A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

To: Lee Castle
On the fifty-ninth anniversary of your birth, your wife Barbara lovingly wishes you many more healthy, happy years. Happy Birthday, Lee!
—Barbara Castle

To: MereFam Farm
Mom and Dad, the weather down South is great. Dad, your siblings are awaiting you in Florida... Oh, and I asked the cows and they approve of you taking a break! Love you much, hope to see you soon.
—Anna Meredith

To: Edward
Edward, This weeks marks our 6 month "anniversary" which doesn't include the 20+ years we've been living our lives apart from one another. Even though it has been said before, It feels good to be in love with my best friend. Love always, Barbara
—Barbara Nawor Bloemers

To: Chris
He graduated with honors & he was the captain of the varsity hockey team for Lawrence University(years ago)...who is he? The man that I love love love!! I love you too Garrison :)
—Jen Loesel

To: Carol
Carol, we've decided to go green and bought a hybrid car, trading in our SUV. We've done a small thing for the planet. Hope you are proud of your little sister! Love, Jan
—Irene Peterson

To: Dannah Mae Swift
How can I ever tell you how much I love you, I am waiting patiently for you here in Colorado... Get that Masters degree soon so I can buy you that P.O.E.M. shirt!
—Loren Jones

To: Cody
Happy 17th Birthday and have fun this summer in the Dominican Republic, I wish I could go too!
—Zoe Berman

To: Garrison and all the folks connected with the show
I want to thank you for reading my valentines poem to my wife Joyce and for being responsible for a weekly show that is a joy to someone living in a country almost as cold and dark as Lake Wobegon. It is a birthday and christmas present of a show. "Lang may yer lum Reek" as the Scots say. From Robert Pearce in Arbroath, Scotland
—Robert Pearce

To: Rowdy
Getting old ain't so bad...you're always young and handsome to me. Happy 40th birthday!
—Liz Fuerst

To: Dixon Gayer
Happy 91st Birthday to Dixon who combines the suave sophistication of Guy Noir, the healthy skepticism of Lefty and the longevity of The Prairie Home Companion.
—Lorraine Gayer

To: Some poems I thought you might like.
TO PERFECT BLOOM I wish I had never planted this tulip, purple as the urge that brought me to my knees in obeisance to the bulb last fall, its cup now filling this perfect morning, that I had never bent to the needs of this regal hyacinth, a pagoda of perianths whispering sweet breath to the breeze. Whatever made me kneel with trowel in hand, to genuflect so this daffodil could proclaim spring echoing from its yellow bell? I would never have planted this pale narcissus, had I reflected on his sad demeanor, seeking beauty in the gentling flow of waters descending like pilgrims gathering at a holy site bearing gifts of tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, and narcissus, seeking answers to mysteries. OLD BARN The barn behind my brother’s house disappeared, a structure so skewed the door only partly closed, its once-red walls peeling back attempts to paint them. Once used to shelter carriages, my brother kept a canoe painted to look like birch bark there and the residue of a life he no longer enjoyed. I hear robust shouts from men at the barn raising, women preparing the banquet talking softly as I walk across the hard flat floor that remains of where cattle trod, mice escaped the cats’ pursuit, and my brother’s grandchildren played hide and seek under rafters now rotting away at the city dump. Built to feed the hungry and enhance the husbandry of a nation, this slattern among housewives had to be razed, creating a vacancy like a missing tooth. TRANSACTION The path seems to end at the stream or maybe it continues on the other side. I see you in the crossing and offer you the stream. Turning down stream, I find the security of a large boulder after I leap from a smaller one where I teetered momentarily. I give you the rock. There is something shining there: a gold nugget maybe, a silver spoon down deep, but the water covers it and the sun splashes on the surface so all I can see is the sky broken into ripples and clouds churning. I will give you the path, the rock, the stream if you will show me the source. A TOWN NEVER SLEEPS --for Lee, after chemo A town never really sleeps; there’s always some figure under a light over the platform at the station or just walking along under a streetlight, someone drinking coffee in the only restaurant and one serving the coffee making small talk. Light behind curtains marks an insomniac or sleep interrupted. Sometimes on his rounds, a cop responds to a call to settle some difference and restore order, or he just saunters along clicking his night stick on a picket fence. A dog barks, a car passes, the tower clock ticks away the hours as unnoticed as the convalescent moon gliding silently on.
—Laurence W. Thomas

To: Marie Rodeman
Happy Birthday Mom! We miss you so much! Thanks for introducing us to A Prairie Home Companion. We'll think of you whenever we listen to it! We love you!
—Kathy Devine

To: Marge Frick
Happy 80th birthday mom - you're an official octegenarian and we love you lots - from the "sistahs"
—bryn brocklesby