A primer for my friends of middle-age

Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

Society & Culture, Fiction, Comedy Fiction, Improv, Comedy

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There is always an excuse for not exercising, a religious prohibition, some hereditary syndrome that makes you feel desperate when you breathe hard, an allergic reaction to your own perspiration, but these can be overcome with help. My excuse is that I hated high school phy-ed with a passion, the chin-ups, the rope climb, the running somersault, the running dive over the horse, the wrestling, the ridicule and the bullying, and I despised walking naked into a shower with other young men. I still do. After I graduated, I made it a point not to join other naked men to take showers. When invited, I have declined. If this is a favorite activity of yours, I do not judge. For some men, this may be the high point of the week. Don’t say this is self-loathing on my part because it isn’t: it’s the other men I loathe, not myself. And it’s not homophobia. I have many gay male friends and they do not undress when they come to my home. I am perfectly okay taking a shower by myself or with my wife on very rare occasions such as my 70th and 80th birthdays, the Feast Day of the Assumption in August and on October 27, the day on which Jack Morris pitched the Minnesota Twins to a 1-0 victory in the 7th game of the 1991 World Series.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	No one says running a restaurant is easy, but Square definitely makes it easier.
0:05.1	So much more than a point of sale, Square is packed with clever tech to help all areas of the business,
0:10.3	like staff time cards and customer loyalty programs, as well as fast access to your takings,
0:15.4	so you can focus on what you do best, delivering great food and great service.
0:20.0	Square, begin restaurants.
0:21.7	Join at square.com.
0:23.0	Please apply.
0:23.6	Square Up Europe Limited is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority
0:25.8	under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011.
0:27.8	Registered reference number 970846. Some lessons are best learned slowly rather than all at once, such as don't attempt to move rapidly indoors after darkness, especially if it's not your house.
1:02.6	It has led to grief for numerous persons, few of whom will ever tell you about it.
1:10.4	So it's a lesson you'll have to learn on your own,
1:14.6	which is the best way. I, for example, have learned do vigorous exercise while you still can
1:25.3	because if you don't, then you can't.
1:28.3	Jumping jacks, for example, one day there are a piece of cake,
1:34.3	and so you figure why waste the time, and then you try to do one,
1:39.3	and it's very humorous.
1:43.3	Same as true of running. One day you can lope along like an elderly but still
1:51.2	respectable antelope, and then one day, strangers will stop you and ask if there's anything
1:58.6	they can do to help. No, there probably is not.
2:04.1	There's always an excuse for not exercising.
2:09.6	Maybe a religious prohibition,
	...

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