Man walks out on stage as storm rolls in

Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

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

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I loved that audience dearly and gave them a good ninety minutes and afterward a distinguished man stopped by to shake hands. Back when, he’d heard me on the radio. I said, “I detect an air of authority about you. You’re the president of something.” He said he was a retired Army major; he’d commanded a tank battalion. “Where?” I said. “Vietnam,” he said. I said I’d never heard of tanks used in Vietnam. He said, “That’s because they would’ve sunk four feet down in the Delta and so they were useless. When we got there, we became infantry.”I said, “You’re looking at a draft dodger.” I felt I owed it to him. I said that I was ordered to report for induction and I wrote to the draft board and told them why I wouldn’t go and I didn’t. I waited for the knock on the door and it never came. So I did a radio show for fifty years without using my name. He looked me in the eye and said, “You did the right thing.” It was a profound moment. I felt that an accommodation had been made. I was forgiven by a man who had earned that right. There was no need to say more.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I did my solo stand-up act in Ohio last week and in the midst of a story the auditorium shook with a blast of thunder. I paused, the audience laughed, another
0:30.8	role of thunder, and I started singing how great thou art with the line I see the
0:38.6	stars I hear the rolling thunder and the audience joined in en masse. They knew the words, they sang it so beautifully.
0:50.0	The chorus even drowned out the thunder.
0:55.0	I was telling a story about me as a teenager necking with a girl in a car and
1:00.0	one thunder struck again.
1:02.0	I looked up at the ceiling addressing the Lord and I said it was her idea. It wasn't mine. She unbuttoned my shirt.
1:11.0	I loved that audience dearly and gave them a good 90 minutes and afterward
1:19.0	a distinguished man stopped by to shake hands. Way back when he'd heard me on the radio, he said.
1:28.0	I told him that I detected an air of authority about him. Was he the president of something?
1:39.0	He said no, he was a retired Army major. He had commanded a tank battalion.
1:46.0	I said where? He said Vietnam.
1:49.0	I said I'd never heard of tanks used in Vietnam.
1:54.8	He said that's because they would have sunk four feet down in the delta, so they were useless.
2:01.6	When we got there we became infantry. And I looked at him and I told him,
2:08.6	you are looking at a draft Dodger. I just felt that I owed it to him. I told him that I was ordered to
2:17.4	report for induction and I wrote to my draft board and told them why I wouldn't go and I didn't go. I waited for the
2:27.8	knock on the door and it never came. So I did a radio show for 50 years without using my name. He looked me in the
2:39.4	eye and he said, you did the right thing.
2:45.0	It was a profound moment.
2:48.0	I felt that an accommodation had been made.
2:52.0	I was forgiven by a man who had earned the right to forgive
	...

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