In the bastardized words of Mr Eliot..."he grows old,he grows old...he wears the bottoms of his rhetoric rolled"..GK as one who occasionally writes good prose but who gained his fame riding in on the provincial foibles of small town Minnesotans - sad fact most of his native audiences loved it like Scandinavian hillbillies enjoying viewing their own mock-celeb religio-cultural experiences, limitations, on stage, ho! So now it's 2007 and we who have survived the fifties need not accept this day with soft-tongued nostalgia dripping from out chins; need not look at the present and Rue the day...but Seize it, hey! BRK, Gullsgate MN

Because so many people are going to latch on to something that they think could be offensive in this piece (and already have) I have to give kudos to Garrison for the main point of the piece, which was to me that adults should stop demanding center stage at all times right around the birth of their first child.

Is it not patently obvious that the comments about "sterotypical gay men" were about the stereotype, not the reality? Hence the forthright identification as such.

It's tempting to say that the outrage over GK's alleged condemnation of serial monogamy or homosexuality (slow down and read people!) is a symptom of what he is talking about: adults leaping at every opportunity to make every issue about themselves. The impossibility of having a conversation about, well, anything, without someone grown person jumping up and saying "Hey, but what about me?!"

Oh, and I think it's also pretty clear that GK's description of those smiling, mannequin parents is supposed to be from a child's perspective, so again, hard to criticize it for seeming nostalgic when it identifies itself as nostalgic.

Go read that Salon article on all the books about how to read, please!

Dear Randall Cameron,

You can listen to PHC on the Internet - just go to prairiehome.org and select "Archive". You can select whatever show you want, and listen to it in whole, or by part.

He's up to something more than "back in my day" blathering in this article, but I haven't figured out what.

I want to think GK is too smart and self-aware to say narcissistic, cringe-inducing lines like "They are better children for having met me." I want to believe he's wiser than to bring a tired argument (gays need to be less flamboyent) from the overstuffed garage of worn-out cultural discourse and present it proudly to us in our living rooms. I don't want another good writer to enter their golden years bloviating about an imagined past.

A small twinge on my right earlobe tells me that Keillor is in on the joke, that the target of this article is "what's best for the children" buffoonery, not gay dads, divorcees, etc. The only problem is that he's wildly shooting from the hip like the drunk brother of one of his clippity-clop cowboys. I really think the target is there, on a fence post in Keillor's mind. Unfortunately he's missed it by a mile.

Garrison Keillor shows his true colors as a bigot and hypocrit. How many marriages has he had? How many extended families has he created? And I thought only his jokes were from the 1950s...

I love that people find you offensive. That is soo funny.

Great work, have a nice week.

Is this a satire? Or is it a heartfelt ode to the "good olde days", which Keillor truly believes existed for "everyone"? (My paents didn't have yards-they grew up in apartment buildings.) Is Keillor talking about monogamy when he really means divorce? And why are gay parents lumped in with the non-monagamous crowd? If Keillor is mocking his own messy past- he is not owning up to it in print. And what about the pizza?! How can he order pizza when he grew up "before pizza"? Is that a joke we're supposed to notice? I'm confused.

The majority of you people have climbed on your horses and drawn your swords without stopping to understand what you're battling.

Nobody knows better than Garrison the failings of Garrison. He's generous with that knowledge everytime he writes. Do you think for an instance he doesn't know how many crappy marriages he's had? Read AGJ's letter a few pages back. Read between Garrison's lines, as he suggests.

Every damned generation is fuzzy nostalgic for 'back in the day', an expression GK shoehorns into this piece twice, just so you get it. And of course, that never existed. I smiled at the potatoes-in-the-fridge thing, because we had them too. It was because if my mom threw out even one, my dad would go ballistic. Good times.

The only point I'll argue with is that we not only don't give a damn about our seniors, we don't give a shit about the children either. The baby-boomers (sorry for the catch-all phrase) are the most self-absorbed bunch of whiners to ever grace the planet. Even at my Dad's crazy worst, he put the welfare of his family first. No thinking person, Garrison included, gives a damn what form your family takes - as long as you work selflessly to get it right. It's a journey.

Well, that's what I read anyway.

...back, you know, in the day.

It's pretty easy to be conservative and nostalgic when you're so rich and successful that you'll never really have to worry about healthcare, companionship or basic respect. I mean, no one is ever going to ignore Mr. Keillor because he's just "some old guy". No one is ever going to put him in a cruddy nursing home, deny him care, and steal his stuff. He will always have adoration, fame and lots of dollars. (At least, if he refrains from serious financial idiocy). So really, what he's saying is "You other people should step back and give up on your stupid 'self expression' while I continue to be a celebrity".

"Do as I say, not as I do"...that was one of those expressions from back in the good old days, right? And we saw how well it worked.