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Comments from the week of 03.03.24

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Yesterday my wife and I were listening to the New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák. We remembered that you had set words to the 2nd movement, words about life in Lake Wobegon, as we recall. What were those words?

Bruce Rockwell

Good of you to remember it, sir. A sweet melody, perhaps a Czech folk tune, perhaps with words of its own, but I wrote these:

Mr. Keillor,

I’ve read most of your books and I’m wondering if you have anything new coming out soon. If so, what is it about? I like your Lake Wobegon novels the best, though the others are good, too.

Please keep writing.

Dwayne Rogers

I have one in the works as we speak, called Lake Wobegon Explicit, and I’m not far into it, about 20,000 words, but it feels good so far. It’s about all the aspects of Lake Wobegon I couldn’t talk about on the radio. A PG-13 book, maybe, but I doubt that anyone under 30 would ever pick it up. GK

GK,

I write this as I have been listening to one of my most treasured CD albums — one with music from the Prairie Home Companion show.
This brings back pleasant memories from when I saw the show in St. Paul in October of 2009. And yes, the experience was so good that just reminiscing brings a smile to my face.
I have listened to the show on radio years before when I and my wife were living in San Francisco.
In 2009 we had returned to Sweden but in the fall there was a conference in Minneapolis that I was attending so I decided to get a ticket. (And later a small pile of CDs and some magnets for the fridge).
Just letting you know that how much I liked it then and like thinking about today.
Åke Olsson

Sweden

I wish I’d known you were there. You could’ve met my wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson, whose grandma Hilda came from Sweden and she has many relatives there, including a Mats Åke who is a world traveler and a cousin Lulu who is a free spirit, flying off hither and yon. There is a stereotype of Swedishness as being rather formal and businesslike and her cousins are a lot of fun. GK

We just purchased tickets to the Greenville, South Carolina, show on the 26th. We will be celebrating our 60th anniversary. And as we celebrated our 50th with you on the cruise starting in Amsterdam, we look forward to celebrating the 60th with you as well.
If I were to count the laughs and good vibrations I have had listening to you, I would need extra memory on my iPhone.
May you be blessed and filled with peace and joy in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
In process,
Roger Raasch

I go to Greenville with trepidations since my Confederate relatives will be in the audience so I need to avoid causing any hard feelings. I’ll do my best but it’s an uphill climb. GK

Please pass this Charles Osgood limerick to GK in the rare case he hasn’t heard it before:

Willie K.

I prefer the one about the young girl from Madras who had a remarkable ass. Not soft, round and pink, as you probably think, but the kind with long ears that eats grass. GK

Garrison,

I am a longtime follower of yours here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and first want to say thanks for continuing to tell so many wonderful stories.

I am a pastor of a small church in Bloomer, Wisconsin, and there is a man in our church who could be your twin brother, both in appearance and when he speaks. Do you have a long-lost sibling in Bloomer? He tells me he is not related to you, but I don’t know that I fully believe him.

Chad

Believe him, Chad. My relatives are all up in Madison. My aunt Ruth married a man named Ray Blumer but that’s as close as we came. GK

Dear Mr. K.,

I have no questions, and we can all be glad I don’t write poetry. I only wanted to mention something I found back in the 1990s when I was researching a paper for my M.S.Ed. at City College. I was scanning the abstracts of scholarly articles, when I noticed one titled The Lake Wobegon Syndrome. Sure enough, someone had examined the scholastic records of many states, counties, and school districts, and found a strong tendency in these self-evaluations to find their students “above average.” (I have since heard, more generally of the Lake Wobegon Effect.) You probably have heard of this already, but just in case ... I myself am above average, but not for writing poems.

Best wishes,

Allen Schill

I am about average or slightly below and, yes, I’ve heard of the Effect. I believe it’s in the Oxford Dictionary, which is quite a leap. It’s taken on a general meaning of “over-estimation of quality,” which I don’t think does it justice. GK

Oh, Garrison, your love letter to Texas duplicates the love letter this (repatriated) Texan has been composing to send to you! We were with you in Austin. We sang with you and laughed with you and clapped along to music played on a bass and had a wonderful time! Please, please do a Christmas show! Come back to Texas! Let me know where you’ll be, and we’ll be there with you! Y’all come back now, darlin’! We need us some Prairie Home!

Beth Gunn

The problem with an evening so good as that one is that it probably can’t be repeated. It was such a great audience and all the cast was uplifted by them. I hope we do a Christmas tour but my days on stage are numbered. I don’t want people to see me dodder or natter or totter or trip on a mic cord and become a physics experiment. Glad you liked the show. GK

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I very much enjoy reading your weekly essays and admit that my personal and political views closely align with yours. I am guessing that most of the people who follow your essays already think the way you do. I wish that there was a way that your ideas could be presented to people with differing viewpoints. Perhaps some would read, think, and change. Probably a naive idea but I can hope.

Thanks,

Tom Grossman

I’m not out to persuade anybody these days. I think it’s hopeless. People are dug in deep and each side is astonished by the other. I have relatives on the other side and we simply don’t speak about it. The Millennials will have to work this out, not me. GK

GK,

Our country is so messed up right now and I certainly don’t need to go into any details. You claim to be a humorist, so could you please write a poem about the country that is sure to make me laugh? I need it, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Please try.

Marlene Staley

I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Give me time. GK

Hi, Garrison.

I have enjoyed your humor and musings over these many years. However, I think you must have been brainwashed (maybe it’s the NYC water or CNBC) to be so obviously blind to the folly of that old fool pretending to be president. Yes Trump is a joke, but so is Biden. Please look closely at what is right before your eyes.

Thanks,

Ed

You missed a good speech Thursday. But if you think the two of them are two of a kind, then you should have your water tested. GK

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