Post to the Host

Garrison,

Being a retired high school English teacher, I was struck (and dismayed) by the post about a woman who had left teaching because her students were “too violent.” Although I had a wonderful 40-year career, things have changed even in the short five years since I left the profession. If you want to figure out what is happening to our kids, watch adults at your local school board meeting.

dpd

Oh dear, DPD, this is the sort of thing I don’t want to hear, how we are cheating our children. I’ve often written about how much I owe to LaVona Person, Lyle Bradley, DeLoyd Hochstetter, Helen Story, Orville Buehler, Charles Faust, and Stan Nelson and other public school teachers — did I mention Fern Moehlenbrock and Estelle Shaver? — and I’d like to think kids today are getting the same chances I got. I sat next to Sandy at dinner the other night who is retired from teaching and had a good career but it was at a private school, quite different. And then you read about the school administrator in Texas who instructed teachers that they should provide students with “alternative” versions of the history of the Holocaust. Meaning what? Eichmann’s memoirs? Mein Kampf?

GK

Dear GK,

Back in the day, my school bus ride was about an hour long in rural Indiana. In those days, the drivers could smoke cigarettes. Most were farmers and the bus driving gig was a good fit for their schedules. The driver on my route had a son who would sit on the floor with his legs around the shifter and his hands gripping the gear shifter knob just above his head. Each time his dad engaged the clutch his kid would shift to the appropriate gear.

I tell this little story because there was a time we did outrageous things with complete innocence. 

Veri Wisehart

Okay, Veri, but as a former heavy smoker, I’m glad that smoking became socially unacceptable and I’m glad that in some states school buses now have seat belts and the little boy would be required to sit in a seat, belted in, not sitting by the gearshift. That is too much privilege for one kid. He is likely to grow up to be a school principal, for the same sense of power. Let him sit back with the other kids and think long thoughts for an hour.

GK

Dear Mr. Keillor,

You nailed it today in your column about needing to get rid of stuff. I have an autographed photo of President Truman and Bess in pristine condition and a five-pound brick lugged home from Tokyo in 1968 when they tore down Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel. (An excellent paper weight!)

This is my first experience writing to a famous person … and it is extra special since you are Norwegian and my Grandmother Hulda came alone on a ship from Sweden in 1904, never to see her family again. She had 12 children in Michigan … and 38 grandchildren. Hurrah for immigrants!

Sincere Best Wishes,

Sharon Roslund

Good luck with the photo and the brick, Sharon. But I cannot tell a lie: I’m not Norwegian, not even Swedish. I married a half-Swede, which was the best I could do, and I am merely Scots-English, a humble lot, not the Scots in plaid kilts with the bagpipes. I hope Hulda enjoyed those 12 children. My mother had six and that’s all she could handle. We were pretty well behaved but every so often she said, “You kids are going to drive me to a nervous breakdown.” My Swedish wife’s mother said, “You kids are going to drive me to drink” and there were only four of them.

GK

I listened to one of your shows, about the Krebsbachs who had a problem with their septic system. It turned out their septic tank was a ’37 Ford. I thought, “That is ridiculous!” No one would use a car for a septic tank! I thought you went way overboard. But I googled it! And sure enough, someone has done this! And it is a Ford! He says it works fine! The question for me is, “Who inspired whom?” Here is the link: https://connachttribune.ie/farmer-comes-clean-on-his-diy-septic-tank-a-buried-cortina/

Best wishes,
Bruce

I heard about the automotive septic tank from an old neighbor who swore it was a true story though now as I think about it, burying a car in a deep pit seems like an awful lot of extra work. My dad dug a septic tank in our backyard around 1947 and it was smaller, more the size of a VW Beetle. He grew up on a farm and so the motto was “Never pay someone to do what you can do for yourself.” He was a self-reliant man, as a matter of pride, and when he got old and sick and needed to be cared for by others, it was confusing to him. I, on the other hand, am happy to have help and always have been. Look at this Post to the Host column: where would I be without interesting letter-writers like you?

GK

Dear Mr. Keillor,

This is Szilvia Ittzés from Budapest, Hungary, a fan of yours from faraway Eastern Europe. My family spent some years in the States (in Chapel Hill, NC), my father did research there, and we listened to your show, and after we came home in 1986 my father made occasional trips to UNC and he brought home one of your books for me. And I’ve been your reader ever since, annually rereading the four books I have from you (HtBH, LWD, WASM, TBoG).

I am — beside being the mother of four — an English teacher in an elementary school in a socioeconomically relatively low neighbourhood. I switched to this school last school year, because I was fed up with the elitism in my previous church school. No Roma children there, but here, in my new school, there are plenty. And what a challenge!

In Hungary we have a hot lunch and then a so-called “cold supper,” and yesterday my son, after having praised my delicious soup (Hungarians are soup eaters, if possible every day) asked with a sweet smile (he is 19) whether “Kílőr bácsi” (meaning Mr. K. pronounced “Keillor bowchee”) has anything to say about soups and it got me thinking and of course I remembered Arlene Bunsen’s soup disaster and Lutheran manna (canned cream of mushroom). I know these four books I have practically by heart. My absolute favourite is the opening part of Clarence Bunsen’s love letter to his wife, Arlene, where he apologizes for not having hurried home as fast as he could have when the kids started throwing up.

I have two favourite contemporary writers, one is you and the other one is Péter Esterházy, a famous Hung. writer. And I have been planning to write to both of you for decades, and FINALLY I finished my letter to Mr. Esterházy with serious plans of handing it over to him somehow (we are a small country) — and then suddenly he died. Oh I felt so sorry for myself, because I was really on the verge of finally letting him know how much I admire his writing. SO I thought I really should speed things up a little bit and I found you on the internet a few weeks ago. It’s wonderful to read some fresh new sentences from you! In fact I am planning to actually BUY a book, which somehow I thought was out of question on this side of the world. The only problem is the shipping, which takes A LOT of time, but what is a couple of weeks after 34 years?!

SO to make a long story short: I send my thanks for your writing from almost 8,000 kilometers from Budapest.

Yours truly: Ittzés (pronounced: Eetzaysh) Szilvia

P.S. 1: We are one of those few nations who use their last names first. (The others are China, Japan, both Koreas, Vietnam, Singapore.) We are Lutherans! Hooray! But Lutheranism is different here, since Protestant churches are an absolute minority in Hungary. This is originally a Catholic country.
P.S. 2: I wrote two books, one about the well-known general truths about being a mother, and the other about the very similar truths about being a teacher. I think you would enjoy reading them but alas, they are in Hungarian!:)
P.S. 3: Me and my family and friends can well relate to your views on the problems in your country. We have a very similar situation over here.

Bye! Szilvia

O my dear Szilvia, I’m so glad you finally wrote to me. I love your writing style, the way you swing easily into a new topic, the long sentences, the asides, the parenthetical remarks, you are a master of indirection, and I plan to imitate you in the future. If you forward me your address, I want to send you some new books of mine, including a memoir, That Time of Year, and I will pay the shipping. Your students are lucky to have such a dedicated teacher of English and if I ever make it to Budapest — my wife wants to go to Prague and Vienna — I intend to look you up and meet your son and hope to sit down to a bowl of your soup. I am a slow talker and I expect you’ll do most of the talking, but that’s okay. Thanks again.

GK

Garrison:

I’m not surprised that you were also at that famous Millers/Red Sox game with the Ted Williams home run. His swing was the smoothest I’ve ever seen. In 2nd place was that of Gloria Kral (later my wife) who was a classmate of yours for 7th and half of 8th grade at Anoka Jr. High. We met when she moved into Mpls., went to the same high school (Edison) and the same church. Our church youth group fielded a softball team to play in the ALC Federation, with several of the churches in small towns. Our youth group was mostly guys and the other teams required that at least two girls had to be on the team and at least two on the field at all times. We had to recruit girls, pronto. I knew Gloria was an excellent athlete and I recruited her for our first practice. I was playing first base and she came to bat and she hit a screaming line drive that I managed to catch. Unfortunately, she had to quit since she already was our church organist at age 16 and couldn’t afford (literally) any sprained fingers. We won the conference anyway, but it would have been much more fun with my girlfriend on the same team.

Thanks for printing my note.

Bob Buntrock, Orono, ME

A romance that begins with a line drive by a girl with a Ted Williams swing. There is a love story here, but if I were to put it in Lake Wobegon, I’d have you leap high and fail to make the catch and she motors around to third with a triple.

GK

Mr. Keillor,

I was reading an online bio of you that says you started Prairie Home Companion back in 1975, but my dad and I started listening to you in 1971 when he was working out at St. John’s too.

Secondly, I recall a song about a wolf, with the refrain something like “he’s singing for me and he’s singing for you.” I think it’s about an old dying woman going out in the winter for her end, and for it to do some good. Do you remember that song?

Thanks for opening creative radio up back in the ’70s — you were a real blessing on cold Stearns County mornings, eating hot oatmeal, getting ready for Catholic school. 

Tom Kunesh

You’re right, Tom. The Saturday PHC started in 1974 but the M–F PHC started in 1969. My son was born in May and St. John’s hired me for their radio station in October, I believe. Glad you and your dad liked it on those cold mornings. I drove to SJU from a house out in the country south of Freeport, the old Hoppe farm, and it was a classical music station and I played all kinds of odd music and plenty of listeners complained bitterly but nobody else wanted to get up at 4 a.m. that winter to do the show so I had job security and by the time spring rolled around, we’d developed a devoted following. I vaguely remember that song and think it was sung by Helen Schneyer or Jean Redpath. If only our music librarian Kathryn Slusher were here, she’d know in an instant and also what key it was in.

GK

Hi,

You might consider inviting my husband to join your lunch group. He is an old guy, retired doc from the hospital you visited and wrote about in NY recently. I am a Minnesotan (a true one from Elbow Lake — not a Minnesotan from a suburb in the Cities) and he is a New Yorker, so we live in Pittsburgh where you feel you are in the Midwest, but it is an easy trek to NYC. Anyway, he is looking for lunch buddies too and he is a great conversationalist, but I have to warn you that he doesn’t allow any whining!

Cheers, 

Barbara

Sounds good to me, Barbara. I’m nominating The Little Owl café down on Bedford Street in the Village not far from Sheridan Square where my C train stops. The food is excellent and when it’s warm we can eat outdoors. But now we need to find a lunch group organizer to coordinate schedules. We’ll get this figured out eventually.

GK

(BTW, my hometown of Anoka is not a suburb of Minneapolis and neither was Brooklyn Park when I lived there — it was all truck farms. I never heard of Elbow Lake. Are you sure that isn’t in Iowa?)

Dear GK,

I am looking for your advice as a writer on getting my recently published book read by a wider audience. Admittedly, my book’s subtitle, “What White People Must Do to Overcome Racism in America,” poses a prescriptive challenge that many readers aren’t eager to address. All the current Caucasian angst around the Black Lives Matter Movement, Critical Race Theory, and White replacement by the “Browning of America” suggests that this book may be doomed to an early extinction. Besides this, most of us like to think we are among the enlightened and the righteous, so nagging social problems are often attributed to the faults of others. My Presbyterian inclinations, however, lead me to believe that confession of sin can be redemptive and healing. My associations with Unitarian Universalists give me hope that a few of us can actually embrace racial and cultural diversity as a good thing for this country. My wife argues that those of us who have been indoctrinated with white superiority ideas need to simply die off before racism will be diminished in some significant way. So, should I send a copy of my book to the Library of Congress or be resigned to literary obscurity?

Lou Snead, Georgetown, Texas

Lou, I was with you right up to when you mentioned “Unitarian Universalists” and you lost me right there. I have UU friends and they all tell me that UU is the whitest spot in Manhattan and they’ve come to accept that Black people are not drawn toward lugubrious hymns on philosophical themes or the writings of R.W. Emerson. White guilt has led us down some bad paths. In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered, you see BLM signs in the front yards of big mansions in white neighborhoods, a sort of homeowner’s insurance. Every arts organization in town has come up with a mission statement announcing its aim to create diversity and inclusivity and promote authentic relationships and defeat colonialism and cultural appropriation and it’s pure window dressing like the BLM signs. George Floyd was a good man in a troubled life who fell into the hands of an angry cop but the outcome of his horrible death — blocks burned, a city shaken, a mass departure of cops, a rise in violent crime — would’ve horrified the man himself. This is an interesting story and someone will write it someday but white guilt is part of the problem. I’ve heard plenty of Black parents say flat out, “White teachers don’t know how to discipline our kids.” It really comes down to basics. I have to tell you honestly, I don’t think I’m going to read your book.

GK

GK:

I am sick and tired of your “Not My Problem” attitude. You’re giving up. You’ve decided to accept the destruction of America that will fall like a load of stones on your children and grandchildren. Do you want them to remember you as a quitter? Shouldn’t you be a good role model and show them that no matter what your age, you can at least make an effort to be part of the solution? Not Your Problem? Give me a break. Someone like you with all of your privilege and resources should know better.

Sue S. 

Sue S., I hope you have a husband or partner and maybe some children to lecture over the breakfast table and bully them into heroic self-sacrifice, but you’re getting nowhere with me because you’ve left out one important thing: what exactly are you doing to save the republic? No, my love, it’s a game for younger people, their game to win or lose, and they have their own ideas about Goals & Methods that aren’t the same as mine and theirs should take precedence. I’ve given up lecturing and am spectating and finding it very interesting. I used to be stuck in the role of a Beloved Radio Host and now I’ve been freed (thank you, Lord!) to be cranky. One thing I liked about your post: you didn’t start it off by saying, “I’ve been a big fan of yours for longer than I care to admit” — I admire that. You got right to the “sick and tired.” A woman after my own heart. “I recommend you take a cold shower. But only if you want to.”

GK

Dear Garrison, 

Reading your column, I was reminded of something I heard on the radio about quicksand scenes in American movies that were very popular from 1906 up until the 1960s but since then, quicksand has been in decline as a movie occurrence. No one knows why. You should consider adding a quicksand scene to your next novel to make it more exciting!

Best, 

Leslie in Albuquerque

We used quicksand once or twice in “Guy Noir, Radio Private Eye” but it isn’t that scary for the simple reason that nobody has experienced it, whereas a close call by a passing bus or electric scooter, a fast train, an angry dog, an electrical short circuit, a high wind blowing a roof off, a lightning bolt, are all scarier. Our sound-effects men did excellent pistol sounds — the hammer release, the cylinder turn — but their quicksand SFX sounded like nasal drip.

GK

Hi, I enjoyed the Keillor Reader book. Have you ever heard an old song called “The Davis Limited” by Jimmie Davis, 1931? It reminds me of what you say about Wobegon. Could you comment? 

Thanks,

Sam

“The Davis Limited” that I’m familiar with is a train song about hoboes and there’s a lot of harmonica and the conductor is talking about the South, whereas Wobegon is up north, a whole different accent.

GK

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I am one of your faithful Republican readers so perhaps you won’t print my letter but nevertheless I have to ask: what do you have against us Republicans? All my friends and most of my family are Republicans, we’re not rich, we’re hard-working Christian people who love this country. What is it about us that makes you so sarcastic?

Francis Okema

I’ll tell you straight out, Francis: it makes me uneasy when a major political party embraces unreality as Republicans have. It used to be a party of fiscal conservatism but abandoned that when it took up supply-side economics in the Reagan era. George W. Bush pursued a war in Iraq that was based on a lie about nuclear weapons and Iraqi ties to 9/11. And now about half of all Republicans believe that their man won the 2020 presidential election, which simply is not true and saying it is true will never make it so. Republicans are in denial about climate change, they are embracing untruths about COVID vaccination. Reality is truth, people crave reality, and when people cling to illusions they wind up in the wrong place. If you put on a party and hundreds of people come and bring cases of booze and the music is loud and soon people are dancing naked on the front law, eventually a couple of cars with flashing blue lights will pull up and introduce some reality to the situation.

We trust journalists to bring reality to us, and no matter how often they fail, we still count on them to deliver objective fact. When you choose propaganda, you’ve made a bad mistake, and when you pass this on to your children, you complicate the error. The January 6 attack on the Capitol was a Republican insurrection and the party needs to take its radical elements and get them under control before they do real damage. Thanks for writing.

GK