Advertisement

Posting on Facebook, Keillor learns, is like issuing a press release

September 17, 2009 at 12:30AM

Garrison Keillor called me back Monday because he was touched by the "sweet message" left on his voice mail.

I telephoned Keillor last week when his Facebook pals informed me that the humorist and author reported being in the hospital. Doctors later determined Keillor had suffered a mild stroke.

Near as I recall, my message said that my mother taught me that you don't ask why someone is sick, you just wish them well. But, I asked Keillor, how do I behave when someone publicly posts personal stuff?

"That was a very sweet message, your mother bringing you up just to wish people well and not to ask what's going on with them," Keillor said in that distinctive baritone, followed by that equally distinctive laugh.

I mistakenly asked Keillor if he does his own Twittering, and he corrected me. "I'm not a Twit," he said. Facebook is his outreach. Because some big celebrities have their assistants do their updates, I asked if he updated his own Facebook page. "Well, sure, of course," Keillor said. He was surprised by how quickly his Facebook friends shared his news with people like me. "Those are all people I know mostly," he said. "I didn't know I was putting out a press release when I did that, so I will be forewarned."

The storyteller painted quite the picture of his hospital stay. "Well, listen, kid, I was down at Mayo for four days, towing my IV behind me and trying not to look into the rooms of the stroke ward. But you do, of course, and there are all of these people who are collapsed and trying to walk and here you are waltzing along and you feel like the guy at D-Day who suffered a sprained wrist."

I told Keillor about a health scare with my well-mannered mother, who took ill in Ohio on a cross-country car trip. (Thanks to Lima Memorial Hospital for tremendous care and to NWA/Delta for its emergency tix.)

Keillor said I should write about my family. "Nothing bad happens to a writer," he said. "Everything is material. Now I have my column for this week. Absolutely."

Advertisement
Advertisement

I said I looked forward to reading Sunday's column in our editorial pages. "Thank you, dear," Keillor said, ending our most unusual phone call.

O.J.'s ex tells her story Christie Prody told "Inside Edition" that she was lucky to have survived her relationship with O.J. Simpson.

In a two-part interview with IE's senior correspondent Jim Moret, Minnesota's Prody said she didn't leave what she claims was a physically abusive relationship with Simpson because he threatened: "You don't want to end up like Nicole."

Simpson was acquitted in 1995 for the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. When Simpson was sentenced in 2008 for his role in an armed robbery of what he claimed was memorabilia stolen from him, Prody seized her opportunity to escape and got into rehab. They had been together off-and-on for 13 years during which violence, drugs and alcohol were all allegedly part of her world. "Like many battered women, she claimed she returned after promises the violence would end. But Prody said the beatings continued," Moret told IE viewers.

When I met Prody about 10 years ago, she did not believe Simpson committed double murder. That apparently has changed.

Moret: "Did he ever admit to you that he did [the murders]?"

Advertisement

Prody: "In so many words, he did."

Simpson was found responsible for the murders by a civil jury. Prody has a new six-week-old baby girl with her fiancé.

C.J. is at 612.332.TIPS or cj@startribune.com. More of her attitude can be seen on Fox 9 Thursday mornings.

Advertisement
about the writer

about the writer

C.J.

Columnist

See Moreicon

More from No Section

See More

Kyiv was targeted with waves of drone and missile attacks overnight into Friday in the largest aerial assault since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than three years ago, officials said, amid a renewed Russian push to capture more of its neighbor's land.

Advertisement
Advertisement