Dear Mr. Keillor,
Have you ever thought about writing a children's book? At the request of my three-year-old daughter I read to her every day. She loves a good story. There are lots
of children’s books, but not a lot of good stories.

Respectfully,
Maria Benish

I think about writing children’s books, Maria, because the type is large and you don’t need to write so many words. So it’s very appealing to the indolent writer
such as myself. You could write a children’s book by 10 a.m. and have the rest of the day free to mess around. Unfortunately, I am not fond of stories in which animals talk, and I don’t like upbeat stories very much, the kind in which Muffy gets a puppy and learns about love. I was brought up on maudlin stories ---- the sinking of the Titanic, the demise of General Custer, etc. ---- and those are the kind I really enjoy.

Dear Garrison,
I am a 30-year-old Lutheran pastor serving my first call in small town Montana. I love it when your stories feature the clergy of Lake Wobegon, which leads me to ask: Do you have an informant of some sort? Some clergy person with whom you consult? Your portrayals suggest inside information. Just curious.

Pr. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Chinook, Montana

Pastor Spencer, the world of the clergy is not, to my way of thinking, a mystic or closed world and I don’t have an undercover pastor, a mole whom I’ve turned, who meets me at the deserted playground every other Tuesday night and hands me a brown envelope with the inside dope. Of course if you were volunteering to tell me stuff (What’s in the pulpit, below the lectern? Do choir members sleep in the loft during the sermon? Is it true that some eastern churches pour a Pinot Noir for communion?) I wouldn’t turn it down, but mainly a pastor’s life is like anyone else’s and that’s what gives it its humor ---- the pastor has a holy calling and is carefully watched by everyone, but he or she still has to stumble and irk people and look dumb, same as the rest of us.

Dear Garrison:

In Ken Burns’ recent documentary on Mark Twain, I noted that Twain always wore red socks with his white tuxedo. I'm wondering, Garrison, since you are fond of Mark Twain, are your red socks a tribute to Mark Twain? Just wondering.

Lorraine
Palo Alto, CA

Dear Lorraine, I’ve been wearing red socks so long I forget if they are a tribute to him or Studs Terkel or who. I wear them because I own so many pairs sent to me by people who read somewhere that I wear red socks and it’d be a shame to waste them. Such is the force of public opinion.

Dear Garrison,

In A Prairie Home Companion's Pretty Good Joke Book, one particular joke has left me stumped for ages. It goes like this:

Two out-of-work Jewish musicians are sitting on a park
bench in Brooklyn.

The first one says, "Oy!"
The second one says, "I'm hip."

Perhaps there was an error in the printing, or perhaps
the joke isn't really that funny, but either way, the
joke's meaning never dawned upon me. I am going mad from
interrogating all my Jewish musician friends to find
some answers. Perhaps you can help me, Garrison?

Thanks,
Gus

Gus, I don’t explain jokes. I used to and then I
stopped. That particular one is a joke that doesn’t leap
off the page, unfortunately. You need to have Andy Stein
tell it to you. Then you’d get it.

Hi…
Someone needs to start a campaign to save adverbs, and I think you are exactly the right person to do it. If something isn't done soon, these helpful little pieces of English grammar are going to be extinct.

Thanks,
Kirk Edgar Aplin

One needs to proceed cautiously, even prayerfully, when setting out on a campaign, especially one to save or reform the English language. Humorless zealots don’t have a very big effect on the world. I don’t know that humorous ones do either, but at least their campaigns are vastly more fun.

Dear Mr. Keillor,

The illustrious Tom Keith has been conspicuous by his absence, of late. No explanation (that I can detect) has been made for this rather disturbing feature of your normally excellent show. I wonder: Has there been some "falling out", or is he on a lengthy, though well- earned, vacation?

Bob Dymond

Tom Keith, the master of the thoughtful chicken, the
incoming chopper, the mournful ungulate, the passing
semi, the dental drill, the maddening drip, and many
other great effects, has decided not to tour with the
show anymore, so he’ll be with us on February 9th and
through March and a few dates in May, and otherwise
conspicuously absent. Tom just doesn’t like to travel.
Airports, baggage claim, airport vans, and hotel rooms
hold no allure for him anymore. The cast flies out on
Friday night, does the show on Saturday, flies home on
Sunday, and it’s a big chunk out of a person’s week.

Garrison:

My question: You were born 10 days after me. How come you got it all, and I am left with writing an occasional column in my parish newsletter? Even if we had split the talent evenly, the world would have had two excellent writer/comedian/radio hosts. It's not fair.

Charles E. Fairweather
South Portland, Maine

Charles, when the Lord looks down on the world, He might be far more pleased by a faithful parish newsletter writer than by a compulsive liar who lucked into doing a radio show. As for talent, I don’t believe in it anymore. Mine petered out years ago. Anything I’ve accomplished since then I’ve gotten through plagiarism, stealing from old radio shows and also from Stephen Ambrose, his early comic writings. And it helps to be able to go into re-runs, a privilege denied to other mortals.

Dear Mr. Keillor,
Just read the November and December PTTH columns and want to add my name to the list of people who appreciated "The Story of Bob, A Young Artist". I think I was lukewarm about the first or second episode, but once I caught on to the humor I found it enormously funny. It pokes fun at the pretentiousness and self-centeredness of the struggling artist, and how terribly serious they take themselves. But you never made Bob an object of ridicule. Am I wrong in seeing Bob as a slyly self-referential creation? Perhaps only someone who once entertained at least the fantasy of the artistic life can appreciate "The Story of Bob".

Wallis Reid
Leyden, Massachusetts

Dear Wallis, Glad you liked Bob. One of these days when the rush dies down, I’ll get some tapes of old shows and listen to the Bob episodes. Tim Russell was great as Pops, and Tom Keith as Rex, and Sue Scott as Berniece, but the character of Bob seemed to cry out for interpretation by a professional actor. That’s how I remember it, anyway. And the writing was (as we say) uneven. If we could find a professional writer, too, maybe we’d have something.

Dear Mr. Keillor,
I am a fifteen year old high-school student from Roslyn, New York. That happens to be on Long Island, which I know is about as far away from the prairie as you can get, but I was hoping you could give me some advice. I know this may sound a little silly, but I'm worried about my future. I'm not doing as well as I normally do in school, and my life is suffering for it. I want to be a writer, but I don't know if I have any knack for it. So I was just wondering if you had any advice on how to get my work back on course, and also tips on how to start writing better.

Yours Truly,
Andrew Siskind

Dear Andrew: Sometimes school gets tedious for bright people like yourself, and you start to sleepwalk through the day and pretty soon you’re sinking. Meanwhile, all the drones are busily churning out high grades and heading relentlessly toward a life of highly-paid mediocrity. It’s discouraging. In school as in life, you need to motivate yourself, and I recommend you look at school as a game that is much more fun to win than to lose. And you win the game by setting your goals higher than what’s required. You exceed your assignments, you go at your subjects with a militant zeal that, frankly, can be very satisfying. Intensely so. It’s like discovering an inner engine that you can turn off and, when necessary, turn on, an engine that will prove useful all your life: when something needs to be done, you’ll know you can do it. Indifferent students pay a price. The world doesn’t distribute its gifts even- handedly, and those who lag behind find their opportunities narrowing, choked off, rocks being put in their pockets --- and the lack of opportunity can starve you. Of course in America there are always second chances, but you can’t count on them being as good as first chances. Good luck. As for writing better, it comes with practice. Keep a journal, a plain ordinary daily account of what happened to you and who said what and where you went afterwards, and also look for a chance to write for an audience ---- in your school paper, or the Roslyn Bugle, or the Long Island Review of Books, whatever is at hand.

Julia, I am in favor of the laws of physics in this case. I believe Newton’s Law of Quarters applies: “A quarter at rest cannot derail an engine in motion unless the person who laid the quarter down is wearing unclean underwear, in which case she will cause train suction and be struck by the train and taken unconscious to the hospital where emergency personnel will chortle aloud at her soiled undies.” Wayne Newton said that, I believe, and it’s as true today as it was back in 1956.