Mr. Keillor, are you kidding? My monogamouns parents were quite happy but they sure didn't focus attention on the children. None of the parents did back then. My parents had dinner by themselves in the living room after all us kids had been fed. They usually had better food too. And they left us pretty much to our own devices.

I am not complaining. I think it was great.

I am old enough to remember when we were all cowboys. It got pretty crowded around the campfire, as I recall, and I ended up sharing a bedroll with old Gabby on cold, winter nights. But, really, Mr. K, shouldn't you have consulted with Meryl or Lily or someone with some experience of the real world before opening your anachronistic trap?

And I can't help but wondering: which one of your three marriages are you so gall-durned nostalgic for?

Just thinking with my mouth open.

Here's a recent quote from a writer...

"Of course, today, elders mean nothing to GenX'ers, just as their kids are nothing more than props in their lives."

Generalizations, especially hurtful ones, have no place in conversation. How in the world could a person say the above sentence about ANY group (GenX'ers, gays, blacks, redheads, etc.) and not see themselves as a bigot?

I'm a GenX'er, and I take great offense at the statement that my son is nothing more to me than a prop in my life! What nerve!

I don't believe in the "Generation Wars." I believe that people from all walks of life suffer. And when looking for the causes of that suffering, all too often scapegoat another group. Gays, blacks, immigrants, women are frequent targets, but the group of people older than you, or the group younger than you, is an easy target too, and it seems completely valid, because it's so regularly reinforced. "Kids these days," is a cliche, because so many people have said it for so many generations.

It still isn’t true.

i was confused about this "whatever it was". has garrison keillor lost his mind? or had a stroke? mr. everyone-goes-about-their-business-here-at -lake-wobegone has suddenly become a seperatist nut case.

1. you advocate a marital way of life you yourself are unable to sustain? glass houses, etc.

2. your bizarre simplification of gay men and how they act? where have you been the last, oh, 20 years? aside from the ignorant stereotypes, it shows the stigma of a lazy writer. one who falls back on hackneyed descriptions when their imagination and curiosity about the real world fall short. it's the equivalent of "it was a dark and stormy night..". but without the irony or humor.

3. most dissapointingly, it makes me rethink your entire body of work. i wonder if you've been harboring this animosity and inane point of view all along. how did you hide it when you appeared in your closest claim to fame, the film version of "A Prairie Home Companion"?

feh to you. you spun some fantastical view of americans as earnest good natured people while behind the curtain you seem to stew in your own small minded and bad natured idea of what makes people great. in effect, you knifed your own vision in the back.

It must be nice to be able to stereotype and entire lifestyle based on limited esposure, and personal ideas. Especially when one already has problems of his own (three different kids, with three different women). Possibly a little hypocritical? I think so! I highly doubt that the children at this school are "better for having met this man". Give me a quarter-million dollars and I could prove it, I'm sure. Practice what you preach!!~

Gee, I grew up in a "mixed-gender" family, too, as if that's some bloody exclusive club, you Woebegone s.o.b. I am so happy your childhood with your never-separated-til-death parents was so wonderful that you only turned out to be a narrowminded bigot, forever stuck in a fusty, faux-nostaligia America, circa 1912, bitch. Of course we all know that every last heterosexual person, up to including John Couey, are just paragons of goodness, virtuosity, morality, and taste. Not a striped sofa to be seen for miles! And just look at how well our nation's been running on the input of ignorant hypocrites like you for the last 7 years. Garrison (and isn't *that* a q-u-e-e-r kinda name), you really need to meet this Coulter person everyone's talking about - she seems like a woman who'd be right up your exclusionary alley, a woman to entice you once again to leave your wife and have an affair, as you did with your Danish teacher during your second marriage. (Yes, Mr Woebegone is on his 3rd one now, this arbiter of morality.) Bob Altman spins in his grave for you. In chartreuse pants. On a striped sofa.

What a ridiculous argument. What evidence, exactly, is there that there was any such thing as an "old monogamous system" at all? Just because people claimed they were monogamous in Keillor's "good ole days" doesn't mean they actually were. Indeed, it seems that Mr. Keillor himself has been MARRIED THREE TIMES! Hypocrisy, anyone?

Hank Hill, you are pining for a day when many people were second class citizens. You pine for a day when many people were denied jobs or education or housing or simply the opportunity to be regarded as equals and worthy of respect. You pine for a day when all those people -- and yes, I'm talking about anyone who wasn't white and male and Christian -- were expected to accept their second class status and smile politely when they were referred to by slurs.

It has been a confusing time since the great civil right movements of the 1950's and on. Undoing centuries of the status quo is bound to be messy, and it will get messier still as society struggles towards full equality and respect for all living beings. No doubt some good things were thrown out along with all the bad, though I doubt they are irretrievable and will, if people value them, become prevalent again.

You will probably disagree, but the rampant commercialism which produces so much vulgarity nowadays is the logical result of unfettered capitalism and the rightwing politicians who cheer it on. That, and not civil rights or "PC," is what is tearing apart communities and distorting values.

Your last point on parents and children is poignant. I'm sorry you are in the postion you're in, but you are wrong to assume it's a universal problem.