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I once walked down Wabasha Avenue in downtown St. Paul and was stopped by an old wino who asked for something to eat and when I gave him a couple bucks, he said, "You're Garrison Keillor, you can do better than that." The man had bad habits but his thinking was clear. I was a nobody from Anoka who got his picture on the cover of Time and my notoriety should mean profits for the needy. But that was many years ago and fame fades fast. I haven't been recognized by a wino for at least thirty years.
There's a new and larger crop of instant celebs every year and if I got drunk and needed dough, I wouldn't know Naomi Nobody from Louise Illustrious, due to my not watching TV except for baseball all those years. I was too busy being well known but it's okay, ordinary daily life can be fascinating too.
Last week Jenny and I had the vast pleasure of a visit by a young couple from California who are expecting a baby girl in June, both of them tech wizards who are adept at explaining things to a man from the Typewriter Age, the woman from a Japanese family, so there was rich information about Japan, the language and culture, plus the woo-woo aspects of California, and then there was the absolute wonder of gazing at 3-D ultrasound pictures of the embryo's face, noble, a beacon of hope, and feeling the joy of the young mother and papa. They are quietly beside themselves. The embryo is about the size of a cob of corn, but if corn could bring joy like this, Iowa would be paradise.
I grew up under Eisenhower, the man who commanded the army that defeated Hitler. I pray otherwise, but the sun set on the British Empire and perhaps it is our turn now. But having this couple visiting us has been a great gift of wonder and contemplation and I pray the baby grows up in a country that cherishes honor and benevolence and beauty.
A person needs beauty in this crazy world in which you order a prescription refill online and it won't go through and you wind up talking to a woman in Ulan Bator who thinks you're complaining about "reception." This is a well-known national pharmaceutical chain, it's not Donny's Drugs operating out of the trunk of his car, and it's out to build its profits at the expense of service and I need latanoprost eye drops to keep glaucoma at bay so I don't need a dog to guide me to the corner bus stop. Our family had schizophrenic spaniels when I was a child and I never developed a close loving relationship with a dog as other children did, which explains my pervasive detachment from social relationships and lack of facial expression, which is why I went into radio rather than becoming a TV newscaster.
I looked solemn on the cover of Time and that's the only expression I have; I don't do delight, just solemnity. In my wedding pictures, I look like a pallbearer.
But looking at this 3-D ultrasound of a radiant child, eyes closed, waiting for June, makes me want to support the orchestras so she can sit in a hall and hear Beethoven and Mozart and Messiaen done by classy players and make sure Yosemite and Zion are still around. I paddled down the Mississippi from Bemidji to the St. Anthony Falls when I was in college and hope she can too and take the architecture tour around the island of Manhattan. She needs to hike the mountains and stop by the Little Bighorn to ponder that classic fool, George Custer. Gettysburg and Mardi Gras are worth her while and the Minnesota State Fair.
It's a great country, friend, and it's up to us to defend it. But we've got to keep this country great for the sake of this beautiful apparition achieving perfection in her mama's midsection. Greatness is good for people once you know what it is.
Garrison Keillor is an author and radio personality. His latest book is "Cheerfulness". Buy it at a 38% discount! by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR.