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Host Garrison Keillor answers your questions about life, love, writing, authors, and of course, A Prairie Home Companion.

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Dear GK, I felt with

April 12, 2005 |

Dear GK,
I felt with you in your meditation on being a parent of a young child at 62. Yet I wanted to tell you that your daughter will see it differently.

At 59 my father had the audacity to marry a 24-year-old and have two children. He was 64 when I was born. He was never old to me; he was just my father. He didn't get mad at us like the other young fathers and he had great stories of his youth (like the time he shot his toe off while hunting and his father put his foot in the pickle jar for the wagon ride home, or how he and his brothers played baseball with firecrackers or hung off the trestle while the train passed over, or how he loved his Model A Ford).

One time I found a park pass with his age written on it, and I thought, "Gee, 72 is a big number." That was the first time I even thought about his age. When we played neighborhood baseball, he hit and I ran the bases for him. So, it all worked out. We had him until he was 78 and I never did think of him as old.

I suppose it gave me odd ideas too — at 53 I am the mother of nine-year-old twin boys.

Thanks for the stories. I love the show.

Cheers,
Holly Smith

Holly, I am trying not to talk about Age and Age-related matters, since a woman wrote me a pointed letter saying, "Get off it." She was right and she knew it. Aging is not that interesting as a subject — it has happened to other people in the past who didn't make too much of it and I shouldn't either. But I'm sure glad to have your reassurance, and to hear about your dad.

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