxious parent who has some basis for worry. The country has grown enormously since I was 18 and the publishing industry has changed and a great many aspiring writers and artists are now manning the drive-up windows at Burger King. So I suggested the parent have a conversation with the son and try to figure out if he has a true sense of vocation. I found my vocation early; I know of people today who are still struggling into their thirties. I worry about them. GK

Hi, Garrison.

I understand that a full revival show is not easily cost effective in many cases, but would another cruise be viable? We loved being on the cruise to Scotland and Norway with shows almost every night and lots of talks and music by your guest performers and bands. We signed up for the later Caribbean cruise subsequently canceled due to COVID, but I recall it was full within a day after registration opened up and we had to be on the waiting list. I enjoyed your Mt. Tabor show and the livestream Thanksgiving and Christmas shows. I’m glad you appear fully recovered from your surgery and COVID.

Cherry T.

I enjoyed that cruise to Scotland too. My brother the sailor was on that cruise and I remember his excitement when the ship eased into that skinny fjord in Norway with a few feet to spare on either side. The cruises were great fun and the staff and musicians loved them and so did my wife and daughter. As for viability, my colleagues say it’s impossible and I have to accept their judgment; they’re more knowledgeable than I. I love my writing life and the shows I do hither and yon and I love being with my sweetie and so I’m content. If somebody called and said, “There’s a PHC cruise to Norway in June,” I’d be happy but I don’t expect to get the call. GK

Garrison,

A recent comment by Paula T. from San Francisco said what many Trumpanzees are saying since the revelation of classified documents in Joe Biden’s home. They are frantically listing the whataboutisms between the two situations. Really, there is only one difference anyone needs to consider about our ex-president and our current president insofar as their classified document fetish is concerned: one, the orange-colored one, attempted to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States while stealing classified documents; the other one, the old guy, didn’t.

dpd

I’m working on a book about cheerfulness and so I avoid reading the news. People around me read the news and talk about it and I listen and don’t say anything. GK

Can you get GK and the whole PHC crew, with local artists like Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele, back to the Twin Cities? Best of all, to the Fitzgerald, where they performed so many times.

Liz Coville

I’d love to do it but nobody wants to put it on so I do shows elsewhere. In February, we’re in Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky. GK

I thought it was either Governor Ronald Reagan or President R. Reagan that took away all of California’s Mental Hospitals/Institutions. How and who were the specific Democrats that did the “deed”?

Annette M.

In Minnesota, it began with a Democratic governor who was horrified by a hospital in Faribault that housed the severely retarded, and he ordered it closed, and gradually the state adopted “deinstitutionalization,” which meant stuffing the patients into group homes with very little support or supervision. GK

Hi, Garrison.

Your trepidation over the potential failure of your e-tickets to appear when you presented at the venue certainly resonates, probably more so for those of us who are of an age. The first time I went to a concert with an e-ticket (being a firm believer in the maxim “S— happens”), I not only had stored a screen shot of the ticket on my phone, but I also printed out a paper copy as backup!

Pat McC. (aka “Confirmed Luddite”)

It’s better for us Luds if we marry someone with smarts, which I did. I didn’t know when I fell in love with her just how smart she is but she has taken over management in our household and my main responsibility is to put my arms around her and hold her close and also to aim well when I relieve myself. GK

Mr. Keillor was looking for some younger company, so please let him know that I would be delighted to hang out with him. I am a New Yorker — a generation younger at 52 — a somewhat successful novelist (my second novel, One Woman Show, is being published by Simon & Schuster in October), a happily married mother of twin 16-year-old boys, and a someone who worked at the Metropolitan Museum for over 25 years. I believe in beauty and words.

I would happily buy Mr. Keillor his favorite coffee on the Upper West Side. Or better yet, he could come down to the West Village, one of the best small towns in America.

Hopeful,

Chris

That is a generous offer and I will run it past my wife who will probably look up your first novel and read it and give me a review. But I am all in favor and thanks for writing. GK

Dear Garrison,

You have mentioned a few times that when singing hymns in church you tend to weep. I do the same thing. It also happens when I hear patriotic songs. I choke up. My theory is that it goes back to standing in church between my parents at a very young age singing the old hymns. I attended a Brethren church much like you did in your formative years.

I’m 67 now. Is this part of getting older and missing my youth and possibly my parents? Is it part of harkening back to perceived better times? Could it be guilt or unconfessed sin leaking from my eyes? To what do you attribute your weeping in church? Whatever your answer, I am reassured that we share this in common.

Randy Sedgwick

Clermont, FL

I go to an Episcopal church so I don’t think of my parents at all — the stained glass and candles and vestments would’ve put them off entirely. I think we weep for joy, surrounded by other singers, and we feel God’s love for us. When I do a show, I always have the audience sing “America” and it moves them, a cappella singing in a crowd, a rare experience, and if they seem to like it, we sing more. GK

I’m writing to express our appreciation for your past recorded monologues, which are helping to both soothe and succor my 102-year-old mother who recently entered palliative care. Her name is Jean and she was able to live in her own home until several weeks ago. She is a retired nurse, having been an Army combat nurse in France, served as a hospital floor nurse for twenty-two years after the war and finished her career as a director of nursing.
She has accepted her new circumstances with untroubled grace and makes sure that every caregiver in her hospice feels personally appreciated and valued. Each day, she eagerly looks forward to listening to your Lake Wobegon stories, which I’ve found online and, like so many of us, has come to regard the characters you created as neighbors and friends, not in spite of their occasional quirkiness and idiosyncrasies but because of them. She grew up in old west Telluride and, later, Durango, and, again, like so many of us, draws universal parallels between your characters and story lines and the life she knew and experienced in Colorado and, after the war, as a married mother of three in small-town Michigan.
She asked me to send you a note to tell you how much she cherishes and admires your talents so I hope you will accept her sentiments in that spirit. Many thanks to you, sir.
Respectfully,
Rich Bearup

I am speechless, Rich. I just don’t know what to say. I did those monologues to amuse myself, never anticipated they’d have a life beyond Saturday night. I feel guilty for having neglected my aging aunts and uncles because I was busy doing the show and the thought that Jean takes some comfort and pleasure from them is astonishing — thank you for telling me. GK

Hi, GK!

Did you know that Mick Jagger will turn 80 this year and that Paul McCartney will turn 81? Do you think 80 is the new 50?

On the other hand, David Crosby just died at 81, and Jeff Beck just died at 78. Both sad losses.

You’re not afraid to die, are you? You shouldn’t be. Remember, Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may also be.” And He should know.

I think death will be like stepping into a movie theater to watch your all-time favorite movie with your best friend and the largest-sized buttered popcorn. What do you think it will be like?

Love from Maria in DeKalb, Illinois

I wasn’t thinking about death until you brought it up, Maria, and I don’t think I’m going to think about it now, since I’m busy working on a book about cheerfulness. I do hope Mick Jagger keeps dancing and I hope Paul McCartney has more shows in him where he stands in an enormous arena in front of a crowd that knows the words and can’t help but sing along. That was the Beatles’ gift — so much memorable music. GK

Garrison,

I recommend Icebug boots or shoes. They have studs on the bottom, so you don’t fall down and break a knee or get a concussion. REI sells them. They are made in Iceland.
I have tried Yaktrax but Icebugs are better.
Good luck.
Carla from Minnesota

Thanks, Carla. I will mention this to my sweetie and if she agrees with you, I’ll get a pair. But then I might worry, walking in snowless New York, that the studs will catch on the pavement and I’ll fall and concuss myself and you’ll hear about it and feel guilty. I don’t want you to feel bad. Do you see what a predicament I’m in? I think I’ll stay inside today and work on my book. GK

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