This morning I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and began the day by reading Garrison’s Keillor’s latest essay. Back when he had the radio show, I never listened to it, even though my own grandparents were Norwegian immigrants in Wisconsin and I know all about hotdishes, so I should have felt a close relationship to Lake Woebegone. But for some reason I didn’t. Now, though, I find his musings quite charming and very funny and even occasionally profound in a muted Scandinavian way.
For some reason, this morning, I found myself wondering if Garrison Keillor has children. Easy enough to check on that without moving away from my coffee cup; I went to his Wikipedia entry and ascertained that indeed, he has two. Then, because I was sitting there, I went on to read more than I wanted to know about Garrison Keillor (including the fact that his REAL name is Gary, not Garrison at all. Apparently he took on a nom de plume when he was still a kid; I sympathize with that, having myself undergone a deep desire to call myself Cynthia Randolph when I was fifteen.)
But I also discovered, and probably everyone else already knew this, that several years ago he had been “terminated” by Minnesota Public Radio because of various allegations which I won’t bother going into. And the Washington Post cancelled his weekly column because of some apparent misbehavior.
I will continue to enjoy his blogs/essays but now they will have a small tinge to them, an asterisk of sorts.
But here’s the thing. The reason why I am even mentioning it. A few days ago I sat down to answer some interview questions from a person who holds an important post dealing with the welfare of children. In the course of the interview she asked if I was familiar with the work of former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for the US. Of course I remembered Madeline Albright and her very distinguished career. But I went again to Wikipedia to refresh my memory of details, and once again…..
It turns out that not everything Madeline Albright did was as admirable as I wish it were. For example, after having been not only Secretary of State, but also US Ambassador to the UN, she became “ambassador” for a company called Herbalife, which sells dietary supplements through a sales method that has been alleged to be a fraudulent pyramid scheme.
I so wish she hadn’t done that.
But it does occur to me that probably everyone, no matter how honorable, has probably done REALLY DUMB things in the past.
Just for the record: I shoplifted a lipstick when I was 14 years old. I didn’t want or need the lipstick but I was with a friend and she dared me to do it.
It was 73 years ago that I did that but I have felt guilty about it ever since.
I am not at all a religious person (Garrison Keillor is, by the way, a devoted Episcopalian) but I am picturing an Afterlife, with gates, and a long line of people being questioned before being admitted.
Yessir, I am saying in my imagination, I stole a lipstick. I am hanging my head and shuffling my feet in humiliation.
Go over there to that other line, the gatekeeper tells me. Where the sign says: Adolescent Misdemeanors.
And oh my goodness: there are a lot of head-hanging people standing there wringing their hands.
As a lifelong resident of Minnesota, currently living in St. Paul (where GK’s radio career began and ended) I’ve heard stories. But the memory that stands out is of one of the earliest broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion. It was on the shore of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. A full moon, people gliding by in canoes. A magical evening.
Having done many things in my life I’m ashamed of, I hope that someone will remember me for a moment such as that.
I learned yesterday that you have subscribed to Writer, interrupted. I’m incredibly honored. It means the world to me.
Some of us misbehaved mightily in our sixties. Just saying.