glad I'm not your wife. Sheesh, way to put the kibosh on it.

Barn

In our society, getting old is the worst thing that can happen to you, or so they would like us to think. Now I'm surprised to see Mr. Keillor firmly in the "they" camp, with this "youth belongs to the young" crapola.

I'm teaching a class these days (another thing young comedians do when they get older.) Last week I had to listen to a 23 year old complain about her "Quarter-Life Crisis" and how she feels like she's getting nowhere in her career after "almost a full year in Los Angeles" ... really there is no good response to this. I could have told her the the Fender Telecaster I bought new and dragged through nearly a decade of bad punk rock shows is also 23 years old, or I could have told her about the really countless hours I've spent trying to crack the nut of understanding my own 'comedy'...never mind trying to get the rest of the world to buy in. ...but really you can't do any of that. You just have to listen and nod... and try to picture that girl in 20 years... Will she be a wildly successful superstar? ...a dedicated but struggling artist? ...or tucked away somewhere in suburbia recalling when she was young and foolish, no not foolish... BRAVE.

You never know.

...and yes, her laugh reminds me of a girl I knew a long time ago... don't they all?

YOU NEED A WIFE!

So I'm reading your column in Salon and I get whiplash about thighs and sex and laughter and we are about the same age.....

WOW! I am young again. And we get blasted for thinking and remembering like we need amnesia and we need to stand in the corner with a hat and a party favor...with a bottle of Metamucil and a thermometer up our rectum because we have wrinkles and we shop at the scooter store. Shame on old people not writing their age.

Well I loved it and I remembered a few laughs too like my uncle in the next room watching Hogan's Heroes while my just got married wife (we kept it a secret) and I (we told no one) had a honeymoon in the next room. The Hogan laugh track covered the usual wedding night fun! I'll bet nobody thinks about Hogan's Heroes like we do!

Thanks...

... with the Medicare funding crisis.

If more of us geezers could go out quietly and serenely on a deadly cocktail when we were ready, instead of having to spend hundreds of thousands and more on "heroic" medicine: the surgeries, the life support measures, more surgeries, months in the hospital, yet more surgeries, medical devices, appliances, and supplies, finally culminating in the decision of whether to turn off the machines, long after actual life has fled.

Sure, you would pay anything to prolong your life - unless maybe it was no longer much like "life" - at least, any life that would be worth living. Or if you no longer knew whether or not you still lived.

Then euthanasia, or even simple permitted decline, might be a blessing. What would Terry Schiavo have done, if she'd been around to make her decision?

Plus, think of the savings.

Can't allow that it's OK to fantasize and remember fondly his first time without feeling guilty about all the crises in the world.

Look, it was great while it lasted, we all do or not do things when we are young that we learn from but, hopefully, we don't look at it 45 years later hoping it will fill some hole in our soul.

"A person should be horrified by young people laughing at euthanasia"

Or, they can understand that, in youth, we all cross boundaries and learn from the experience. I am more concerned by a person of your age, experience, creativity and intellect wanting to move on and excuse the law-breaking of people who have trashed our constitution by torturing people. THAT you should know better about.

This guy is a crude and compassionless jerk. I hope his daughter and his son of one of his former wives never sees this. He pretty much manages to insult the elderly, the dying, the middle aged and his wives in a few paragraphs. No wonder he never saw that girl again. Go back to Sweden. Why on earth does Salon employ this jerk. Plus Prairie Home Companion is neither clever nor entertaining. In fact it sucks. I bet his daughter would rather clean the toilet than listen to that.No wonder public radio is about to go down.

own your death: Brautigan, Plath, Hemingway.

No laughter from the nurses, or their daughters, and it wouldn't matter even if they did.

...unless you've decided it does.

We are the sum of all our experiences.

I'm not sure if Garrison is married but if I was his wife I would have no problem with this rememberance of a past love. He doesn't express any desire to relive the experience and I hope my first love remembers our first summer of love making with as much fondness.

I always get caught up in Garrison's style and humor when he writes a story. He has a hand that captures something unique, like the eye of a photographer that can focus on the mundane and present an item of beauty. Slipping the cat into the narrative was pure genius.

Thanks Garrison, you made me recall the first time I went to "Third Base" with a handsome young midshipman at the Naval Academy. It was snowing outside, and we were on the sofa inside, I think it was a kind of ballroom, in the main building. It was scary and fun and giggly -

As for the nurse, geez, is she in jail yet? I'm pro euthanasia in some instances, but with her daughter blabbling all over the place, I'd be surprised if she isn't. That said, I hope there is a nurse like that for me when I am ready to go.