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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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October 22, 2007 | 2 Comments

Post to the Host:
Greetings, GK. Our family of four attended your show at the Fitzgerald on September 22. All day and on the way there we were bickering--the two adults, the almost-eleven-year-old, and The Teenager. We walked into that theater a dysfunctional family, and we walked out with smiles on our faces and treating each other with love and respect. Please, please don't retire before I get both my kids through their teenage years!!

A Mother

No plans for retirement here, Mother. We had a big time in Baltimore with Carole King and Jearlyn Steele doing that dynamite duet of "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman" and ten mnutes later the audience stood and did a rousing rendition of the national anthem. And Fred Newman did a very persuasve sound effect of a man shooting a flaming arrow through a bucket of small-curd cottage cheese. Plus a dolphin singing "O Maryland, My Maryland." We're having too much fun to quit. What would I do? I don't garden, I don't collect seashells, and my family thinks I am spending enough time with them as it is. I suppose I could read "Moby-Dick" and "Anna Karenina" and that book by Proust the title of which I can't remember but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to walk away from show business. I want to go back to Baltimore next season. I want to do another show in Alaska. I want to get Dolly Parton on the show, and Merle Haggard, and YoYo Ma, and Dick Hyman. And I like the challenge of trying to make your almost-11-year-old laugh. Those almost-elevens are a tough audience.