The pandemic: one man’s appreciation

I am sitting here watching over and over a video my wife took with her phone in Central Park after the 18-inch snowfall last week, looking through the trees at a snowy hill and listening to the shouts and shrieks of joy from New York children as they slide down the hill on saucers and sleds and cardboard. Shrieks of joy are a rare and beautiful thing and I keep replaying this 60-second drama, recalling my own sliding days back in Minnesota. the steep hill that we slid down and out onto the frozen Mississippi. 

I remember feeling joyful on a toboggan with Corinne. We were 10 years old. She stood, her hands fluttering at her side, and I climbed on behind her and we slid at tremendous speed and I’m sure we shrieked. On the Central Park video, some parents are sliding with their kids, but this was unknown back in my day. Parents stayed indoors; the snow belonged to children. I do note that the New York parents do not shriek. Joy fades with age, though I did once see a gang of old men in Virginia dancing to jigs and hornpipes, and joy shone clear in their faces. I was brought up by evangelicals who forbade dancing on the grounds that it was licentious but here were old men grinning as their feet kept up with fast fiddlers. No shrieks but some whoops and yells. 

The joy at the heart of the lockdown in the pandemic is the daily reassurance that you married the right person. A funny person with her own life who is never at a loss for words and so is good company and who reads the news for me and passes along the good stuff. 

She read me a story in the Times last week about the hellish life in the skinny skinny new skyscrapers of Manhattan. Developers have taken tiny lots and thrown up a 90-story needle and sold apartments for vast amounts to people who want to look down on the rest of us but meanwhile high winds cause the needle to sway dramatically, which often snaps water pipes and causes major leaks and brings elevators to a stop and causes eerie whining sounds. It gave us joy, to think that architects and developers have found a way to earn big profits from torturing oligarchs from authoritarian countries who have way too much money. 

Conversation is precious when you are only two and there is no live theater except what you provide each other. She walks every day in Central Park and comes back to tell me about the women runners discussing relationships as they go past and the homeless woman, a Trumper, who sells gewgaws from a tarp by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the jazz guy at the Belvedere Plaza who said to the other jazz guy, “Dude, you went to Juilliard, what do you mean you forgot where you left your trombone?” 

So I propose that instead of giving silver chafing dishes or classy china for wedding presents, we give the prospective couple a whole month in which they live together alone, as in a pandemic, and see what happens. There will be energetic sex, surely, but if there is a shortage of conversation, an unwillingness to unload the truth, a self-conscious solemnity, and (God forbid) some weird ideas about fraudulent elections and Democrats feasting on the blood of small children, then there’s time to reconsider and save yourself years of anguish. 

I looked at the Central Park sliding hill the other day and it’s bare, all the snow has been sledded off it. The joyful children have gone back to cloistered apartment life and virtual classes and addiction to electronics. The blizzard was a window into the pleasures of the nineteenth century, when, yes, there were deadly epidemics, as now, but at the same time, there was joy, as can be heard in jigs and hornpipes, and more snow, back before Greenland started melting. Back then, the old oligarchs were locked up in stone castles, not jiggled in skinny towers, but they were not immune to tragedy and found that joy cannot be purchased as one pleases. They took the train to Florida for the sun and sat under an umbrella and worried about the next panic. 

No, joyfulness is in short supply, but it’s out there in the snow and on the ice rink. The beach is a false promise. Get a sled and wait for a blizzard. 

Post to the Host

Email comment on the Column from Feb. 3, 2021:
You are the greatest and I will maintain this opinion no matter what! But you should eschew politics … you can’t be interesting or funny blathering with conspiratorial Democrats devoted to “fundamentally changing America.” 
Jim B.

Response:
Jim, I’m surprised you’d write this about “An old Democrat in a chorus in the Orkneys,” which was a pretty funny column and not really about politics at all. I think the word “Democrat” in the title threw you off and lit a fuse, but the column itself wasn’t about “fundamental change” at all. That’s your phrase. I was brought up fundamentalist and I don’t use that word casually. What I said in the column was “I am a Democrat, the Party that seeks to legislate against ignorance and cruelty.” I think that’s a funny line, like legislating against blizzards. The rest of the column is about Midwesternness and an appreciation of ice, especially in a time of global warming, and gratitude for an improved dream life in the lockdown, long realistic dreams about working on a trawler in the North Sea. If there is a conspiracy here, sir, it’s a conspiracy to amuse you and I am sorry I failed. If I were truly “the greatest,” you would’ve laughed. 
GK

P.S. The column also mentioned a dream I had about befriending a basketball player named Kendrick. A reader named Bob wrote to say: “You should look up Frank Kendrick. Basketball player from Indiana who played in Europe and has a French wife. I met him at our local gym here in Indiana a couple of years ago — nice guy — he is 70 now. In your dreams.” A bonus for writing a column: a reader tells me something I didn’t know. 

FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT!

As everyone hunkers down at home and practices good social distancing, Garrison and the Prairie Home regulars and guest performers have been serving up some virtual comfort food and helping to keep us all amused and sane! Beginning with our with classic featured show each week and leading into projects from past guest performers to regulars, there are some features and activities that will keep the mind occupied and keep you entertained:
 

This week on A Prairie Home Companion

This week, we travel all the way back to 2016. We’ll have high-octane bluegrass from Della Mae, up from Nashville by way of Boston; crisp country sounds from local heroes The Cactus Blossoms; and a few duets with the host from Heather Masse and Christine DiGiallonardo. Plus: the Royal Academy of Radio Actors — Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman — will be on hand for scripts and scenes about winter life in Minnesota; music director and pianist Rich Dworsky conducts our rock ’n’ roll radio orchestra (Bernie Dresel on drums, bassist Larry Kohut, Richard Kriehn on mandolin and fiddle, and Chris Siebold, guitar); and we’ll have an update on two weeks’ worth of happenings and News from Lake Wobegon. 

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NEWS FROM PAST GUEST PERFORMERS:
Many performers who appeared on the show over the past 40 years have been entertaining fans with new projects and virtual concerts. We will check in on a few each week and hope that you check them out!

Virtual Mom script:
Last year, the full cast got together virtually to record a brand-new Mom & Duane script! In this episode, Mom calls Duane, who also hears from his dad, his old friend Ricky, his therapist, a telemarketer, and a grocery delivery man who just wants to chat.

This script appears on the Garrison Keillor YouTube channel, where you can find daily episodes of The Writer’s Almanac along with video content from A Prairie Home Companion.

Watch Mom & Duane script beginning at 6 p.m. CT >>>
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Jearlyn & Jevetta Steele
Jearlyn Steele & Jevetta, frequent guests on our show, will be performing three concerts virtually from the Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The themed concerts are something we need in these trying times! The first concert (2/10) is about Healing, Second (2/17) is about Peace, and the third (2/24) is about JOY, y’all know how I feel about Joy. Check out this video from Jearlyn for more info.

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Suzy Bogguss
Suzy Bogguss joined A Prairie Home Companion for one of its summer cross-country tours and appeared as a guest performer regularly on the show either solo or as a featured duet partner. During this pandemic, when artists cannot perform live, Suzy has regularly entertained audiences with her Wine Down Wednesday sessions, featuring wine, music, and conversation. It’s fun and it’s free — simply tune in LIVE at 5 p.m. CT to her Facebook page to watch tonight’s episode LIVE, or watch any of the previous 45 episodes. 

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Sara Watkins
Sara Watkins, who appeared regularly on the show from her first appearance in the early ’90s until our final show at the Hollywood Bowl, has new music! She is a young mother and has now recorded a cross-generational, family-friendly collection of new songs, beginning with Willy Wonka’s “Pure Imagination,” plus homages to her musical career with new tracks from Nickel Creek and I'm With Her.

Watch Sara Watkin's video “Pure Imagination” >>>
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JUST RELEASED —
From the Archives: The News from Lake Wobegon 1982

We have opened the vault one more time to release our sixth digital collection of thirteen stories from January through April 1982. The monologues in this set are especially fitting at this time of year when the Lake Wobegon residents are experiencing frigid cold and record snowfalls that bring a frozen water main and many plumbing problems, a variety of family feuds, and reminiscing about romances past in the Warming House. As spring approaches, the bachelor farmers start hanging out their sheets, Father Emil is too sick to attend Easter services, and Sister Mary Frances makes her first trip to St. Paul. And as a bonus, we hear the first time Garrison recites his beloved poem “Meatballs” and the wonderful Lake Wobegon anthem, “Song of the Exiles.”

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A Note About Production of Our CDs

As sales of vinyl have set records this year with collectors snapping up vinyl versions of their favorite recordings, the streaming business and downloadable books/music have wreaked havoc on sales of CDs. We have been notified by Garrison's CD publisher that they are a downloadable/streaming business and will no longer be supporting CD sales. We have been ordering a lot of stock and taking on inventory in order to facilitate CD sales. But know that going forward, it will be difficult to do so as product goes out of stock on certain titles. We will do our best to locate and acquire CDs and even investigate other duplicating options, but we wanted to give everyone a heads-up. If you love a certain release, get the CD now or you may have to find a way to download it in the future. 

A Prairie Home Companion Scroll Shirt

Over 40 years ago, Garrison wrote a piece about the history of the Grand Ole Opry for The New Yorker magazine. The article triggered an idea for a Midwestern version of the show, featuring music, comedy, sketches, and storytelling … and thus began A Prairie Home Companion. For the 40th anniversary of the show, we took a look at some historical shirt designs that the Grand Ole Opry created, and we borrowed their scroll concept for this handsome shirt featuring the classic microphone logo.            

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