The birth of the spotless giraffe at a zoo in Tennessee, the only known one on earth, is important news to those of us who grew up as oddballs, seeing the spotted mama giraffe nuzzling her child, remembering the kindness of aunts and teachers who noticed our helpless naivete and guided us through the shallows.And then there was the story of the cable car in Pakistan that lost a couple cables and dangled helplessly hundreds of feet in the air with terrified children inside. A nightmare in broad daylight. A rescuer harnessed to the remaining cable had to bring the children one by one to safety. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

I hear people complain about police and city planners and the health care system, but never about firemen or EMTs, and few complain about slow delivery of mail, perhaps because so few people write letters these days. I do and delivery is prompt. This morning I wrote a postcard with a limerick for a new father:Byron is his child’s wiperAnd poop does not make him hyper,He cleans the behindWith a calm focused mindAnd fastens a fresh tiny diaper.A phone text would be eco-friendlier but a written message has the hope of being taped to the fridge, maybe saved in a drawer and 50 years from now the infant’s children will find it and be amused. Fundraising appeals are tossed and paid bills but the little poem about defecation will give pleasure long after I am gone: this is the hope. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

But I found my glasses today. They were in my jacket pocket. Sometimes they’re in a shirt pocket, sometimes perched on top of my head. The frenzy ends, the problem solves itself. The comedian is grateful. He looks around and appreciates the beauty of the day, the here and now. It’s 5 a.m. My love is asleep in the bedroom, my daughter in her bedroom. I look out at the lights of New York. I make coffee, take my meds. The day awaits. There is work to be done. Then daughter Maia and I will take a brisk walk around Central Park. There will be lunch, a nap, a phone call, perhaps from cousin Elizabeth explaining how Our Lord, though omniscient and omnipotent, nonetheless experienced our mortality with all its sorrows and pain, or maybe cousin Joyce planning our trip to Scotland, or cousin Richard reminiscing about his travels in Africa. I am rich with cousins. My love has only a couple of second cousins. I have dozens. Cousin Stan is 90, my mentor. Elizabeth is my conscience, Dan my doctor, Susie my family  historian, Janice my authority on cheerfulness. Dad had six siblings, Mother twelve. This connects me to hundreds of people, including a month-old great-nephew. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

At the game I sat next to a true Twins fan named Alex who gave me the lowdown on various players and yelled the right things — “Looked good to me!” at the ump who’d called a strike a ball and “Good eye!” at a Twin who let Ball 3 go by and “Throw him the meatball!” at the opposition pitcher who had an 0-2 count on a Twins batter.It was a big pleasure, the proximity to genuine fandom. I’m old and out of touch. I paid $45 for a Twins cap: in my mind, it should’ve been $5. The Kramarczuk’s bratwurst stand doesn’t take cash, only credit cards. I don’t get it. What country is this? But I bought one, with kraut and mustard, and it was good as ever. I’m not used to the raucous music blaring every half-inning though it thrilled the row of girls ahead of us who stood up, hips shaking, arms waving. I come from the era of intense silence. I may be the only person in the ballpark who remembers the fall day in 1969 when Rod Carew got on base with a double, took a big lead, stole third, and the fans sat transfixed in silence, knowing he might do it, wishing he’d do it, praying, and then he did it — he took a daring lead off third and dashed home and slid under the tag and we jumped up and yelled, “YES!” We didn’t need the Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” to rouse us, the feat of stealing home was enough. I can still see it in my mind, his perfect timing, the headlong slide. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

I imagine that someday at America’s boarding gates, after the wheelchair passengers are boarded and Those Who Need Extra Time, then active military, there will be other categories of merit to be given precedence, Persons Traumatized By Flight, Persons In Need Of Affirmation, Persons Trapped In Bad Relationships, and why not add Unappreciated Poets and Third-Grade Teachers to the list. And then you let the Fat Cats board for First Class, and then the peons and peasants. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

The simple pleasures of a long close marriage on a perfect October day, leaves dropping from the trees, eating an egg salad sandwich after her long morning walk, playing Scrabble. She talks about who and what she saw on her hike and I, the writer, am silent in thought, having played the word “irony,” which triggers the memory of a day long ago in Saginaw, Michigan.I’d gone there to give a speech — don’t remember the occasion, only that afterward, a man in a shiny blue suit said to me, “It’s so hard to get good speakers to come to Saginaw.” And it wasn’t clear if this was a compliment or an insult. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

So my friend’s fussiness about the coffee was, in fact, a tribute to the excellence of the restaurant. (Did I mention that this was in Northern California, in a town where a small bungalow goes for $1.8 million and you can’t get a Tootsie Roll for less than five bucks?) She sent back the coffee with oat milk because it didn’t taste fresh. I’m in awe of that. In Minnesota, we feed oats to horses and they eat it, no questions asked. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

I don’t belong in New York, I’m a loner, I have the social skills of a hoot owl, but I accept the amusement that the city offers. I saw a dog on the subway with earbuds on and I asked the guy holding the leash what the dog was listening to and he said, “Those are hearing aids.” But he said it sort of sarcastically. You get a lot of irony in New York. So I asked my audiologist if there is such a thing as veterinary audiology and she said, “I think so because there is a hearing test for animals but I think it’s a branch of neurology.” She didn’t seem to want to delve into it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

I went to see The Magic Flute at the Met last week and dozed through the sleepy parts of it, woke up for the Queen of the Night aria, and again when the Papageno dashed into the audience carrying a stepladder. This almost never happens in opera. My beloved explained it to me during intermission: “It means he is looking for something higher.” “Oh, right,” I said. But several times during Act One he dropped the ladder, which made a great clatter and you could feel the audience awaken, which is a good thing.Papageno was played by a Dutch baritone, Thomas Oliemans, and he doesn’t have a big voice but he was having a big time clowning around onstage with the ladder for a prop. He’s a fine actor and quite agile for an opera singer, unlike singers of yesteryear who embraced the “Park and Bark” style, and I was fully awake for his big moment. He did something I’ve never seen before on an opera stage and don’t expect to see again.This is Mozart’s great final opera, written shortly before his death, his homage to Masonic ideals of enlightenment and civility, but here was Papageno lining up a dozen beer bottles on stage and playing a tune on them with sticks of celery. One bottle sounded flat so he pretended to drink from it and thereby raised the pitch. And then another bottle sounded sharp, so he stood, back to the audience, very still, his hands in front of him, and the audience got the joke instantly: Papageno was urinating into the bottle to lower the pitch. (Not really, it’s only acting, but on the other hand, how do we know for sure?) He zipped up, and tapped it and the tone was lower, and the audience fell apart, especially the ones with male pronouns.Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2

I’m at the age when you see the insides of more than your share of health clinics and some are like walking into a meat warehouse but when I walked into New York Presbyterian the other day and then the Hospital for Special Surgery, I was struck by the extraordinary kindness of everyone — even the security woman welcomed me like a friend and the receptionists and the guide who took me back to an examining room and the tech who did the exam — it really knocked me out, me a Midwesterner, this being New York — and I found Lillian the supervisor and told her what a wonderful place this is: “Most people walking in here are having a bad week and the kindness and good manners of this place mean So Much. Thank you.”Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2