"I learned to hoe when I was her age and soon therafter to pick potatoes." Pick potatoes?! I don't believe a word of it—not the verb, anyway, not even in Minnesota.

How does nhe get away with writing crap like this? Are all you people stupid?

While young, 25, i grew up in rural montana raising corn, squash, and potatoes in my family's large garden. In addition helped my dad brand our horses. As a result i have many scars, but also many stories and value the cushy silicon valley job i currently have.

While my officemates complain that their AC doesn't work at home and the lack of a corporate coffee machine. I giggle.

Pure poetry, Mr. Keillor. The sense of "everybody seemed to be more or less in the same boat." is it seems a fading thought among us, "everyone for themselves" seems more contemporary. The joy in 'honest' work, manual labor, isn't gone, just the honoring and valuing that perhaps have never been properly appreciated.

W. Belote

I don't know what kind of fancy potato trees y'all got up there in Minnesota, but where I come from, we DIG potatoes, because you see, they grow under the ground.

gives me sweet joy to take a swipe at ole GK for the time he misinterpreted my letter to Mr. Blue. Ha-ha. Ha ha ha.

I grew up watching my father and men like him "work hard and play by the rules." They worked long hours. They were loyal to their companies and proud of the work that they did. The men of my childhood believed that this blue collar work was the key to a better life for their families. For many years, this was true.

However, since about the mid-70s or so, this work ethic has stopped yielding results for these men. Many of them were laid-off or "downsized" by the corporations that they’d dedicated their lives to. Unions were broken or gutted. Good jobs were sent to the 3rd world. The gap between the wealthy and poor is growing wider than it’s been since before WWII. The middle class is shrinking.

I understand the desire to return to a time when blue collar work was way of life for the middle class. However, those jobs and that life are not available to most of us today. Now, it’s "every man for himself." No one under the ago of 30 knows what the word "pension" means. The working world has changed.

When you harvest potatoes - regardless if it's in your garden or in a farm field - the ground is turned over. The final step is to pick the potato. If the ground has spud-sized stones its easy to mistake rock for vegetable.

Modern farm machinery misses a large number of potatoes, and the farmer and his family often makes several passes over the fields trying get the entire crop in. This is supposedly the difference between a farm that does well and just gets by.

This writing is crap only if you have never done hard work. And sitting at a desk - never ever qualifies as hard work.

In GK's defense, I cite a song I heard on his show, by Peter Ostroushko, about his Ukrainian heritage. The lyrics go:

My people are built low to the ground,

My people are built low to the ground,

My people are built low to the ground,

So they can pick potatoes.

Actually, even though I'm a huge fan of GK's, I don't care much for this piece, except the part about his daughter. That touches my heart.

When I was a senior in high school, in 1971, I overheard a conversation between two men who were older than I was, but younger than my father, who was in his 50's at the time. Like my father, they were businessmen...but the tone and attitude of their exchange was so foriegn to my father's value structure -- and believe me, he was no saint -- that I instantly knew that the world had changed in a profound way.

No, the 60's counter culture wasn't taking over, but rather the lazy, manipulative, back stabbing, short sighted middle class business ethic which flourished in the 80's and beyond. Even as a 17 year old, I knew that I would have to either drop my sincere work ethic, or end up in the poor house.

I stuck to my guns, and finally had to file for bankrupsy the day before 9/11.

I'm afraid this is a lament about getting older, not that times are-a-changin'. Unfortunately we often lack the desire to gain perspective necessary to listen to what our elders say, generation after generation, in word, in writing, in chiseled stone.

This is the great lament of the aged. Every senior in high school has complained about the shoddy crop of freshmen, and every foreman and manager has bemoaned the lack of good hard workers because lord knows "I" never took so much time to do such a little job.

I'm sorry y'all think the world has changed. Maybe it has for you, maybe it has here. But maybe it's the fella who's gotten grey, who's spent the last thirty years getting wiser and has got aches that just won't rub away, the guy who's moved a few times and has a fleet of broken car and dental work bills in his desk drawer might be the thing that's changed, and not the big bad world?

At any rate, I used to pay 50 cents for a cup of coffee and I'd always tip maggie a buck. I'd sit at her counter, eat a couple slices of toast and leave after an hour or two. Today I just get my caramel macchiato, which costs about $2.85, and I sit at the window for a few minutes. It's not really that different, it's just a different choice that a fella who's older decided to make. If I wanted the table service and the bottomless cup of brackish, it's two doors down, only the coffee is a dollar.

I'm not sure where Mr. K is living now, but it's not Minneapolis, or Chicago, or New York, or San Francisco if he can't find a diner to sit down at, smile at the waitress, and get a hot cup of coffee without even asking for it. Maybe Mr. K just doesn't want that any more.