An Eleanor's Take on Mondale and Keillor

The focus for a story can change in an instant.

I was driving home from a friend's house, framing in my mind how I would write a column about the bantering of two venerable Minnesota liberals, former Vice President Walter Mondale and radio guy Garrison Keillor, who were on stage for the opening convocation at my alma mater, Macalester College.

Just then, the 10 o'clock news announced that Eleanor Mondale, the Vice President's only daughter, had passed away at age 51. My first thought was amazement that her father had been so relaxed at Mac when her death was imminent.

Then I thought about my personal connection, through shared first names. Eleanor Mondale was named after her maternal grandmother, Eleanor Hall Adams. I knew both she and her husband, Dr. J. Maxwell Adams, who was chaplain at Macalester when I attended. 

When my husband and I were married, Adams officiated, and Eleanor she was there with us. My husband and I visited them at their aerie home overlooking the St. Croix south of Afton.

And I remember my last visit with Eleanor Adams when she, widowed, was living on the West Side of St. Paul. She was as lively as ever, talking about her son more than about her famous daughter Joan and son-in-law Fritz.

And now both of those Eleanors are gone.

Reminiscing aside, let me share some tidbits from the Mondale-Keillor talk. They went on for more than an hour, and Garrison e-mailed me later that he feared they were too off-the-cuff for such a formal event as a first convo with professors in academic robes and bagpipe marches.

Not at all, I told him. Their random ramblings were what made the event charming, and oh so Minnesotan, which must have been hard to grasp for new students, who had just arrived on campus from all over the nation and world.

But the speakers gave those newbies a grounding in what it is to be living in the land of loons. Though Keillor is the comedian, Mondale tossed his share of one-liners and zingers.

Seated onstage in leather armchairs, Keillor wearing his trademark red tie, sock and shoes, Mondale in more tailored monotones, they talked of growing up in religious homes, of being trained from birth to be modest. Bragging was a sin, they agreed.

Keillor challenged Mondale, "Do you think you're modest?"

"I'll put my modesty up against yours any day," the Veep retorted.

They are both dedicated liberal Democrats, though Keillor claimed he is aging toward a more conservative viewpoint. 

"I used to be to the left of you. Now I am right of you," Keillor told his stage mate, but he's not moving to the Rick Perry camp any time soon.

They agreed they came from a moody, serious generation.

"I wish I had more fun in college," Mondale said. "Today's students are more lighthearted, which should stand them in good stead when they are unemployed.

"We were brought up in the faith, to help the community, to have values that are worthy of lifetime service," said Mondale, who admitted to skipping required chapel at the college and being asked for his excuse. "I am still working on the answer to that," he laughed.

For both, it was a a bit of a homecoming. The first live performance of A Prairie Home Companion was at Macalester July 6, 1974; Keillor's troupe remained there for weekly radio shows until 1978.

And Mondale was a student at Macalester until a part-time job washing dishes didn't quite cover his tuition and he transferred to the University of Minnesota. Before leaving, he met Joan Adams, who became his wife, and was in the convocation audience.

Keillor admitted to admiring Mondale for being a public servant who has always remained true to Minnesota values of honesty and empathy, "though people make fun of you for lacking charisma. Heck, I have made fun of you for that."

They talked about the hazards of technology, about recession, about two ongoing wars, about the aftermath of 9/11. They talked about about the combative politics today.

"I think the country is in a ditch and the government is under tremendous assault. This will be almost a lost decade," worried Mondale, who said politics in his day were more civil. He blamed the timidity of Democrats "who made this all possible."

As they ended, they were more upbeat.

"Does the Minnesota we knew still exist?" Keillor asked his companion.

"I believe it does," the 42nd Vice President said. In their obvious regard for one another, they promised to meet again, "to tell jokes, to go fishing."

One thing that doesn't exist anymore is the level of tuition that Mondale paid when he went to Macalester, measured in just a few hundred dollars. It's now costs more than $50,000 before factoring in scholarships, aid and student work programs.

"My grandson is now enrolled here, and when we knew he was going to be at Macalester, I called the school to see how much money I should put aside for him," Mondale said.

The answer: "Everything!"