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Hello Garrison, The radio is

December 22, 2005 |

Hello Garrison,
The radio is far superior to television as entertainment because it doesn't confine you to a dark little room, staring at a screen with no real social interaction. My wife and I and a friend or two always listen to PHC outdoors no matter what the season. Even if we have a foot of snow on the ground, we gather around a big bonfire in the winter. During the summer we sit in or beside our favorite swimming hole in Bald Eagle Creek with the radio on the bank beside a cooler of Genesee Cream Ale. In this way your show is the highlight of our weekend without keeping us from enjoying the beauty of central Pennsylvania.

By the way, your show always seems especially great in the atmosphere of a college campus. Has anyone ever suggested an extended tour of each Big 10 school? We have a wonderful space in Eisenhower Auditorium here in wonderful Happy Valley at Penn State!

Thanks for everything,
Mike Hertzler
Centre County, PA

That's outstanding, Mike, and you sound like a very focused guy, to be able to listen to a radio show (which, after all, does have its peaks and valleys and occasional deep caves) while watching a bonfire. I couldn't do it. As for listening while sitting in water, be careful! It would hurt me terribly to hear about four fans electrocuted in Centre County. (Of course it would hurt you even more.) You're right about college shows. Something about the milieu (a word I learned in college) does excite a person, especially if you aren't facing a chemistry test. I'm teaching a composition course at the University of Minnesota spring semester and have been excited about it for months, especially since I have no idea what to teach them (composition is hard, except sometimes it's not, and you rewrite a lot, and then you read the stuff aloud and maybe you throw it out and maybe you don't). I guess it's true that our inner age stays around 24 and so when I'm on a campus I'm around my confreres instead of the geezerish folks I usually hang out with. And of course they're so much fun to lie to, since they don't have the background to discern fiction.

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