Mr Keillor:
Since your Hyde shoes are no longer available, I suggest the classic Chuck Taylor All-Star shoes. The high tops offer good ankle bracing, and they're very lightweight and lend themselves well to Dr Scholl inserts if your arches have fallen. What's more, they're widely available and only $30 a pair! And now they'll think you're playing basketball instead of going bowling, but with your height you could fake it, I think.

—Farrar

Farrar,
my arches are as arch as ever, even though I don't sink that 15-foot jumper the way I used to. I am not sure that a man my age should go out onstage in basketball shoes. It strikes me as eccentric, something that Professor Irwin Corey might do, or Ralph Nader, or one of those other dotty old men. I ought to be wearing black wingtips. The problem is that, when you're used to sneakers, they feel like lead weights and that makes you feel ten years older. It's a choice between heaviness and goofiness. I don't know which way to go. Maybe there's a canvas shoe that looks like leather.

Garrison
My family and I loved listening to the Valentine day show, especially our children (7yrs and 5yrs). But during the rock and roll music portion I had to explain why the guy wanted to unbutton the girl's dress. An awkward moment indeed but all was saved by the age old saying, "who wants ice cream?"

—Matt

Matt,
Oh dear. Sorry, Matt. It's a narrow line we walk and sometimes we fall off. Sometimes we fall way off. I don't know how to do a children's show and I don't want to do a show that excludes children. But the line about unbuttoning was a little too explicit. Instead, I could've had the guy sit and breathe heavily. But then you'd have to explain that. I don't know what to tell you. All those different people listening to the show, many of whom are so entirely different from the others, and inevitably we trip over ourselves. But thank goodness for ice cream.

Dear Mr. Keillor,
I took my 17 year old son to see your show in Florence, SC. We had a
wonderful evening! It was fun to see my sooo cool son laugh hysterically. As a teacher, I also enjoyed your comments on schools and kids. My question- with family and travel and rehearsals and shows, how do you find time for writing?

—Michelle

Michelle,
Glad that Mr. Cool enjoyed the show in Florence. That was only the second show I've done on a hockey rink and that in itself was pretty cool. As for writing, I've learned to fit it into the cracks and carry around a notebook and jot things down and to be able to sit in an airport or a hotel lobby or the backseat of a van and tap away on the laptop. The best time for writing is early in the morning and I have that all to myself, since musicians don't rise early and my daughter is up and off to school around 8. Some mornings I wake up at 4 and hop up and get three hours of perfect peaceful time and that's all a person needs. Work can be squeezed into the time available. If I had a whole week empty, it'd take me 100 hours to write the radio show, but if there's only ten hours, then that's how long it takes.

Garrison,
Just got through listening (and watching) your show from Spartanburg. That's the first time I've watched via the Internet. What a treat! Isn't technology great! I've been a fan of the show for too many years to count. It was great to hear Doc Watson again. And you were in good voice tonight -- nobody does those Elvis songs any better. (Is that like writing "The captain was sober today"?) When it comes time to repeat some shows, you have my permission to go back more than 2 years. The re-broad of Willie Nelson from Nov. '85 was really appreciated. Anyway I wish us all many, many more years together!

—Iowa Fan

Dear Iowa,
Thanks, you're sweet to say so. Doc is a walking wonder of the world, eighty years old and blind but just as quick and agile and good-humored as when I first encountered him forty years ago. And his voice is even richer and more melodious. I need to have him come back on the show and sit and talk more. We'll try that next year. Maybe we should do the show from his living room. Let him be the host and I'll just do the occasional Elvis ballad. And wasn't Sam Bush fine? He is a great musician and entertainer and brings such intensity and energy to everything he does. And of course, standing next to me, he seems even more intense and energetic. That is my true gift: being a straight man.

Dear Mr. Keillor,
I was fortunate enough to get to see your show in Hot Springs last weekend, and was more than a little shocked to see a veritable Sidetrack Tap set up serving alcohol to the listeners. While I'm no teetotaler, I've never thought of your show as needing a glass of wine as accompaniment (though it certainly made the News from Lake Wobegone funnier to the woman sitting next to me). Wouldn't it be more appropriate to have the vendors selling plates of Tuna Noodle Casserole and Jello?

—Micah

Dear Micah,
I wasn't aware of the wine sales but I'm not surprised. For years and years, we didn't sell alcohol at the show and then the Fitzgerald got a beer & wine license and there was a noticeable difference in the audience. Of course, Minnesotans need some lubricant more than Arkansans, and the Hot Spring audience was terrifically enthused and sang "Dixie" with a lot of feeling and seemed to have a good time, but there is a long-standing connection between comedy and alcohol. No doubt about it. I enjoy a teetotaling crowd (grade schools, for example) but anybody on stage can notice the difference. More giddiness, less confounded silence.

Dear Garrison,
I appreciate your talent but was disappointed in last week's Duct Tape Council "commercial". I thought it was tastless and crude humor. I hope you'll keep up your shows for many years to come--but I also hope you'll lose the distasteful bathroom jokes.

—Nancy

Nancy,
Sorry but the duct tape commercial isn't exactly what I'd call a bathroom joke. The young man had to go to the bathroom and in his rush, he tore his pants and, lacking duct tape to repair them, fell into a series of terrible misfortunes that put him in jail for thirty years. He only ripped his pants. He could have ripped them on a branch of a tree or the corner of a dining room chair; I had him rip them in a bathroom. But there were no bodily functions portrayed. If it is tasteless to rip your pants, then I guess everybody is guilty of it.

Dear Garrison,
We loved having you in our hometown of Hot Springs! I am nine months pregnant, and of course the whole family was taking bets that he would be born before or during the show, but we made it through. I'm having a boy (Kian is his name) and he loved the music and excitement of it all, my belly danced around when the crowd clapped for the Powdermilk Biscuits. The entire show he kicked and wiggled around.

—Anne

Dear Anne,
God bless the child and you and we're honored that you came to the show. I assume you've had a moderately easy pregnancy, or you're just awfully brave. When our little girl came along in December of 1997 we weren't going to any shows, we didn't even put up a Christmas tree. We just sat in a New York apartment and had a lovely and secluded week or two before the alarm went off. Awfully cool of you to gallivant around in your condition. Send a picture of Kian when he shows up. Tell Mr. Anne to get out his stopwatch and practice coaching you to take deep cleansing breaths and to remember that he is a crucial member of the birth team. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, forgive me for laughing.

Hi, Garrison-
Just wanted to say that it was a treat to finally see you in Hot Springs, Arkansas. My friends and I had cheap seats in the nosebleed section, but we had a great edge-on view of the stage, and for a geek like me, the broadcast and webcast gear. We thought it was cool that you had a large analog clock at your feet instead of a digital one. It's a geek thing. We liked your shoes, too!

What we really liked was that the sound wasn't too loud, and that you used the
phrase 'wardrobe malfunction' in the course of the show, winning me a bet (dinner at a favorite Asian Fusion restaurant in Little Rock).

We do hope that you'll come back again soon!

—Lorie

Lorie,
I've always wondered what the show looks like from up there and what people notice. What I noticed was the big mood the crowd was in and how they responded to the music. Sam Bush is a whale of a player and singer, and Billie Joe Shaver too, and the audience loved them both. And I noticed how, when somebody started talking in a loud voice about fifteen rows back, the people around him all ganged up to shush him. And I thought that the Arena staff was magnificent. And I now regret that I didn't go to the racetrack on Sunday. So I guess we'll come back during racing season.

Dear Garrison,
I went to your show at the Saenger Theater in New Orleans and went to park
my car in the parking lot which cost $10 with a credit card. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a credit card. I turned to the people in line behind me and asked it any one could loan me ten dollars. A really cute older guy handed me the cash. After I paid, I asked him for his address so I could repay him but he just asked that I do something kind to someone in return. My lucky star. And the show was good too.

—Adrienne

Adrienne,
That's who comes to our show, the silent fellowship of kind-hearted strangers.

Dear Garrison,
I just got back from New Orleans. My husband of almost 23 years (Feb 14), surprised me with tickets to the show, airline reservations, and three nights at a hotel. It was all the more special, because he usually prefers sports or an adventure show on tv, to your show. You are so much more animated during the show than I had imagined.

—Carolee

Dear Carolee,
You are married to a sweet man indeed. If my wife were a huge
football fan and needed to see the Super Bowl in person, I guess I could
manage it, but it would be a large undertaking, psychologically. (In real life, my wife is an opera lover, and that's no problem for me at all.) As for animation, I've recently had a nerve transplant to make me livelier and smilier and I'm glad to hear it's working. Hope you got enough to eat in New Orleans too. I got some boudin flan, which is a novelty.

Dear Garrison,
How did you manage to keep breathing after Irma Thomas sang "Hold Me When I Cry"? I listened to it on both weekend broadcasts from WHYY Philadelphia and it took my breath away. It is hours later and her amazing voice and lyrics are still a haunting refrain in my mind. If only each of us could have someone to hold us when we cry. Thank you for the pleasure of her music.

—Sharon H.

Sharon,
I loved Irma too, her singing and her salty sense of humor. Right after, "Hold Me When I Cry," as the audience was applauding, she sidled over toward me and in mid-bow, she said, "That's my menopause song." After the show, Irma introduced me to a friend of hers who was working at the theater and who was an original member of the Dixie Cups who recorded "Chapel of Love." Irma was going to do a benefit for the Jesuit high school afterward, and the Dixie Cups and the Neville Brothers and other luminaries were going to be there. Irma is a trouper.

Dear Mr. Keillor,
My truck was recently burglarized, and I was cleaned out of a good car stereo, numerous CDs, and even an oil filter wrench. The thief left only a Grateful Dead CD and a copy of your "Book of Guys" on the front seat. (The book was not even mine; it belonged to the City library. Oh, well. At least I won't get fined.)

Is this much to go on in tracking the thief?

—Mike

Mike,
The thief was a guy and he didn't take my book lest that give away his gender. A woman thief in her early 30s would've glommed onto it. Ditto the Dead CD. You're looking for a guy with a ponytail in his early sixties. Check it out.