Cambridge Forum; WGBH Forum Network; Garrison Keillor: Christmas Blizzard

I think that means it's time to start. So good evening and welcome to Cambridge forum tonight. I'm paths are the director of the forum and I am delighted to welcome you all here for this very special program with yours and Keillor before I began living to take care of the housekeeping details. Some of you are very familiar with them incident. You might find them new. So I'll just go over all of the rules. First Cambridge forum has been presenting these programs in Harvard Square for 43 years. We've been there is information at the table in the foyer where you came in about the forum and a list on which you can sign up with your email or snail mail address if you want information about our future programs we promise not to send you too many e-mails and definitely not too many letters in your mailbox. There's also information there about the friends of Cambridge forum our support organization. We have been able to present these programs for forty

three years thanks to our friends and some of you are already friends. All of you are potential friends so this is a church in there is a basket on the table on the way out and you know what baskets are for in churches. We do welcome your donations they support our programs. I know you all got a ticket tonight so in fact. You are all supporting our program so thank you all very much. You should give yourselves a hand. Now as you know Cambridge forum is a participatory program in you will all have a chance to ask questions of Mr. Keillor after his opening remarks. And our programs are recorded in then edited and produced his half hour radio broadcasts that go out in the National

Public Radio Network. Tonight's program is also being videotaped by WGBH and will be available on the forum network as a streaming webcast on demand and has a downloadable podcast so you can actually jog with Garrison Keillor if you want. Because our programs are recorded for future broadcast. When you ask a question we ask that you come forward here into the mike at the head of the center aisle. That way your questioning your voice is recorded as well as the answer in Mr. Keillor's voice. So there is one thing we don't want to record and I know you all know what that is already but I'll say it anyway. That is the ringing of your cell phone or other electronic device. So while you're turning those off I'm going to introduce Heather again the marketing manager at Harvard bookstore who will tell you about the logistics of the book signing and then we'll start the program.

Hi everyone I'm here with Harvard bookstore and I'm pleased to be here with you all tonight and wish Mr. Keeler as some of you may know Mr. Keeler is the owner of common good books in St. Paul Minnesota. And so it's a pleasure to be here and support another independent bookseller. So I'd like to quickly go over the book signing portion of the evening that will follow the talk tonight at the close of the program going to ask the folks who wish to get a book signed tonight will line up down this aisle to my right your left. If folks in the center aisle are off to the side aisle if you could head back to join that line that would be fantastic. At the top of the line are going to find four different books I'm sorry three books one audio book for Mr. Keillor. You can get the book that he'll be talking about tonight Christmas blizzard. We also have that available in the audio version. We have pilgrims which is the latest in the Lake Woebegone series. And we also have 77 love sonnets available. You can find all those at the top of the line. And of course you'll have my personal thanks for buying your books from Harvard bookstore your participation supports not only the existence of an independent bookstore but

also goes back to support Cambridge for him. One of our great partners I'll turn things back over to that turkey. Thank you. So welcome to Cambridge for I'm with Garrison Keillor. Talking about a Christmas blizzard. I'm Pat's or the director of the forum. Piercing healers known to millions as the host and writer of Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion and the writers all men act. He's written a score of books most recently 77 love sonnets and the novella a Christmas blizzard. Here now is America's favorite storyteller the Faulkner of Lake Wobegon and the town's favorite son Garrison Keillor. Thank you Tony.

This is a prayer for Unitarians. Written by me. An old fundamentalist Episcopalian. Here I am oh the Lord in here is my prayer. Please. Be there. Dog wanna ask Touma such miracles and so much just whisper in the plea. To be the one eyed Daher like other food to catch Dalt water fire and cure a whole. Slew not on my knees asking for world peace we. Or that the polar icecap freeze and save the polar bear or even the poor be fair.

Or angels hover over my bed. But I would sure be Piers if I should have been an 80 year. PLEA. Exists only. Move. I'm a radio. Been for 35 years doing an all variety show based on some I used to hear when I was your age long who grew critics pointed out my debts to Bob and Roy in favor of the gear. But alcoholism and cigarettes swept those critics out to sea. And to 20 year olds who were born too late to hear the great Fred Allen. I am the inventor of the form circling the airwaves law like Magellan

o thief who escapes and is not home. May yet be honored but no war war war war war war. I've been writing sonnets lately and that's what these are. Because I'm an English major and if I don't write sonnets then who will or. The Buick of the sanity is to teach us that sometimes though we think we have a great deal to be 14 lines of awe on big pentameter is in love. Whoa whoa whoa. Whew. Margaret was the smartest girl in the 11th grade.

Tall with dark hair tied up in a tight French braid. She was the only girl I knew who read Alberg moon. And for that very reason I do dude. I stood behind her in choir a lonely baritone but when I smelled her exotic French cologne and felt the existential hear turn of her body I became Luciano Pavarotti we. Enquire was where we met the mysterious mugger or the woman who would do good. Is the choir sang praises to the lower to the back of Margaret's head. Many many thing.

That could never be so. Dude war war will war there's a nice acoustic and here war. Oh a person could get used to this move here by the enormous swimming pool of the hotel Biltmore are 26 young dark skinned women lost in tiny bikinis like mermaids on the shore and dog bone for it's the just say alone bar looking for you know LAPD to tell the tale how that whole Trojan War just gave me the willies. The pointlessness of it so are these sets. Having paid off homers and left to kill the US in his turn and and cause of favorable

women and came to the Biltmore to re compute my route and found 26 young dark skinned women their breasts display it like fresh rule of thumb put no thought. They all only want to tell you my dear lover's story to. You. So good to be here or at at first church and thank you so much for coming and thank you for bringing your camera with you it's. A great courtesy.

I'm not really going to talk about my book a Christmas blizzard because it's too short. And if I were to get into it then. You know it just it would just take us forever. It's a complicated book. And and it's and it's a little bit beyond me I wrote the book. But I have not read it yet and it was. All I'll say about it is that we had a blizzard in Minnesota this last weekend. And our our children were pleading with us for a snow day and or failing that that we should give them a ride to school chauffeur them to school as if they were the children of wealthy Hollywood actors. And. And we said no we're not going to deny you the experience of walking to school through heavy snow and blinding and snow blowing

sideways. We would be remiss as parents if we denied you a little bit or a little bit of hardship in your in your childhood this is what stories are about. And we know this every year at Christmas because we all strive to achieve a of a perfection of Christmas and of decor and of food and to find the perfect gift for each and every person regardless of whether our feelings for them are perfect or not. And. And yet we know perfectly well that that the most memorable and beloved Christmases are those when something has gone seriously wrong. And these are the ones that you remember and cherish over the years I once spent the holidays in troublous Norway which is above the Arctic Circle. You go up there in in hopes of seeing the northern lights. This is

what draws you. You believe that you're going to Ceaser green and yellow and orange and red lights dancing on the horizon Well you're not going to. You're going to be in a in a in a in a small dim place where the sun comes up around 11 in the morning and you never see it because it's all cloudy and overcast and rain is pouring down and it sat somewhere around 2:30 and the food is just wretched It's just horrible. It's mostly codfish and. And ever so often you're treated to lutefisk which is which is a sort of a gelatinous dish which reminds some people of congealed flam. I had the flu when I was there in Tromso. And so that all sharpened the experience for me.

I went there with my wife and brother and sister and their wives and and a couple of friends and I and we walked around in the rain and we and we ice fish for a while. And it was and it was just the worst vacation you ever run and and it and it and it really brought us together in an amazing way and we've we've talked about it ever since. And and every year I feel fresh gratitude that that I am in America and I'm not in Tromso Norway. This. This is a nuff. All you need to have a good time. Well here I am in in Ralph's church and I should I should say something to the ghost of Ralph. I suppose he must have preached here probably stood up here I doubt that they had this carpeting when he was here. In the 1830s and 40s. Ralph was a great

man he was a great citizen of Concord and he did a lot for him. Henry David Thoreau who might have been pretty hopeless otherwise. And he was probably the first American to make a living riding around this country and giving lectures and and doing a kind of stand up in his case he had a lectern but he was he was he was the antecedent of a whole race of of lectures and high minded talkers in America he was the one who paved the way for them. He did leave us with a lot of disastrous ideas. And and we should not let him off easily just because he's been dead all these years. When he said that. To be great is to be misunderstood. He he opened the door for a lot of. Really difficult.

People. To imagine that they were geniuses. A lot of people who were just disagreeable and hard to get along with it took from him the idea that they had really had something. He said that nothing great is accomplished without enthusiasm which unable to a lot of terrifically enthusiastic people who were mostly enthusiastic about themselves. To to go out and and imagine that they should bestow themselves more generously on the world and all sorts of people who might've been wonderful carpenters or or wonderful parking lot attendants. Were encouraged to become lousy writers. And and and do badly in other professions. He did say that the that every hero becomes a bore at last and I

assume he was talking about himself. And. And this is something that is. That is. That's worth remembering but all of his all of his or all of his urgings of people to to go your own way and follow your own drummer. And I don't follow the path. Make your own path and leave a trail encouraged all the wrong people want to go do all the wrong things. And we should hold him responsible for this. He believed in individual ism. I don't really I come from the Midwest and. We've seen what individual ism leads to. I believe in. I believe in groups of like minded people gathering under one beautiful roof and. I think as long as we're here in this gorgeous place we should sing a song. This was a this meeting house was a was a headquarters for

fervent abolitionists back in Emerson's day and I thought we could try singing a song that you don't know but you soon Well it's an old African-American spiritual from first first traced back to the 1830s and and where it comes from. Nobody's quite sure but it's called my father. How long it's a very repetitive song and and it would be really beautiful if you if you sang this you might want to just lift your heads a little just lift your head a little bit so that your sound mingles up here under this under this great roof and it's approximately in this key. Right. We just make a chord here we'll be off on the move.

Now we got harmony say that's how easy it is. You bases with the other 0 mm. Was there a little you fall over. Oh whoa low mm. This poor saws for you. And dude war wound. Paul he would war would be. The he would warn the she logged this poor who she and her so for heave to try that much for

her. How low. Will the other. How long will this poor she in her for he. Dude war won't be. Oh I hear the war will be. The. Dude war won't. Be this poor. She's in there for here if any of you Unitarians don't like the word Senator. You can sing the word

person rule. We will was the really rude. We know who are the really rude. We will walk the reward too low the new judge rule. Indeed war will be. The law. Here. Whoa. We did war here Laura. This poor cylinder for a beautiful we need for more bases.

We will law all. Believe. Or believe. We will. Or here. Creek where the Lord will test the audience who've had. Their war will. Be lawful here. War will be. Peeled off. Did war hear this who are saying that are so are heavey.

We will law. Is war. We are law be as was. We will law. As was done here in the new. Just a rule. Who. Did war will be we low. Whoa be me in the Oval. There was a lot of. This is Hoover and or. So for he. I just saw him from the 1830s when this church was a church was

erected. Not sure they're saying it here but. It would have loved it if they had known it. Well I was in New York. All this last week. We did our show there from the town hall. And I like to hang out in New York where people like myself are in a definite minority. And and in fact everybody is in a minority in. In New York City I'm not sure there's any majority that IC that exists there anymore. It's a place which is on like on the town I grew up in in that people do express themselves in New York. And even even to people whom they do not know. And and this and this happens all the time. I was walking to the Town Hall to do my show on

my way. The host of a national radio show was walking along in my black tuxedo and. And I walked stepped off the curb and in front of an enormous gray SUV. And walked around the front Avent which so. Irritated him that he rolled down his window and he yelled at me and he yelled the name of a of a of a common bodily orifice and. Which each of us has I hope we have and. And. I. I didn't understand what the what the what the problem was he said use the sidewalk. Well I pointed out to him. That has behemoths was I was straddling was a

wart the sidewalk. And and so I had walked out in front of his car and he said. What's wrong with the waiting. Well Forty third street there between six and seven was. Packed with cars it's all jammed and I waiting for the light to turn down at the end of the blogs so I was hardly keeping him from the swift completion of his appointed rounds. But I didn't see any reason to point this out to him. I just wished him a Merry Christmas. Which really tech to ma sœur that was the salt in the won't. And and he told me to go molest myself. Somehow I found this. I found this cheering in a way the rib.

That that the people have the freedom of speech in in New York I did not grow up with the freedom of speech. Maybe our house was kept to call wall or something but I just I never I still don't feel the the right to say exactly what I think when you're in New York you're among You're among people who do. I was I was walking up Central Park West and a woman in a long black coat and and black boots came came walking towards me in. And she said. You have done terrible terrible things and I am tired of it and I don't ever want to have anything to do with you again. And I hope you understand that. And then I saw the cell phone which was in her hand the Iraqis. But she could have been talking to me. I mean. It could have applied to me I

felt I felt as if I had gotten off easy that timing. And she should have made a general announcement all of the man whom she was she who she came across that there did this sort of free floating anger is is is one of the lovely features of of New York City. But Christmas comes along and one of the beauties of Christmas depending no matter how you how you how you view Christmas or how you what you do with it. Is is that it does it does tend to spread some sort of some sort of light heartedness to it to tamp down the anger and that is that is ever around is always is in the world people who have not received their due. People who have not received what they feel is coming to them. And people who have been thwarted and have been

frustrated and drivers of enormous vehicles who have pedestrians walking in front of them. Feel feel and you know I was an enormous anger the verges on on violence. And Christmas comes along this peaceful time I realize that this is a joyful time which is depressing to many many people. And this is a time when when painful memories are are dredged up and when people feel inadequate and when people feel the pain of old of old family troubles and arguments and a strange woman spot still there is a light heartedness about Christmas which is simple at the very heart of it and which says all of the right thing is that God came to

earth in human form amongst the very poorest of the poor and was first worshiped by rough people on a dark night and in a little 2 horse town and Judea and. And that out of all of this comes comes the spirit of charity and the spirit of love and forbearance that that we all that we all count on. It's a beautiful holiday back where I come from the enormous Douglas fir stands on main street in front of the statue of the unknown Norwegian. And. In Lake Woebegone in front of the sun's a canoe temple where the lutefisk Dinner is served every every. Every Christmas when we eat the food of poverty and food that our ancestors were forced to eat when they came over from Norway after the great herring famine of 1870.

Forced to eat dried cotton which tasted of soap. All of the shops are there in the SCO goods five and dime in the side tracked the app where people go in and medicate themselves for. It. For reasons that will will never ever comprehend. Life is not long enough to understand all that goes on on the street and and the dissonance between the Catholics of Our Lady of Perpetual responsibility and and the Lutherans in their modest church people who use modesty and and deference as a weapon. Against. Against others a dark a dark self-effacing people with with with much to a face. These are the people that I. These are the people I come from people who were married in the church and after their marriage ceremony and after the dinner the

couple stayed behind to help clean up. This is a whole other breed of people. People who are people who play joyful music very very quietly people who under wraps their Christmas gifts very carefully and fold up the paper so that they can save it and throw it away in June and July. Those are the people I. Those are the people I come from. Well I had this. Beautiful experience I mean of trumps who was a great experience then this was then this was even. Even better I had this experience back in back in. On Labor Day Labor Day Monday which time I go is an experience that opens your eyes to. A great deal around you I mean I had the Cerebro vascular incident. When you're in the atrium and one of your Atria

shoots propulsive Lee a blood clot up. Up above and it goes up into your brain where the subjective mood is stored and. And all sorts of words that you don't use so much but you're planning to someday. Words like propitious and. And indefatigable. And it up where you keep low snatches of songs and little bits of it. Poetry $0.5 we weep to see you haste away so soon and love is not love which alters when it alteration finds Arbenz with a remover to remove you keep all this stuff up here in your in your head and this blood clot and is it is capable of of tremendous damage. I was over in Minneapolis when this occurred. I was at my massage

therapist Angelica's who I go to because she doesn't play that flute music. And. I was saying something very funny to her after she told me how happy she had been since she gave her life to the Lord and she was doing my glutes at the time and. This just seem to me to be so interesting. And I was about to say something then it all came out of my mouth sort of slurred as if I'd had a big dose of novacaine and. She asked if something was wrong and I said as I've been brought up to say I'm just fine. And out the door I went and got into my car and I felt sort of off balance and and my head was sort of expanding. It was like the sort of mystical experience but one that you wouldn't actually want to have and.

I drove very carefully 15 miles over to the hospital and parked in no parking and. And walked into the E.R. and the waiting room and here is a long line of people with very little petty complaints. I'm skin irritations and you know muscle tenseness and and whatnot headaches. Who knows. And. But I took my place in line because I was brought up to stand in line. And I was brought up to be deferential. We will use this to demonstrate moral superiority and. And I was behind a woman who had a moan that she wanted somebody to look at. I looked at it I didn't see anything that interesting about it but. She had this mole and it was on her

mind arj was on her neck. And then I walked up and I said pretty clearly I said I have had a stroke. And and. And the woman with the mon said Oh my God oh I'm so sorry. You should've. You should have said something she said. Oh my God she just terribly flustered which was the reaction I was looking for. And so they piled me on a gurney and took me back into this little curtain alcove and a very nice young Chinese woman took down my I wrote down my admission form I could see what she was writing on this clipboard she was she was writing very nice 67 year old man awake alert. Appropriate. Thank you. The I'M. A lifetime go all from a and.

Appropriateness and. And then she wrote showing flat af Act which was what I was brought up to do I mean I wanted her. As the Midwest we considered a modest you know we didn't know we were supposed to make a big show of ourselves and then take you up and put you through the MRI machine which is sort of the source of Flash Gordon. Cyclotron and you and you go in there for 45 minutes away in banking. And as they as they take pictures of your of your skull as it turned out. The blood clot had. Had hit a part of my brain where not a lot was going on. For it. Which which I may have more of than most people. In. What way what way what we call them. The North Dakota of the brain.

And. I suppose it's for reserve capacity. But when this happens to you. And then when you when you walk up and down the hall attached to your eye the tower and with your little electrodes on and and wearing your two flowery cotton hospital gowns one for and one after. And you walk along the halls of the stroke ward and you look through into the rooms which you shouldn't do of course but you do anyway. And you see all of these old people your age who are. In their collapsed and who are going to have to they're going to have to go back to the fourth grade again. And go through all of that again. Then you feel this new lease on OnLive. You don't feel scared. You should have felt

scared. Two hours ago. But you but you didn't know enough to be scared. You know you don't feel scared you feel enormously lucky and enormously blessed and then you think maybe you ought to try to turn your life toward some purpose you know and accomplish something and do something worthwhile other than just mess around it. It's getting late in the day for that. When you're. Even though you're a very nice 67 year old man and and you are and you are appropriate. We depend on these on these interventions these these enormous strokes of good luck. I first was aware of this when I was your age I just graduated from the University of Minnesota and there was a

war going on back in the late 1960s and so I was in a I was in a bad situation. First was an English major and I had nowhere to go with that to. Be the price that people were willing to pay for sonnets was very low. And I was engaged to be married to a young woman whom I was starting to figure out. I was not in love with. I was in love with her cousin. And I was going to marry her as a way of getting into the family through another door. I've gotten a number of letters from my draft board and the most recent one ordered me to report for induction to the U.S. Army a specific

day and time having already passed the physical. I sat down and I wrote them a long letter single spaced both pages both two sides of one page about why I didn't approve of this war and what was so I would not go. Sort of a sort of a heroic and deeply dumb thing to do. But they haven't asked for me to. Talk about this. And but I volunteered this and I mailed it off. And so I figured that I had nothing to lose. I was. Either going to marry somebody I didn't love. Or go to prison or both. And. So I should i should take a flyer on something that I really wanted. I've been reading The New Yorker magazine since I was a child. And and so I got into my 1956 Ford two door

sedan and I drove to New York. Before there was an interstate system. You had to take a long time to get around Chicago and and get through Indiana and Ohio had some super highways and then you caught the Pennsylvania Turnpike a beautiful old road and took you into New Jersey and then you made your way towards the bright lights I came in the Lincoln Tunnel and I hung a right. And I you know I found a parking space on. On West 19th Street and so I looked around and found a. A boarding house there you paid $75 a week for a room and board breakfast and dinner. I signed up for three weeks and. And then discovered that this double brownstone on 900 street across from the theological seminary was

in fact a halfway house for people recently released from mental hospitals. Who were heavily sedated on thorazine and who spent most of the day sitting around in a day room and exercising their jaws and waiting for dinner to be served. Not the worst group of people to be around actually. They they told a lot of stories some of which might have been in some remote way true. A woman named Marion Tanner worked in the kitchen who when she found out I was in New York to try to be a writer told me that that Patrick Dennis was her nephew who had written Auntie Mame and that all of us was about her. I didn't see the similarity but. But there was one in her mind. It was a beautiful place to be in this in this hustling Hispanic neighborhood Chelsea now

kind of you know upper right rising genteel neighborhood and but full of machine gun Cuban Spanish and and all sorts of odd people. I was dressed as an English major sort of as I am tonight. Jeans and a white shirt I had a corduroy sportcoat with leather elbow patches. And and I wore dark glasses. I had a beard and hair down over my ears I wore a white Panama hat and I was writing taking notes on legal paper with a with a ballpoint pen. I was hoping to write something about New York that would convince the New Yorker to hire me. I've been writing for them for years they just weren't aware of and. And so I thought that this would be this would be the thing. There was a young woman there who seemed fairly normal and

who was there was just because she was from Des Moines Iowa and she was tall and broad shouldered and really a handsome woman. Mahogany hair tied back you know in a clip and and she seemed very stylish to me especially for somebody from I was and. Well and. You've probably only been there lately. I'm talking about 40 years ago. She was there too to try to get a place in the American theater you know and she she wanted to be an an actor. We we we went for walks late at nine after after dinner and the dinner was usually food that made both of us a little restless and they served Tom pretty regularly. And coming from the Midwest where we're not used to eating meat with little bumps on it.

And. So so we took long long walks around Manhattan. We talked and we talked. She sang to me her audition piece which was from The Music Man. There were bells on the Hill but I never heard them ringing Til There Was You. And she sang this to me I could tell that she came from a very loving and supportive family one that could not bring itself to tell her that. She had no talent whatsoever. And couldn't carry a tune in a paper sigh. But she was lovely. And. I talked to her about my hometown. Back in Minnesota. And she was she was the one who gave me the. The free advice that. Why why why are you writing about New York why are you taking notes on street

people. Why New Yorkers. Know all about New York already. And you're wanting to write about people that they go out of their way to avoid. Why don't you write about back where you come from. Which is the great lesson that every writer needs to needs to learn. If you come from Minnesota then this is your first subject your first subject is your own family and your parents and the people you come from. The people I come from were dark people. They were people who believe that suffering is what we have in life this is the meaning of life. Don't expect it to be easy if it is easy. Be patient this will pass. And we had winter to to to bear this this. This lesson in us.

But they were loving people. And all you need is just a few you know. To sustain you when you are a kid. When I was in my mid teens I was about 6 feet 6 feet 1 weighed about 138 pounds. Wore hand-me-down clothes high water pains wrist sticking out of my cuffs. I had home cut hair you know with a high shaved our cup over the years which tells everybody that you can't afford to go to a barber. Kind of a mark of shame where I come from. Least in my mind it was I wore it clothes some of them handed down from my older brother some from my older sister. A shirt with decorative elements on the. On the top and with darts on the side.

Hard to explain to other boys. In the m. Jeans that zipped up the side. Of the. The word so that you had him you had to carry your books in a strategic way. When you walked around. But I had a beautiful end to Aunt Eva who lived by herself in an old farmhouse that was falling down she kept chickens and a couple of geese a couple of cows and had a big vegetable garden out back and canned for her so she was of a fireplug of a woman and built like a brick shed and I and she had no children she never married all they would say about her when I asked was that she was not quite right in the head. But she was a loving person. When you went out to stay with her you were set out there thinking that this would make you appreciate the things you had

at home such as running water and electricity. Neither of which she had. But what it made you appreciate was something you had been looking for that was more important to you which was which was the love of other people. Our government the. Tough people who did not praise or encourage their children for fear that they would corrupt us forever. And she was swooping I am one who had come down on you with both arms around you and tell you that she loved you and she cared about you and that you were somebody and you were going to be somebody. I suppose she was sort of like our Ralph Waldo Emerson. She she she she believed in taking your own taking your own path and she believed in. And there's Yes and. Don't be a $10 haircut on a 59 cent head. Was one of her sighing. She went around and

I'm in a in a in a cotton print dress that a lot like the kind I wore in the hospital and. And. Which smelled of life soap she she she wore her stockings rolled down around her ankles and a pair of sneakers for comfort and she. She was a beautiful soul. She was a close person to me. She was odd. She had her eccentricities. She liked to wear white sweatshirts on which she had written things in in ballpoint pen and later Magic Magic Marker she wrote these old sayings that I that I never that I never could could could could figure out if if ifs and ands were pots and pans there'd be no trade for tankers. We were islands in the sea of life and seldom do our peripheries touch

if wishes were horses then beggars would ride and the world be drowned in a sea of pride. She could hypnotize chickens she had all sorts of gifts. She loved to play starlight moonlight. She had so many beautiful qualities and she was a loving dear person even if she was not quite right in the head. When I said goodbye to her after I had come back from New York and was. Getting set to go back out there. She gave me a sweatshirt of my own on which she had written. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. It is an ever fix and mark that looks on Tempest's and is never shaken. It is the start of every wandering bar whose Heights unknown although his steps.

Be taken. She loved words she adored words and she loved to say we should sing another song you know. We should sing so you did so well on land. What's your song about angels here in this. Gorgeous place. They're all around us but talking about angels here tell you about my life and to tell you my Jesica of. The mine and I could think of other stories about angels. We'll see you soon here. The looks of it find it we have to find a key here first you have to have to find the right key and then the words you know come to you. There are angels of ring around. The roaring of ruling. There are rarely Injuns

hanging Gerald's was of raiding run on. Good to read the TA a danger hole to look at I read the Tell Me hole to cry. Re re the me who the new movie gen RWD saw to the new movie Joe Rue saw who the new movie The new rule. she does bids

So score higher than she's does big just has she. We just gee we beat some of those B goods. Beautiful. To all the children close the lid was the chief cause of the Owen lead. Oh though much room. Oh oh no. Hey Jim those watching Hoover the

whole day. OSWALD. A loser Watching B. Even here in Cambridge a judge is watching B. Angel of all. A was watching the movie many corners all day. Oh. Just as well. She will be new. Oh do. Oh. Hint you're. Watching over me.

Even And he even harder. Hey Jay. She will be too. Angel was hovering in the we Angel watching the movie be you and them on TV a while. You mean move. I mean really where she at any of those walk she knew you or those who do. Oh. Was she the little

whore. Or are. Me Jeff was or be you. War war war war. I wanted questions from this fine group here. We are. Unripe 1000 has come forward to use the microphone for your questions. What happened to your letter from the director of the draft board. I would like to know. And. And I've waited too long to try to find out. I waited for years for the FBI to knock on my door. And and nobody ever did. Nothing ever. Ever

Happened. Here's the work of another angel and I would like to know who this who this NGO was. My guess is that somebody who knew my family worked. At the draft board and simply. Took my file and stuck it. Where the moon doesn't shine. But I don't know. I don't notice and. And I would love to. I would love to find out. And you know just come forward. They're coming forward from the rear of the hall they're coming forward. And this is a Unitarian church we don't testify here but do come forward. I am but. For those of us who aspire to be storytellers in the oral tradition I have a very private question. Is that your son. Was the owner. Is there

any part of your creative process that you would care to share with us. Well yes of course of course which which part are you interested. You know the old maybe something about before you tell a story have you thought through maybe themes or characters or ideas or poems or does it does the muse just speak to you flawlessly. Well do you want to the truth now or do or don't I think I do want Richard. You do want the truth. Yes I do. OK. All right. I don't like the word storytelling. I don't like it at all and because storytelling it seems to me is is writing. That's what it is. It starts out as writing. And people who launch into a long story who have not tried to write it down at some point back.

In the past even. Usually people try to leave the room. At some at some point. Where writers says who is who we are. And. And. But for someone who says who stands up and tells a story writing serves another purpose. It's not to finish the story. It is that you start to put it down on paper. So as to. Exhaust all of the wrong. Roads and go down all of the false trails and bring yourself out to a point where you won't go down any but where you can go find some other path and then you're ready to tell your story.

Any any any. Anything that's written down is unfinished nothing is ever finished you see. And and I think any writer would tell you that the. Books are sealed up. For commercial reasons because they're supposed to be solved. And so they have to be put into a package. But every story that's ever been written. Was not finished. And the author would have loved to have finished it. Shakespeare was not done with Hamlet. I'm sure that if he'd had the chance he might have gone back in it could've come out a different way. And. He didn't have to die. Were. It could he could we could have worked that out some other way. You could have married Ophelia and.

And and and something and something didn't have to be that rotten in the state of Denmark. Oh and. So so that's that's my advice to you is that you you sit down and you write it's a way of thinking. You don't know what you don't know what's happened to you unless you write it down. And so that's why anybody keeps a journal or even writes letters to other people. We don't know our own experiences until we put it into words and the best way to put it into words is to put it down on paper. But that's only the start. That's only the start. The other thing that I would pass on to you is that. All of the interesting stories are about. Failure. Humiliation. And. Doing terrible things to people. There aren't many great stories. About acts of righteousness.

So. Get started. The Imperium at. I want to ask you about two of your works that I found in lightning and lots of other good words they ask you about the possibility of revisiting them a few years ago my wife bought me a book which when I saw of yours was called Why I am a Democrat which I thought was great particularly the middle three or four chapters which I took in that's where I would suggest perhaps it could be reissued as a memoir of the 60s. You're entering the University of Michigan 1900 from family that hasn't been to the university and you know everyone you met in particular resonated with me. I entered the University of Michigan from a similar family at the same time I was a Stevenson supporter you were a Humphrey supporter we both as I recollect moved toward

Kennedy. It was those three or four chapters were great on the time civil rights and the good 60s and I think would have a terrific and wide audience with the title other than why I am the Democrat. The. Which I can see was necessary in 2004 as I was telling the young men there are not that many really wonderful stories written about righteousness. Well it's a memoir. It's a memoir. The the other is. You're on the WGBH radio station here for many years at 8:55 with Writer's Almanac and it is shaped my life I woke up in the morning trying to write til age 55 those my dessert and I went to my day job just two weeks ago. I believe has been removed or at least from that time slot they have a new thing they be one of your. Assistants could look into. You can still get up in the morning though. But I don't go to my day

job. I don't go to my day job at night or just. Keep writing. We have clocks for this. Yes. Thank you thank you now. Thank you so much. How are you doing. I'm good how you doing. Not so Ben. Not as well as you but you know. I'm saying that I had two Russians one was really quick which as you said happened to draft when I was on what happened with the woman that you didn't love but you love your cousin and then you went to New York and I imagine she didn't take it too well that you like just one they just were in New York says one of what happened there. What happened when oh I really liked her mother. I guess a lot of the fish. Yeah I really like her mother in law. Her mother was really wonderful her mother really liked me and and so it was it was like an arranged marriage in a way and so I married her I married her and and.

And. And you know we had a child together so you know it was not without purpose or meaning. And. And what the outcome was I'm still trying to figure it out. Wow OK. And it's a it's just it's a story I should I should tell this story sometime it's an interesting it's an interesting story. And it and it sort of tied in with the with with the draft board you seem because I knew people who were draft resisters. But I but I was not a draft resister. I was a draft evader. And. And so they they felt very superior to people like me and I'm sure that in a sense they were. But when I meet them now and I see what a terrible price they paid for having gone to prison. I feel as if my cowardice.

Had had a purpose and a meaning to it. I've I've always done well with cowardice. And and so far if I look back on my I'm on my life. I'm still trying to figure this out. I wrote my draft board a letter saying that I wouldn't go. I don't know that I actually would not have gone. I mean who knows until you know they come for you. But I wrote them misled and I sent them this letter and that made it possible for them to let me off so that my mind didn't have the moral purity you know that that that one might wish except looking back. I don't wish for it. I'm confusing you know there was no. I mean yes a little. We have. The right. Well I'm confused about it myself and. I guess I was kind of like what your other question of the other guy sorry. Because I was in a short.

I yeah I was wondering about narrative structure and how when you tell stories that have kind of like a very similar background Anderson very similar route for you how you avoid falling to the same trappings with stories and telling the stories kind of the same way kind of same general story over and over again because of listen your show has been off for a long time. Most of my life and I've really appreciated it and I feel like there's a freshness every time. So I was wondering how you were able to achieve that. It all comes down to the prodigal son. I mean it's just that's your basic story and then you know there are few others but you are. I'm someone to someone of great privilege throws it all away and goes off to a foreign country and wastes his substance on riotous living and comes back home in abject humiliation and and his contract and is received beautifully by his father and the fatted calf was killed and the older

brother who had been good all those years is just you know obviously ticked off about it. That's your story. And you can change you know you can change the characters on it and. But that's YOUR but that's your base that's it that's a great story. And but but but it has it has that narrative structure and you would never change that narrative structure. Every year never change at night or second. With. The i'm no you wouldn't you wouldn't have the fatted calf killed first and then. What if the draft board would take here. What if the draft board were. What if the draft board would take you away she changed the narrative structure. I can't change the narrative structure and that's that. That is that is the story and. And I would just hope to drag it out through appeals I guess. You're a writer I can tell you have

the yeah look about you and you and your argumentative and I liked the. Good troublemaker. And I just got to the finals that's really all that is. How they go. It's a computer science I was a mistake. You're right but you can always correct it. Fiction fiction that's what you want fiction. Oh you are fantastic I was walking home from class and came upon this and just overjoyed to be here. What class were you. I was at spirituality as an interesting factor from Leslie University. Oh sure of course. And actually that kind of. Ties into into my question statement and I'm just constantly amazed at how universal your speaking is when you come from a Lutheran background and I'm just appalled. I'm just a little Jewish girl and I love this show and I find that most of my friends that do love the show are also Jewish and we can't quite understand

why why we feel like you relate so much but it's just so much about the human experience and it's just we hope from you people. This is our guy came from your people. Could. Tell that story. So that's where we are so that's where we get it. Yeah I suppose yeah. So where were you brought up. I was brought up in Jupiter Florida. In Florida in Jupiter Florida or Florida. We couldn't be more online. It's true it's June and have you ever been north for the winter. Well I've lived here for five years. Is this north for me. Absolutely. You did. OK. You know it's going well. Absolutely love it here. It's fantastic. Good good. We wouldn't use the term fantastic. We would screw it so it could be worse. That was going to be OK. I wish you well and if you think you do.

I feel like I'm holding confession was. The first thing I want to say was thank you for a Prairie Home Companion you made. Growing up in the Midwest a lot more interesting than I remembered it. Where were you from the Midwest from down no way. Oh OK. Masters Spoon River anthology. Oh not so loud. I was curious you worry about the atrophy of rural America and maybe that we're losing some of these Lake Woebegone Zulus and some of these stories some of the backgrounds that feed end. Because the story tell you don't like it. A writer's ID such as yourself do you. Do you think that we're losing something in America. As you become more of an oh he was in the places for us to get out of the cities. We believe we are losing them but we've been losing them for one hundred fifty years. So this is a long this is a long process.

The Midwest has been and exporter of people of its young people for a long time. We spend a great deal of energy and devotion on educating our young. And then we we send them off to benefit the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And I suppose I suppose this seems unfair in a way to us and we. And we miss them but we but we wish. The best for our children. And. And so we would not deny them their their freedom. This is always been a mobile country it was settled by mobile people and and we're not organized into into tribes and and sacked and villages and and families and dynasties as as. The other as other cultures are which we were not where we were we are

to compared to compared to most other countries this is this is a a fairly classless you know mobile society in which people move up and down in the scale of things and we want this for our children we really do we want we want the very best for them we're very ambitious for them. We're a little amused you know when they come back to us and which they do for holidays. And they're and they're and they're and they're different. You know they they come back and they and they they come back with their children who are who are carrying little plastic boxes that they work little levers and they you know they they play games on them and they don't know Run sheep run. They don't they don't know these games they don't know prisoners base they don't know a rover red rover. We can't get these children to go outside and play fox and geese in the snow because they're from Jupiter Florida and.

Still yet I run and there and they're frightened of snow. These are these are our grandchildren. You know our beloved granddaughter comes back for Thanksgiving and here is your grandma and you nice to see you and how are you doing Lisa I'm doing just fine and and grandma I want you to meet my partner Sarah and know your partner well that's nice that's nice you know and to know Lisa was in the practice of law but the law. But Sarah seems like a very nice person and I'm and Lisa what's wrong. Well we don't we don't need to know everything. We don't need to know where we wish the best for them and they migrate away and a few people are still sticking it out. So come and visit us sometime. But all were quiet. Yes this is a little tell that works better. Well

I can tell that you like I really love 19th century and songs and I don't know about you but my favorite ones are the really morbid ones you know my brother is dying beside me or I lie wailing on my mother's moldering grave and you know all that kind of stuff. I think it's a lot of fun and I was wondering if you could sing for us whatever your favorite really Hori terrible morbid old 19th century song. My friends have you heard how long talk to little children whose names I do know who were still a new record one true. Unloved in the womb. Judge heard people say prude and was known it was not and so sharp was their applause.

The moon wind and the moon. No. They saw it and they bid clearly crowed and the poor little thing they led. No see this is a song that was sung to me by my aunt and I was. She put me though she put me to sleep at night so you missed her. So I never heard the third verse I was always. Asleep. Once you know I mean that when one shows the kids died then I fell asleep you say. And so so that's all I remember of that one. There something about robins so red brought strawberry leaves and over them spread but. But I never heard that I was asleep I was asleep by that time. Well thank you that that's a good one and whenever whenever children or animals or

our mothers die that makes a good song. Absolutely I'm with you. Morbidity morbidity is a great chance for it and I can thank you. Yes sure. So a good many years ago on your show you did an updated version of Little boxes on the hillside. For. Many many years you don't remember it. I've been wishing to hear it ever since. You must be thinking of some other show to him. I never liked that I never liked that song the Melvina Rennell song I never I never cared for him. You know you and I you and I differ on this. Well it was to me it was a kind of a snobby song. And it was looking down. I was looking down on people who live in modest houses and she thought that she was attacking conformity

but to me she was attacking low income people and I don't think that's in good form to are. That. Would be slowing down and doctors and lawyers. No but there isn't and that's not who lives in in little boxes made of ticky tacky little boxes made of ticky tacky. Where were subdivisions suburban subdivisions of the of the late 40s and early 50s like Levittown and and hundreds of others and that's who she was making fun of. She was a San Francisco person. And they kind of have a bad attitude to start out with. I mean they feel superior to the rest of the country and then she knew what she needed to feel superior to people in San Jose. I guess I was mistaken. And no no I'm not saying you're mistaken. We just have a different feeling about it which is we disagree and you and I are old enough to be able to

express our disagreements frankly. It was noted no no apology. No apology and whatever show you were listening to I'm sure it was a terrific show. To. Thank. Please please come here. Please come stand up I'm trying to. It's Bush. This is blame ya. Oh OK. From the Harvard Yale game I've been listening to your show since I was like really young. You still are I think. But it's kind of funny because like my family's Lutheran which makes me the only Mexican Lutheran I've ever known. Like ever. But I was going to ask you real quick my mom loves you. And like if you could say Merry Christmas to her I could get like so many daughter points. Like if you like me so like I'm going to call her right now.

I'm like if you could just say like. Merry Christmas to you. Unfurl leaves no no no. No no no no. Thanks Kathleen. Yeah you know I like. You.