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April 4, 2007 | 4 Comments

Sir:
I've noticed your periodic references to the town of Millet with a sense of derision and scorn in your voice at its mention.
Did I miss a show where you explain the basis of your attitude? Where did this town go wrong? Your contempt is palpable.

Thank you for your show.

Respectfully:

Paul-Michael N.
Annapolis, MD

People of Lake Wobegon have always looked down on Millet going way back before my day. I suppose the towns were rivals at one time and then my town pulled ahead and Millet languished. People in Millet don't take care of their yards the way people in Lake Wobegon think you should. They don't raise their children right. They keep old wrecked cars in their backyards and old appliances and they sit outdoors in their shirtsleeves and drink beer. They're common. Their children are loutish, cruel, vulgar, and untrustworthy. The list goes on and on. We were told to stay away from those people, and so I have no idea if any of this is actually true: I've avoided Millet for most of my life. Like most contempt, it's based on poor information.

4 Comments

Mary Morand | April 6, 2007 6:22 AM | Reply

...and there are many mouth-breathers among the citizenry of Millet!

...and thanks for having Bob Dorough, Faith Prince, Mavis & Marvin within 3 weeks of my asking! Now, the Chenille Sisters, please?

Edward | April 6, 2007 8:16 AM | Reply

Garrison was easy on the town of Millet. You should here what he said about the city of Philadelphia, just East of Lake Wobegon. Again, his contemp was was based on poor information.

BETSYBARKER | April 6, 2007 10:09 AM | Reply

Hmmm......sounds a bit like where i grew up in Western New York State.....but, hey, we kids were not vulgar or cruel.....wel mostly.

Todd Victor Leone | April 20, 2007 5:12 PM | Reply

I tried find Millet, Minnesota using Mapquest or Yahoo! Maps and I conclude that it, too, must be in Mist County, along with Lake Wobegon. As we all know, that tiny county in the center of the state was left off the map so that the surveyors' measurements, replete with compounding errors would reconcile. With Mist County deleted, all the measurements come out right . . . .

I myself grew up in an obscure suburb of Los Angeles County, and even L.A. County residents didn't know where it was unless they lived in it or an adjacent suburb. Since it was such a "nothing" place, we used to disparage the smaller and poorer suburb adjacent to the west.

I always suffered for lack of a geographic identity and moved to San Francisco to correct that. Here, we disparage Oakland.

I lived in Sweden for a few months in 1987 and there, the Swedes constantly disparaged Norway, and when I went sightseeing in Oslo, I found out the Norwegians disparaged Sweden.

There's just something about the town or country next door that invites disparagement, I conclude.