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Speaker 1: Man has almost unlimited power to do damage and cause suffering,

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as we have been learning lately, and some slight power

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to do good. But as we grow up and pay

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attention to our surroundings, we see that we are beneficiaries

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of great gifts for which we can claim no credit.

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And so we have a day of Thanksgiving in November,

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just as we're bracing for another winter. My aunt Eleanor

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was the patron saint of Thanksgiving, and she rent at

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a nearby Legion hall organized a dinner for one hundred

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or more keelers back when I was a kid before

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cell phones, so instead of taking selfies, we had conversation.

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My aunt's told stories about the farm and how Grandpa

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drove a horse drawn mower to cut hay with the

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reins in one hand and a book in the other,

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and the day the house burned down and he raked

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through the ashes looking for photographs, and how he drove

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home once with his first model ty forward and lost

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control of the car and pulled back on the steering wheel,

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yelling whoa, as the car slid into the ditch and

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he sat in it, laughing at himself. I'm so thankful

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for those big reunions, and for my aunt's friendship. I

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live in New York City now and have a nineteen

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twenty photograph on the wall of Grandpa walking down the

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road with my ten year old dad on one side

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and tiny Eleanor on the other. I'm grateful for my

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first grade teacher, as Still Shaver, who kept me after

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school to read aloud to her as she corrected workbooks.

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It was remedial reading, but she made it seem like

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a privilege, and I felt privileged ever since then. For generations,

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women had the easy work of Thanksgiving, which was cooking

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the meal, and men had the hard job of making conversation.

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They sat in the living room with a football game

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on the TV, exchanging monosyllables after a fumble or a touchdown,

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as familiar smells drifted out of the kitchen, where women

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told family secrets too shocking for men to be able

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to handle. And I'm okay with that. I sit and

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stare at the screen watching men crash into each other,

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and I'm grateful for cowardice. I never played football, so

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now I don't have the aches and pains that my

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heroic classmates have. I fooled around with drugs in college,

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but there were cheap, crummy drugs, not the powerful chemicals

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of today that can lead a person to make a

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life sleeping in the park. I'm grateful that I was

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born late enough so that when I developed mitro valve problems,

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open heart surgery was rather common. So I didn't die

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in my late fifties as two of my uncles did.

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And I never was cursed with the sense of my

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own giftedness. People told me I was gifted, but I

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knew better. I have successfully avoided literary awards, so I'm

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not oppressed by my own eminence. Every morning, I feel

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like a beginner. So many blessings and I haven't even

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mentioned friendship, sunsets, public transportation, Christian hymnody, anti seizure, meds,

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other people's toddlers, baseball, hearing aids, the steady, thoughtful leadership

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of my wife, fluoridation, the dairy Queen, heath bar, blizzard,

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dental floss, my duet partner, Heather Massey, the psalms of David,

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drip grind, coffee, cats, YouTube trees, parks, rivers, the prairie, sonnets, Google,

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and cranberries. Cranberries are the heart and soul of Thanksgiving dinner.

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You don't want a gourmet dinner that distracts you from

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your life blessing, so you serve turkey, a profoundly average dish.

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Every turkey dinner is about as good as any other

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turkey dinner. Same with pumpkin pie. But cranberries are terribly exciting.

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They are the Robert Frost of fruits, the Flowbear, the

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Frank Lloyd Wright, the Gabriel Foram. You can overcook the

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turkey and serve a pumpkin pie. It is just pudding

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with a crust. But if you serve cranberries you're okay.

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Just released a Prairie Home Companion's fiftieth anniversary two CD set,

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recorded live at the Fitzgerald Theater. Garrison Keeler and the

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Gang celebrate with music, sketches, and of course the news

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from Lake Wobegon. Get to tales at Garrisonkeeler dot com