Post to the Host

Mr. Keillor,

I hate writing this on my phone as I had a proofed draft on my typewriter — how pretentious of me. Your 2012 Men’s Health piece continues to inspire me to not so much indulge as to live a full life. I read a few of your mystery novels during college and wish you and your health are getting along fine. I am a big fan of your writing; I’m writing to you from Germany as an Army officer. I’d like to continue a tradition of Hemingway and Salter but I’m afraid the trope is played out.

Best Regards,
William Krueger (1LT)

I haven’t thought of my novels as mysteries until now but I take it as a compliment. My health is okay. I’ve just taken an EMG test where they poke you with needles and make your nerves tingle and I survived it without complaint.

GK

Editor’s Note: https://www.menshealth.com/trending-news/a19534589/vice-men/

Hi, Garrison.

My mother (1915–2005) was raised a Southern Baptist in Kentucky and her favorite hymn was “How Great Thou Art.” I am not religious, but I do appreciate church music, and I remember your PHC duet years ago of “How Great Thou Art” with a very young singer who was starring in the musical Annie. I have searched for the audio of that beautiful duet but never found it. Can you help me find that PHC show so I can listen to it? 

Thanks,

Carolyn

Carolyn, I don’t remember that particular HGTA but I’m glad you wrote, it gives me the idea of having the audience at Red Rocks sing it on May 2, maybe with Ellie Dehn of the Metropolitan Opera.

GK

Dear Mr. Keillor,

I thought you would like to know that Larry Holley, Buddy Holly’s oldest brother, has died at the age of 96. I think you had him on your show when you brought PHC to Lubbock.

I am a longtime fan (now 75 years old) and have loved your books and monologues. A particular favorite is “Buddy Holly and the Pharaohs of Rhythm.” I have always wondered how much of that monologue was based on your own life history.

We still love Buddy here in Lubbock and cherish his memory through the Buddy Holly Center and the newly opened, world-class Buddy Holly Hall for the Performing Arts .

I know that you are only doing limited touring these days. I enjoyed both of the shows you did here and bet that you could fill Buddy Holly Hall, if you ever decided to come again.

Cecilia George

That story about my band, the Pharaohs of Rhythm, was all fiction, Cecilia, except for mentioning Buddy. It seems to me I may have told it at the PHC show at the Surf Ballroom in Iowa where Buddy did his last show. I think of him sometimes and about the perils of fame. The young pilot who flew the plane was utterly unqualified to fly by instrument on that snowy night but he was so stunned by his famous passengers that he didn’t dare say no and so he went up, misread his instruments, and killed them all. Buddy had a wonderful life ahead of him and he was cheated of it by his own fame and his urge to get free of the miserable bus and get to Moorhead and have a good night’s sleep. I grieve for him.

GK

Hello!

I’ve been a Writer’s Almanac listener for quite some time. It’s been how I’ve started almost every day for the past 12 years.

Since early on in the pandemic, I’ve traveled around Southern California with my Swiss Alphorn sharing the Gift of Music to our healthcare heroes … some of which I’ve documented here: www.alphornpct.com

I’m currently taking it on the road in a big way and am reaching out to people along the tentative, weather-permitting route that I’d like to meet and thought it might be fun to play for. High on the list are all the hard-working folks behind the scenes of the Writer’s Almanac in gratitude for all that your work has brought to my life over the years.

I plan to be traveling through the Minneapolis/St. Paul area next week (ballpark 14th–17th) and I’d be delighted and honored to swing by the TWA offices and give a brief and highly informal parking lot/sidewalk performance for anyone who could use a moment of fun.

Hope this finds you all well and thanks again for many years of such a wonderful program.

Sincerely,

Mr. Bighorn

A generous offer, sir, and I’m tempted but there is no TWA office, or offices, and the staff has scattered to the winds. TWA is winding up its work in May, thanks to its having been canceled by MPR five years ago. There just isn’t money to produce it any longer.

GK

Mr. GK,

It pains me dearly when you refer to your double-vision condition (GK & Friends, 4/8/22, ad nauseum) — I am assuming from your descriptions that you have serious diplopia, although there may be other diagnostic names. I have such a condition; two distinct images I see without my glasses and the only advantage is without my glasses I see two images of my blessed wife. I have worn eyeglasses since age 5 and have gone through a hundred or more glasses as my eyes changed. Finally got to a point where my optometrist gave up in frustration and referred me to the UC Berkeley Optometry School and have to say it was a godsend in my 70-year slog of spending many hours in an optometrist’s chair. I am told there is no surgical alternative to correcting my condition. Fortunately, corrective lenses with special prisms that make a single image that my eyes are only best at presenting two images to my brain. So stop this public whining about your goddam double vision and get some glasses with the proper prisms. This bullshit of whining about your double vision has gotten really old. There is a mechanical solution to your “problem” — Go see a diplopia-specialist optometrist and get this thing behind us.

Robert Moats 

Didn’t know I was whining, thought I was describing in a lighthearted way, but I’m sorry to cause you so much distress.

GK

If you want to hear “How Great Thou Art” at its very best, check out YouTube, the Vocal Majority’s version. They are multiple-time international barbershop chorus champions from Dallas, Texas.

1. Before you do, remove your shoes. Your socks will be blown off.
2. Have Kleenex handy.

Tim TerMeer

Hi, Mr. K.

I attended many of your shows in Indiana and had the pleasure of meeting you one evening behind Purdue University’s acoustically perfect Elliott Hall of Music.

My maternal grandfather told my mom he only wanted me to learn to do two things as a boy: shoot pool and play the organ. I learned the latter much better.

When I was in sixth grade, my parents switched from Methodist to the Episcopal Church. As I approached eighth grade, our organist retired. The elders asked to promote me, from acolyte to church organist. My music teacher was thrilled. I was not. I said no thanks; I’d be entering high school soon, and don’t have time. My mother said, he will be there every Sunday. Until the day I moved away to college, I was.

For preludes and postludes, I played old popular gospel tunes like “Blessed Assurance” and “In the Garden.” Many older folks came up to me after service, smiles beaming and hearts warmed, saying things like, “I hadn’t thought of that since my grandmother used to sing it to me as a child.” The appreciation given to a performer, taught me to regret my weekend selfishness.

You probably have explained this elsewhere and I missed it, so I apologize — but why did you switch from a longtime Lutheran to the Episcopal Church? 

Fondly,

Tom Haley

Indianapolis, Indiana

I never was a Lutheran, Tom. I grew up Plymouth Brethren and they considered Lutherans loose and unsound. The PBs are a separatist sect that broke away from the Anglicans in the mid-19th century, and I joined the Episcopal Church about thirty years ago. When I talked about Lutherans on PHC, I was really talking more generally about a small-town Midwestern culture that is now rapidly disappearing. Though when I spent last week at the Mayo Clinic, I found it there full-strength, a kindly manner and a love of small talk.

GK

Dear Mr. Keillor, 

I love to read how moved you are by community worship in a world where many are uncomfortable expressing the emotions of faith openly. Chord changes ruin me. May I ask, is there a verse you identify with more? I have my favorites, but I hear my Minnesota roots in this one:

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 MSG

Stay calm; mind your own business; do your own job. You’ve heard all this from us before, but a reminder never hurts. We want you living in a way that will command the respect of outsiders, not lying around sponging off your friends.

Though this version is more contemporary for illustration, I find the verse itself affirming that it’s best to not have an opinion on everything, on demand, even before a thought is developed. It is better to work things out first by hand, then by mouth. Quite freeing. I don’t enjoy writing but I imagine for you, that’s what writing is?

I wish you well this week, with plenty of beauty in sight. Doubled even.

Lisa Langford

Colorado

Formerly of Duluth, MN

P.S. Do you plan to make yourself available for pictures at the Red Rocks event? We share a birthday of August 7, and each year I wish you health. I would love for you to consider this, thank you! And thank you for choosing Colorado. I hope everyone traveling out finds the journey worth it.

Thank you, Lisa. I respect that attitude, especially the part about calmness and minding your own business and doing your job. I shall keep that in mind next week and also out in Colorado. And yes, I’d be happy to stand next to you for a picture. I’ll put my arm around you for no extra charge and if the show was good I may even smile.

GK

GK,

Just read today’s post. A tour of Merwin’s trees! He came to the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference 20 years ago. I signed up for his morning breakout session, 8 a.m. Only about a dozen turned out for the U.S. poet laureate. I’ll never forget him sharing this poem he’d just finished:

In Time

The night the world was going to end
when we heard those explosions not far away
and the loudspeakers telling us
about the vast fires on the backwater
consuming undisclosed remnants
and warning us over and over
to stay indoors and make no signals
you stood at the open window
the light of one candle back in the room
we put on high boots to be ready
for wherever we might have to go
and we got out the oysters and sat
at the small table feeding them
to each other first with the fork
then from our mouths to each other
until there were none and we stood up
and started to dance without music
slowly we danced around and around
in circles and after a while we hummed
when the world was about to end
all those years all those nights ago

—W.S. MERWIN

James Rozzelle

He was a beautiful man, James, and a Conservancy is now managing his 19 acres on Maui with the 4,000 palm trees. A worthy cause.

GK

Hi, Garrison.

The first sentence of your most recent Post terrified me. My first book is about to be published, and I know how unkind critics can be. I live in a small city with a small-town feel, and as the book is a memoir, I feel like I’m about to stand naked in a busy intersection in town. Any advice for a first-timer?

Best,
Pat McC.

Don’t read your reviews, Pat. There’s nothing to be learned from them really and any praise will go to your head and any abuse will stick in your mind for months. Do your work as best you can and then go back and improve it and then shine it up some more. Enjoy the work, don’t sweat the reception.

GK

Greetings, Garrison.

It must have been about 20 years ago I was at a meeting to receive some sort of award for my nonprofit management, and you were there to speak. Neither of us wanted to be there and I observed that you were less able to hide it than me — you appeared just too tired to pull it off. But the sponsoring organization was both wealthy and generous and so we smiled and did what they expected. You did the old recital of Minnesota counties and I pretended elation for having won such an important honor whatever it was.

When I retired, I made two resolutions. I would no longer hurry and I would not do what I did not want to do. My friends now compliment me on how good I am at saying no — well I’m sure they would but they are the ones I am usually turning down.

All this is to say I love to see how free we both are now. For example, you can respond with your true feelings to a contributor to the Post you feel is off base — “If I had addressed her as ‘my dear,’ which I would never have done, you’d have a point, but you don’t.”

Ron Graham

Fergus Falls

I don’t remember that event, Ron, but I take your word for it. I was crazy busy for a long period of time, unable to turn down invites, and I feel guilty for having left my wife to run things while I went out gallivanting around. The pandemic brought us back close together in a bubble and I dearly love her company. I married a funny woman who never lacks for a retort and this helps keep a man on his toes. I’m on a relaxed schedule of doing shows with a few PHC revivals scheduled and it feels like a graceful way of winding up a long lucky career. I got the chance to do PHC through a series of lucky circumstances that don’t exist anymore, I’m afraid. I wish I could do something to give young people the same sort of opportunity but I don’t know how and that’s the truth so I’m not going to worry about it.

GK

Great and substantive story today (4/13) on friendship.

My fav phrase: “You can’t make old friends.”

True that. Although some folks can kick-start that fermentation process from their first enthusiastic, “Howyadooin.”

Thanks for being an old radio friend.

Pete Fasciano

Friendship can be a hard haul at the start, especially between men in the Midwest, a culture that is so opposed to bombast that it prefers silence, and how do you befriend a silent man? Well, it takes time to win his trust so you’ve got to be prepared to do most of the talking for the first two or three years. Maybe more. The danger is that you’ll say something to offend him, in which case he’ll be your enemy but he’ll be polite about it and you’ll never know. But once you win his friendship, it’ll last forever. You may be his best friend and not know it until he dies and he leaves his entire collection of beer bottles and his tackle box and power sander to you.

GK

Are you and Sue Scott still working together? I sure miss the Royal Academy of Radio Actors.

Tim LaFary

I’ll see Sue in Colorado for the show on May 2, along with Tim Russell and Fred Newman, and we’ll do a “Dusty and Lefty” sketch and “Guy Noir” and maybe “Duane and his Mom.”

GK

Hi, Garrison —

Enjoyed your comments about Irv Letofsky, whom I remember so well from my early days at the St. Paul newspapers.

I am trying to figure out how our careers there collided. You mention you started there when you were 20. We are two years apart in age, and I started Oct. 1, 1962, at age 22.

What was the time frame of your PP-D employment?

Eleanor Ostman Aune

We passed like birds in the night, Eleanor. I started in the fall of 1961, mostly. Writing obits and interviewing minor celebs. Walt Streightiff was the city editor. I’ll bet you were in the Women’s section, some other place in the building, but I left in the spring of 1962 when I saw they weren’t going to let me cover real stories. As I recall, there was one woman in the city room, a tall woman named Red Something, on the copy desk. You may remember Don DelFiacco and Nate Bomberg, and of course you remember Don Riley in Sports. It was a good place for a kid but I’m glad I left when I did.

GK