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Comments from the week of 02.04.24

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Garrison dear,

I’m older than you (almost 91) and I’m tired of going to doctors for a variety of physical ailments. In the last couple of weeks, I had an infusion to help my osteoporosis, removal of a cancerous spot on my nose, and x-rays to see why I’m experiencing shortness of breath. Sometimes I wonder if I should just skip all those appointments. At my age, will any of those treatments make any difference? I only have a few years left so why should I spend my precious time in clinics where they tell me what’s wrong with me? It’s depressing. What do you think? My children don’t agree with me and force me to get in the car and go.

Gladys Barton

I think some doctors would agree with you, Gladys. At some point, the prolongation of life becomes sort of redundant. If you’re in pain, that’s one thing, but why become a living science experiment? I went to a cardiologist weeks ago for a stress test and it wore me out; I’m just getting over it. I got influenza B and took various horse pills whose effect wasn’t clear to me: it just takes time to recover. Old age isn’t a disease. Anyway, you write a darned good Post, my dear, and so your brain is working on all four cylinders. GK

Garrison,
I truly miss you. I miss hearing you on NPR each week. I miss the laughter and introspection you gave me each week. I miss the comforting sound of your voice and song. What can I say — I simply miss you.
My old cassette player died about a year ago. I had recorded your shows for many years. I shared the cassettes with friends and listened to them while on road trips. The cassettes of your show were my own form of social media sharing, before the internet, and much more personal.
Today I found the well-worn cassette where you once recited your poem Pas de deux. It brought tears to my eyes to remember when I first heard you recite it. It made my heart swell to remember when I first shared you reciting that poem with my lover. We embraced and teared up together while we listened to it over and over again, waxing over your beautiful sonorous voice, sinking into each word.
I just want you to know how much you have touched my life. In so many ways you have made the world a better place.
Thank you.

John Birchak

John, you’re too generous, I was only amusing myself, but I thank you for the generosity. I miss the radio show too. Somebody down in Florida referred to it last week as “the last live radio variety show” and I sure hope that’s not so. Fashions change but I hope some young comedian comes along who will, after people have forgotten me, start up a new version. I think it’ll be a big hit. You just need some soulful singing, music that runs the gamut, spoken stories (not read), and a sense of humor. And sponsors, of course, like catchup and coffee and duct tape. GK

Mr. Keillor,

Can you help me understand your gender’s obsession with football? I refuse to go to Super Bowl parties because I can’t stand the testosterone-filled frenzy. The only good thing about the Super Bowl is that it means the season is over. Baseball is much more civil. Sorry if I’ve offended you with my question.

Tami Jo

I haven’t seen a Super Bowl game since I was in my 40s and I didn’t enjoy it much back then. It sounds like the Chiefs’ win over the 49ers in overtime was a good game but I don’t regret missing it. Go your own way, T.J. GK

GK,

As I’m sure you’re aware, there is a widespread perception that Biden is too old for the Presidency, and I just read about Robert Hur’s report that says he’s “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Do you think there’s any chance of a Plan B for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee? Do you think Biden should step aside because of his age? These are scary times. I’m worried.

Shellie K.

I don’t. GK

Hi, GK!

I enjoyed your sharing that your cousin Elizabeth might call any minute to explain to you the hypostatic union (Jesus being fully human and fully divine).

It was our Blessed Mother’s cousin Elizabeth (pregnant with John the Baptist at the time) who first recognized the hypostatic union at The Visitation when she saw the approach of our Blessed Mother (pregnant with Jesus at the time). Cousin Elizabeth said, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” thus giving us the middle part of the Hail Mary.

The first part of the Hail Mary, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you” was given us by the angel Gabriel at The Annunciation (a few Gospel verses earlier than cousin Elizabeth's appearance).

The last part of the Hail Mary, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” was added by a nice Jesuit named Peter Canisius in around 1495.

Yours in perpetual catechesis,

Maria in DeKalb, Illinois

My cousin has been busy doing good works and has not yet explained the hypostatic union, but at least now I have a word for it. Thank you. GK

Dear Garrison,

I carried a sidearm for work for decades, but most of my shooting over 50 years was punching little holes in tin cans and paper bullseyes and having lots of fun doing it. The AR15 does indeed have very low recoil so has become a favorite of female shooters like the lady you spoke to. But it’s not my choice for hunting because the .223 cartridge is a puny little .22 caliber cartridge that’s been banned for hunting in many states because it lacks sufficient power to kill big game animals. This is not my opinion — it’s ballistics — i.e., mathematics.

As I navigate across the web every day, I’m often interrupted by cartoons of some Queen shooting little people dead one after another, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, dead trolls piling up, and for what? To sell some product. Killing has become a ubiquitous blood sport that kids have grown up with and have normalized. It’s not the guns, Garrison, it’s the inane commercialization of death.

Clay Blasdell

When I moved to New York, I pretty much removed myself from the weapons argument. A pistol in Manhattan, unless in a holster on a cop’s belt, is so rare as to be nonexistent. There are so many people out on the streets that if some wacko with a gun headed for a school, I think he’d be mobbed and held for questioning. I feel safe on a crowded street, just a fact of city life. GK

Dear Garrison,

Like you, I try to spend my days now looking forward but occasionally find myself looking back and, when I do, my mind often snags on 1996. My marriage disintegrating, I took a leave of absence from my teaching job that year to live in a small cottage on an island off the coast of North Carolina. Every morning before walking the beach, I tuned in to The Writer’s Almanacfor your reading of a poem and a page from history. These few minutes fed my mind and spirit in ways I sorely needed and still remember. I loved PHC, too, but it was The Writer’s Almanac that became dear to my heart. So. This is a long overdue thank-you for helping to keep me sane during an insane period in my life.

Jean Cheney
Salt Lake City, Utah

I wish I were still producing TWA but it got kicked off NPR seven years ago and we never found a way to distribute it or pay for it. Thanks for the note. GK

Garrison,
As someone who occasionally misses and now sits, it’s nice to know I’m in good company.
To the octo who’s feeling so bad
About sitting to pee, don’t be sad.
The seat will be down
Now that Urinetown,
And for that your beloved will be glad.
By the way, here’s a shocker that’s true:
She pees in the shower, like you!
Next time she’s in there
Stumble in — “unaware” —
But please, be prepared when you do.
Bruce Rogowski
East Harwich, Massachusetts

Good to meet a fellow limericist. Bravo. Thanks. GK

Dear Garrison,

My New York cousin sent me an email asking if I’d read your post of February 21. That’s the one where you described your urinary adventures in excruciating details that folks could only describe as Too Much Information — TMI!

I responded by saying, yes, I’d certainly read it. I mentioned that I thought you might be running out of material.

My cousin said, no way! “Garrison always comes up with the most profound descriptions of the human condition wherever you find them, even when using the bathroom — whether the toilet or the shower.”

Still, both of us can’t help but wonder if your wife is “pissed” for sharing such intimate family business.

Judy in Illinois

I think she agrees with you, Judy. I think she wishes I’d been less outright, more pianissimo. GK

I’ve been humor bombing myself today, skipping around in your funny stories. I’ve been doing this for three hours now and I should instead be writing a letter of outrage to the California Public Utilities Commission protesting AT&T’s application to end landline service to a huge swath of territory in Sonoma County. No more calls coming from the good ol’ telephone poles. Houses now all infiltrated with cell phone and Wi-Fi rays.

Landlines are a luxury that young people do not recognize. Landlines have been an old-time way to bring families together. In the old days of landlines, anyone in the house would answer a call, and for example, it might be Uncle Bob calling for your mother, and it gave you a chance to talk to him for a few minutes. Now everyone is off in their corners with the privacy of their phone and casual connections are not happening. My friend Jan told me that’s how she got to know her mother-in-law. Her in-law would call for her son and if Jan answered the phone she would end up having a meaningful talk with her. Of course, landlines are crucial in an emergency too, but I digress.

I’ve had an uplifting morning, laughing about your struggle with the flu, and the photo of you covered in sheets or something.
In November, I approached and greeted you and your wife in the Minneapolis airport as we were about to board for San Francisco. I was returning from visiting my daughter in Duluth. I had seen you in the waiting area, and your red socks confirmed to me that you were Garrison. I found out in your stories the next week that you had been in Northern California for a wedding. Your wedding reporting painted a hilarious and familiar picture. The parents of the bride and groom gushing over their offspring as if they’d just received a terrible medical diagnosis was, and still is, really funny. I live in Healdsburg, the epicenter of this.

But I’m from a farming community in Michigan where my cousins usually had their reception in the VFW hall, and my mother’s brothers would have some whiskey, Aunt Trina would also have some and soon she’d be at the piano playing the Beer Barrel Polka and everyone would be singing except my father who was full Swedish from the U.P.

What I wished I would have told you at the airport is that I worked for Charles Schulz at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena in Santa Rosa. I was the Manager of the Warm Puppy Coffee Shop. I had lunch with him many days. He saw something in me that made him put me in this elevated situation. I had no experience with any of it … food-related things, hiring and firing, dealing with his fame, and I also was his dance partner for his ballroom dancing lessons. He would get frustrated with me because he said I wasn’t getting the beat on time and was making his dancing unsatisfactory. I think he liked my Midwestern upbringing. We knew the same hymns, and we both had an Aunt Edith.

I started this off with an intention of telling you how much I love laughing with you and your cast of characters. Now I better get back to the Public Utilities Commission letter.

Sincerely,
Mary Welch

Mary, it was good to meet you. I never realized that lovely aspect of landlines and of course you’re absolutely right. My aunt Elsie called my mother almost every day and if I picked up the phone, I got to talk to her and she became a favorite aunt of mine. And you learn as a kid that when someone asks how you are, you don’t give a one-word answer, you tell a story, which gives them something to respond to, and from this, conversation is made. Ah, well. Whatever we lose in one place, we gain in another. The cellphone lets me take a picture of my hotel room and send it to my wife so she can see the bleakness of my life without her. This is good. GK

Hi, Garrison.

In the best of all possible worlds, someone would start a GoFundMe fund for Flaco and raise enough money to fly him to some nice location in his native habitat so he can find a mate and live free. I do enjoy visiting a zoo, but I wonder what the animals would prefer — longer life in captivity or shorter one in their natural environment. Flaco “chose” not to enter the baited cage, and took his chances in crazy Manhattan, so maybe we should give him a lift to Europe! Anybody have some frequent flyer miles to spare?

Best,
Patricia McCormack

Not a bad idea, Patricia, but before you can put the bird on a plane to Europe, somebody needs to catch him. This is a celebrity eagle-owl and if a would-be rescuer were to harm Flaco, he would be driven out of town, probably sent to Florida or Georgia. It’s risky. A net? An anesthetic dart from a blowgun? Corn kernels doused with Thorazine? The owlologists seem reluctant to try to spring the trap. GK

Garrison,

I read in a recent issue of Minnesota Post that you’ve become an “unperson” in Minnesota since you left the state for New York City. How do you feel about this?

Henry W.

Stillwater

I’m 81 and past a certain age — maybe 70, maybe 74 — we all start to shrink, some more than others. Smarter, cooler, younger people take over and edge us out and we simply have to accept it. I’m still working hard, I am married to my best friend, I’m in pretty good health, and I have friends and family whom I care about, and I mostly feel gratitude. When I unwake in the morning and have a cup of uncoffee and a bowl of uncereal, I feel pretty good. GK

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