A Horse Is a Horse

Copyright 2009 Ben S. Pollock

Identity is a flummox. Sometimes it feels like you spend a lifetime — or the lifetime thus far — pursuing an identity, but your identity may not be you. I’ve heard of two senior or retired professors who said they chose their doctoral fields rather arbitrarily and lost interest as the years rolled by but there they were. Not an economist, not a historian?

That’s on the side of identity as what others know you by, perhaps not what you feel you are. It can be close, but by being close, isn’t it at all. Not a game of horseshoes.

Flummox, above, has its own identity problem. It looks right, but flummox is a verb, despite sitting in the predicate’s seat, a nounship, which is not a word.

Garrison Keillor is recovering from a mild stroke, and yoga the other day gave me a neck ache. I’ll nearly fine, thanks to stretching and walking in the days since. Nothing compared to a cerebral misfire. Garrison no matter how mild last Sunday’s stroke is reported to have been, still has been handed a bomb. Mild means he should recover 100 percent or close to it, vital in his identity as performer. In his guise of writer, he could work despite some disabilities. He left the hospital Friday. As a Minnesotan, his neighborhood infirmary is the Mayo Clinic.

Hold the mustard. What is Garrison Keillor, showman, penman or something else?

I am a writer. But if I was born in 1907 rather than 1957, I’d be writing letters like I post e-mails. Everybody wrote letters then, and that didn’t make them Writers. People were whatever else they were. If they scribbled a sonnet on the day of their marriage or the birth of a grandchild, it was because in school they learned iambic pentameter and abab cdcd efef gg. They remained farmers or preachers or seamstresses.

I have two incomplete novels in this computer. I’d rather not call myself a novelist. I’d hate for anyone to read them, for fear they’d agree I’m not. The few poems I’ve squibbed aren’t bad, but I won’t call myself a poet because it’s not the first medium I choose. My instinct propels me to the personal essay, a genre defined in the 16th century by Montaigne. Or columns. Or a blog like Brick.

I am an editor. A few non-journalism jobs here and there, but editing has paid the bills and health insurance premiums. All kinds: Copy editor, city editor, wire editor, editorial page editor, page designer, radio news producer. I’m proud of this, but I don’t see that near the top of my obit.

For some 19 years I have been a baker. Candlestick maker has never appealed and, as a vegetarian, butcher is out. One year, I ran a bed-and-breakfast, so making muffins was half the job and making beds the other half? Actually, they were quarters, as 50 percent of my labor was in the adjoining gift shop. I bake for home.

If I believed in “branding,” the current self-marketing scheme, it’d have to be as writer, editor or baker.

I know a guy who’s listed as a producer. Earlier this summer I saw an honest-to-God movie that he’s produced, with some famous actors. According to the local paper from last Sunday, his day job is running a video and book distributing business. His wife has released two novels, and she’s told me she’s a novelist. She’s also known as a screenwriter and actress.

“Branding” as a freelancer? No, babe; we’re self-syndicated now.

Mr. Keillor — get well soon, sir — at one point liked to call himself the “world’s tallest radio comedian.” (The joke is, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”) But it now is revealed he’s 67, too young for a stroke but high time for his body to be saying, “hey, go easy on the salty snacks.”

As a fairly young adult, Mr. Keillor was getting published in the hot-damn New Yorker, casuals (humor essays) and short fiction. He writes novels. He wrote and starred in a major motion picture. His variety show Prairie Home Companion, even though it’s now partly written by others, remains a marathon of scripts, improvisation and performance, from skits to his masterful 10-20-minute monologues on Lake Wobegon. He’s even a columnist. I read him weekly, hear most of his radio show on weekends. I saw it live in Hot Springs in 2004.

What is Garrison Keillor, whose talents and productivity are so admirable?

I have friends who are successful writers, who call themselves that but with humility. Other writers in town have no humbleness but their matter-of-fact comfort is as guileless as the guy who rings your doorbell and announces he’s the plumber. A watercolorist friend is the same. Then, those artists who proclaim their gift, job or avocation sometimes are darned talented.

Maybe any labeling makes me uncomfortable.

In high school in Fort Smith, I wasn’t the smartest guy, I was 20-something from the top grade-point average. Yet some called me “smartest.” I preferred “non-conformist.” Then I enrolled into the university of non-conformity, Stanford. I learned that in a teeming pool of non-conformists, the term loses meaning as fast as mud washed off by a hose.

Years after graduating, alumni publications show nonconformity as stage of adolescence. We followed our parents into families, jobs, thickening waists and graying hair. None of us is saving the world. Only a few acted on their undergraduate talent: Dave Lang, Bruce Handy, David Henry Hwang, who wouldn’t remember me, come to mind.

Yet while in college, when classmates learned I was in the Stanford Band, they’d often say, “that figures, you being a cut-up.” That irked me. Band didn’t make me a smart-aleck. I joined the band because I was a wiseacre.

I prefer, apparently, not being held to one identity, even if it’s an identity I covet.

I suspect Mr. Keillor if pinned down would call himself a writer, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of fellow who’d want to be limited. He even sings agreeably.

Carrying a tune, now that’s something to be known by.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.
Go right to the source and ask the horse
He’ll give you the answer that you’ll endorse.
He’s always on a steady course.
Talk to Mister Ed.
People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mr. Ed will never speak unless he has something to say
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one’ll talk ’til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?
Well listen to this:
“I’m Mister Ed.”

By Ray Evans and Jay Livingston