Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
-- Garrison Keillor
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
-- Garrison Keillor
On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick
tomatoes. Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August
they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked up one and threw
it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato
at my brother. He whipped one back at me. We ducked down by the vines,
heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister, who was a good person, said,
“You're going to get it.” She bent over and kept on picking.
What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over,
she looked like the side of a barn.
I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked like it
had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it,
and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup,
when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice. I had
to decide quickly. I decided.
A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat
man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after
faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain
me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who was a
good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears. I guess she knew that
the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing
a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end.
-- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick
tomatoes. Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August
they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked up one and threw
it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato
at my brother. He whipped one back at me. We ducked down by the vines,
heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister, who was a good person, said,
“You're going to get it.” She bent over and kept on picking.
What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over,
she looked like the side of a barn.
I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked like it
had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it,
and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup,
when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice. I had
to decide quickly. I decided.
A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat
man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after
faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain
me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who was a
good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears. I guess she knew that
the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing
a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end.
-- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
-- Garrison Keillor
If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets
and fire them all off, wouldn't you?
-- Garrison Keillor
“...if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust,
this would be a better world." - Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days”
Asked how she felt being the first woman to make a major-league team, she
said, "Like a pig in mud," or words to that effect, and then turned and
released a squirt of tobacco juice from the wad of rum soaked plug in her
right cheek. She chewed a rare brand of plug called Stuff It, which she
learned to chew when she was playing Nicaraguan summer ball. She told the
writers, "They were so mean to me down there you couldn't write it in your
newspaper. I took a gun everywhere I went, even to bed. *Especially* to
bed. Guys were after me like you can't believe. That's when I started
chewing tobacco -- because no matter how bad anybody treats you, it's not
as bad as this. This is the worst chew in the world. After this,
everything else is peaches and cream." The writers elected Gentleman Jim,
the Sparrow's P.R. guy, to bite off a chunk and tell them how it tasted,
and as he sat and chewed it tears ran down his old sunburnt cheeks and he
couldn't talk for a while. Then he whispered, "You've been chewing this for
two years? God, I had no idea it was so hard to be a woman."
-- Garrison Keillor
He didn't run for reelection. "Politics brings you into contact with all
the people you'd give anything to avoid," he said. "I'm staying home."
-- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegone Days"
“He didn't run for reelection. `Politics brings you into contact with all the
people you'd give anything to avoid,' he said. `I'm staying home.'”
-- Garrison Keillor, _Lake_Wobegone_Days_
“To your left is the marina where several senior cabinet officials keep luxury
yachts for weekend cruises on the Potomac. Some of these ships are up to 100
feet in length; the Presidential yacht is over 200 feet in length, and can
remain submerged for up to 3 weeks.”
-- Garrison Keillor
Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the men are strong, the women are pretty,
and the children are above-average.
-- Garrison Keillor
“If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and
fire them all off, wouldn't you?”
-- Garrison Keillor
Asked how she felt being the first woman to make a major-league team, she
said, "Like a pig in mud," or words to that effect, and then turned and
released a squirt of tobacco juice from the wad of rum soaked plug in her
right cheek. She chewed a rare brand of plug called Stuff It, which she
learned to chew when she was playing Nicaraguan summer ball. She told the
writers, "They were so mean to me down there you couldn't write it in your
newspaper. I took a gun everywhere I went, even to bed. *Especially* to
bed. Guys were after me like you can't believe. That's when I started
chewing tobacco -- because no matter how bad anybody treats you, it's not
as bad as this. This is the worst chew in the world. After this,
everything else is peaches and cream." The writers elected Gentleman Jim,
the Sparrow's P.R. guy, to bite off a chunk and tell them how it tasted,
and as he sat and chewed it tears ran down his old sunburnt cheeks and he
couldn't talk for a while. Then he whispered, "You've been chewing this for
two years? God, I had no idea it was so hard to be a woman."
-- Garrison Keillor
If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets
and fire them all off, wouldn't you?
-- Garrison Keillor
He didn't run for reelection. "Politics brings you into contact with all
the people you'd give anything to avoid," he said. "I'm staying home."
-- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegone Days"