The daily pursuit of happiness

Texting replaced the postcard mostly, and I have a shoebox full of old postcards from long-departed relatives about the happy afternoon spent in Pasadena or Lincoln’s home in Springfield or the Empire State Building. My people were reluctant to express happiness for fear it might be bragging but I love to think of them writing about the “lovely day” they spent walking around Springfield.The box needs to be discarded but I love my mother’s penmanship. I will recognize it even when I’m deep into dementia and have forgotten the street names of Minneapolis (Aldrich, Bryant, Colfax, Dupont, Emerson, Fremont, etc.). I come from serious people but when they wrote postcards they were always happy. Look in my shoebox, see for yourself.Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music

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Episode Transcript

(00:07):
My grandma was a school teacher,and she had a high regard for education,
which propelled me toward college, whereI imagined myself as a writer,
which, as it turned out,became my life. An intriguing chain reaction,

(00:29):
the idealism of an old lady leadingto pretentious ambition on my part,
which, after years of hard workwriting the bad stuff so I could get
to the better stuff, took medown a long, lovely road. Grandma

(00:49):
said, you don't want to bea five dollars haircut on a twenty nine
cent head, and now you havethirty dollars haircuts. Twenty nine cents doesn't
buy you much of anything. Apostcard stamp is forty eight cents, and
you still have to buy the postcard. Texting replaced the postcard mostly, and

(01:15):
I have a shoe box full ofold postcards from long departed relatives about the
happy afternoons spent in Pasadena, orAbraham Lincoln's home in Springfield, or the
Empire State Building. My people werereluctant to express happiness for fear it might

(01:40):
be bragging, but I love tothink of them writing about the lovely day
they spent walking around Springfield, Illinois. The shoe box needs to be discarded,
but I love my mother's penman.I will still recognize it even when

(02:02):
I'm deep into dementia and have forgottenthe street names of Minneapolis Aldrich, Bryant,
Kofax, DuPont, Emerson, Fremont, et cetera. I come from
serious people, but when they wrotepostcards, they were always happy. Look

(02:23):
at my shoe boxing for yourself.I am adopting happiness as a way of
life. It isn't what Grandma taughtme or the University of Minnesota. She
taught me to strive to do mybest, and the university taught me to
be a good citizen and worry aboutthe debt sealing crisis. And I do

(02:47):
what I can on both fronts.But I also know that when I feel
overwhelmed, it helps to cook macaroniand chef ease and think of Mabel in
the cafeteria spooning the stuff onto ourtrays. I was a happy kid who

(03:12):
learned the skills of invisibility, andso I escaped the attention of the bullies
of the school, and nobody everbeat me up. I've practiced cowardice all
my life, and it's been veryrewarding. I was ten years old at

(03:32):
the time, very unconcerned about thespread of communism in Eastern Europe or the
prospect of nuclear war. And nowI'm in a second childhood when, for
example, a watermelon salad can makeme suddenly happy, or a friend telling

(03:57):
me a joke. Young people don'ttell jokes. They're concerned about systemic injustice.
And I understand that somebody needs tobe. But it makes me happy
when my friend says, the wonderfulthing about a liberal arts education is that

(04:18):
you'll learn to despise the wealth thatyou'll never have. It's like a eunuch
condemning adultery. He's an English majortoo. Limericks I still enjoy and have
since I was a boy, fivelines of verse with twists but terse to

(04:43):
amuse some and others annoy. Iwish I knew about what made Lincoln happy.
He comes down to us as aheavy hearted wartime president who met a
track end that night in the theater. But I wish I knew what he

(05:04):
played with his boys, and whathe liked for breakfast, and what he
and Mary talked about other than thewar. It's the dailiness of life.
That appeals to me in my oldage, the way you swing out of

(05:25):
bed with some simple objectives in mind. Coffee medications, a toasted waffle,
and while it toasts, you writedown on a piece of paper. An
old fellow toasted a waffle and burntit, which made him feel awful,

(05:47):
and while he ate it, thoughtof people he hated and things he might
do that aren't lawful, which leadsto Google, which I dearly love.
No more bulky reference books. Ifloat like a butterfly over the meadow of

(06:09):
knowledge, and I read about thelegalization of marijuana, and then Jerry Garcia
and look up the lyrics to hissong Rippon, and I look up synonyms
for stupid, including hair brained,pin head, nit wit, and screwball.

(06:30):
And I look up screwball and findout it's a pitch that breaks the
opposite way from a curveball. Ialso learn that the great screwballer Warren Spawn,
at age forty two, pitched asixteen inning game and through two hundred

(06:53):
pitches. Elvis Presley died at ageforty two, but I don't look him
up. It's just too sad.I look up Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
and his sled dog King who foughtevildoers in the northern wilderness. All this

(07:13):
before nine am. I will neversay a bad word about Google or search
for a better search engine. Butnow it's time to buckle down and make
something of myself. Want to seeGarrison in person? There are plenty of

(07:34):
chances as he criss crosses the countrydoing fun packed shows solo or with other
Prairie Home favorites. Track his scheduleunder the events tab at garrisoncuether dot com.