Dear Mr. Keillor,
Being from Wisconsin, my wife and I sometimes drive around Minnesota
looking for Lake Wobegon. How will we know when we're there?
Tom and Elaine
Dear folks, You'll notice lawn statuary
and painted white rocks at the ends of driveways. You'll notice
that people squint at you and don't smile. The conversation dies
momentarily when you walk into a cafe. You're an outsider and
there is nothing you can do to change this. Not even intermarriage.
Question: When do you listen to the same day broadcast? Do you all sit
around in a hotel suite somewhere and listen and make comments? Or do
you listen on your own time on another day?
Denise
Denise, The show is a live show and so we can't
listen to it, we're doing it. If we went to a hotel suite to listen,
we would only hear a recorded announcement saying that the show
was off the air due to the disappearance of the host. I haven't
actually heard the show since the mid-80s. I hope it's improved
since then.
Garrison, Does Guy Noir have voice mail? How are his incoming calls
handled when he's at the 5-spot?
Just curious,
David
David, Mr. Noir's incoming calls have been of
such low quality that he isn't worried about missing a few. People
wanting directions to Minneapolis, guys trying to find their dark
glasses, women suspicious of their husbands, this sort of thing.
The rationale for answering one's phone gets slimmer and slimmer
with each passing year, Noir believes. By the age of 50, a person
requires very little communication with the outside world. You've
heard it all already.
Dear Mr. Keillor, Shall we ever have the pleasure of hearing you sing
"Hello Love" at the beginning of the show again?
Sincerely,
John Hardy
Dear Mr. Hardy, Always good to hear from a folk
legend. I do believe that "Hello, Love" is gone for good but I suppose
that, one of these Saturdays, my mind being what it is, if the Shoe
Band happens to land on the right chord, I'd automatically sing
it. Hope somebody tells me afterward, in case I don't notice.
Dear Garrison,
As I sit here waiting for the Real Audio update to load so that I can
listen to the show I am struck by one thing; your beard or lack of one
I should say. In the summer of 1977 you were at a local community college
on the west side of Bloomington ( my home town) doing an outdoor show.
I remember the white jacket, white pants, and white Panama hat you were
wearing. And the beard. When I saw the picture of you on the P.H.C. web
page it reminded me of something I read in Ken Burns' documentary on the
Civil War. A little girl had written to Abraham Lincoln and suggested
that he should consider growing a beard, to make him more presidential.
Just a thought.
Paul Abbott
Paul, The beard was too much for me to sustain
and I shaved it off and haven't ever revisited it. I quit smoking
about the same time and also gave up watching television. A person
needs occasional major reforms like those, and maybe it's time for
some more. (I am considering the possibilities.) If I were to resume
the beard now, it would have a lot of white in it and this would
give me more dignity and authority than I deserve.
Dear Mr. Keillor,
I was reading in Rochester, Minnesota, newspaper that your name was among
the many suggested for a new elementary school being built in the southeastern
Minnesota city. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of the three finalists selected
by a committee to present to the school board. What do you think? Would
you like your name on a building? If so, what building?
Mike
Dear Mike, The committee did the right thing:
you shouldn't name a school after somebody in the comedy field,
it gives kids the wrong idea. I would not like my name on a building,
actually, not nearly so much as I would like to be sitting in an
outdoor cafe one day drinking a cold latte and reading my paper
and overhear a woman in her mid-twenties say that she listened to
"A Prairie Home Companion" last Saturday and heard something really
funny and then start to laugh, recollecting it. Compared to that,
having my name on a plaque would be a pale pleasure indeed.
Garrison,
I am a big fan and an avid listener of PHC, though it sometimes seems
that I've got everything against me: I'm from Iowa and I'm Catholic, which
brings me to my question. A friend who recently converted to the Lutheran
faith told me that during the process she was taught that Catholics are
evil. While that instance sounds absurd, there seems to be a hostility
between the two faiths, and it seems evident everywhere--even in Lake
Wobegon, where you can tell the Catholics from the Lutherans by the make
of cars they drive. In lieu of the pope, I thought you could shed some
light on this subject.
Seth
Dear Seth, Don't take it personally. Lutherans
are good at disapproval but once they get to know you, they'd probably
make an exception in your case. Whoever told your friend that Catholics
are evil, however, was in a leaky boat, theologically speaking.
God's grace is bestowed freely, the light shines wherever it shines,
and we are not the guardians of the gates. Even some Unitarians
may receive a little grace now and then. At least they say they
do, even the ones who don't believe in God.
Dear Mr. Keillor:
On the evening of the wonderful Lynn Peterson's first APHC performance,
you said you still had issues with Kate MacKenzie's departure. Following
your linguistic lead, I'd therefore like to get the following question
on the table: absent any appearances by the Hopeful Gospel Quartet next
season, at the end of the day, do we Hopeful Gospel fans need to seek
closure?
Roberta
Dear Roberta, Kate found happiness in Oregon with
a guy named Buck. She married him on the seashore, wearing a white
caftan with the pockets full of crystals and with Aquarius in the
second phase of the moon, and they went up into the mountains together
and we haven't heard much since. This offends me as a midwesterner.
I don't approve of people going away and finding happiness. Not
sure I approve of happiness for a gospel singer either, but that's
another issue. The HGQ is on hiatus ---- or is that "in" hiatus?
I'm not sure ---- and we are deliberating whether or not to find
a new Kate, one who we can trust not to fly the coop. Maybe Lynn
Peterson. She's Norwegian and those people tend to stay put.
Dear Garrison,
The cards from the audience that you read at the beginning of the second
half of each show seem to have the same strain of humor in them (the funny
ones, I mean.) So,...I was wondering if they are all actually from the
audience, or if some of them are written by you or your staff.
Peter Cantamessa
Princeton, NJ
Dear Peter, I swear, I have never, nor would I
ever, nor, to the best of my knowledge, would anybody on the staff,
EVER write something and present it as being from the audience.
We simply wouldn't.
Dear Mr. Keillor,
I recently bought a nightclub with my boyfriend. I enjoy it, but I feel
the need to do something more productive with my life than serve people
cocktails. I want to get involved in the local community radio station
and produce a talk show. Do you think it is realistic?
E Bates
Dear Miss Bates, There is a truckload of talk
shows on public radio and it's hard to imagine that we need another
one, but there has never been a public radio show that originated
from a nightclub, so far as I know, so maybe there's a niche to
fill. A talk show with guests who have just been served cocktails
would be interesting to many people, I'm sure.
Dear Garrison,
Did you have much trouble convincing MPR to try your first live radio
show? How long was it before it became so popular that you could give
up the early morning show?
Mary Garrett
Dear Mary, I was fortunate to start PHC back when
Minnesota Public Radio was a tiny organization, so there was no
intricate web of committees and vice-presidents assigned to catch
people with ideas and eat them. A person simply walked into Bill
Kling's office and announced, "I'd like to do a two-hour show about
stamp collecting," and he said yes. Or he said no. On Tuesdays and
Thursdays he said no, otherwise it was yes. The show started out
as the Philatelists Home Companion and we would do songs and stories
from nations with interesting new first issues and then gradually
we drifted from that high ground and became the light frothy entertainment
show of today. It never did become popular, so I still do the early
morning show, but it's even earlier, so you probably don't hear
it. It's 4 a.m. and mostly I do livestock reports and talk with
4-Hers about their projects.
While I was riding my bike through a small Delaware town the other day,
the noon whistle went off loudly enough to wake the dead. You never to
my knowledge have mentioned a noon whistle in Lake Wobegon. Don't they
have one? If they don't, how do they summon the volunteer firefighters?
Or do they all have pagers now?
Charlie,
Newark, Delaware
Charlie, There's a noon whistle in Lake Wobegon
and it's always a few minutes late. Bud sets it off at the fire
barn. It's the same whistle that summons the fire fighters. Somehow
we've never had a fire at noon. I don't know what would happen if
we did. I suppose the whole town would burn down and I'd have to
find another job.
Dear Mr. Keillor,
I listen to your show in our tractor shop regularly, and I was wondering,
do you have any tractor mechanics in Lake Wobegon? I was also wondering,
what the favorite tractor brand might be? Down here in Cullen, KY the
Catholics like John Deere, the Baptists like Internationals, the Presbyterians
like Allis-Chalmers, and the Methodists like Fords. The Lutherans like
anything old and simple, and not too flashy.
Thanks,
Mikey Cowan.
Dear Mikey, Thanks for the guide to tractors and
faith. Up here the Deere is pretty popular and the Internationals,
and a few of the Norwegian bachelor farmers are still running their
old Fords and Minneapolis Molines. A few years ago a number of guys
got tractors with enclosed cabs and this set off a big demand ---
a cab is just so darn pleasant and civilized --- and though some
of the more puritanical resist it, it's the wave of the future.
Dear Garrison,
You've stated that you aren't very well read, yet you find some of the
most beautiful poetry and literature for your program from truly obscure
sources. Are you better read now, or well read of an obscure set of references?
Damon
Dear Damon, I am ashamed of how little I read.
I can't explain it. An old English major should keep abreast of
fiction and poetry and I don't and seem to fall farther and farther
behind. Am rereading some of John Cheever now (Bullet Park and The
Wapshot Scandal) and am alarmed at how much of him I've forgotten.
What a beautiful writer. Maybe the idea of keeping abreast of current
lit is foolish ---- maybe the point is simply to keep some beautiful
things in front of you and in that case, I do. The Writers Almanac
certainly keeps me browsing on the poetry shelf, though I'm not
reading so much as shopping, looking for the right stuff to read
on the radio. 
