(GK: Garrison Keillor; TK: Tom Keith; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
GK: Time once again for Famous Celebrities (THEME), brought to you by the Associated Federation of Organizations, including the American Association of Halls of Fame, your quick and convenient guide to America's more than 50,000 Halls of Fame. Today on Famous Celebrities, we're talking to famous people about their plans for the summer. Are they able to relax or will it just be more work, work, work, in the endless struggle to stay on top? How about you, Mr. President? You heading home this summer?
TR (BUSH): You ever spend a summer in Crawford, Texas? You know what it's like?
GK: No, I guess I don't.
TR (BUSH): The heat down there will burn the hair right off your legs. The heat will actually destroy a man's ability to express his self. I've seen it. Heat goes right into your brain. Can't remember the words for things.
GK: So you planning to stay indoors mainly?
TR (BUSH): Stay in Washington.
GK: You don't need to get away from the pressures of governing?
TR (BUSH): All that stuff you read about the pressure and the stress --- I don't know where that comes from. I don't get it. I have em put everything on 3 by 5 index cards. Three by five. You know the ones I mean? You can get em in any drug store.
GK: So you like being president?
TR (BUSH): I tell you, there's never a bad day when you're the president. You just go around and get photographed in national parks and alternative energy sites and libraries and all the stuff you're going to cut in your budget, you get yourself photographed admiring it.
GK: Sounds like a good summer. Anthony Hopkins, famous actor, what's your plan for the summer?
TR (HOPKINS): I'll be coming to the Midwest this summer. To Hannibal, Missouri.
GK: I see.
TR (HOPKINS): To attend the Episcopal church. Where I'll be the lector.
GK: Of course. Have a great time. Al Gore? Any plans for the summer?
TR (GORE): I'm going to be spending my summer just as so many Americans will be spending theirs, doing some real chowing down and tossing back some cold ones and doing some serious base fishing too.
GK: You're going to fish for bass this summer?
TR (GORE): I have always been a passionate base fisherman and this summer I intend to catch as many base as would be consistent with my commitment to the environment, of course ---- and fry them up and eat them with my fingers, as is my custom, and throw back a bunch of cold ones. That's the Al Gore way.
GK: Very good. How about you, Mr. Dole?
TR (DOLE): Bob Dole has a new mission this summer and that's to go on tour with Britney Spears.
GK: You and Britney are touring together?
TR (DOLE): I'm letting her do the singing and dancing and I'll be backstage handling quality control.
GK: I take it you're a fan of Britney Spears, Mr. Dole?
TR (DOLE): You remember that drug I was on?
GK: Yes----
TR (DOLE): Bob Dole doesn't need it anymore.
GK: What about your wife?
TR (DOLE): She doesn't need it either.
GK: Okay. Thanks. How about you, Mr. Kissinger?
TR (KISSINGER): I will also be spending the summer on tour with Britney Spears.
GK: What are you going to be doing with her?
TR (KISSINGER): I am not at liberty to say, but our discussions have been very cordial and very frank.
GK: Thank you, Mr. Kissinger. How about you, Tom Brokaw? Your plans for summer?
TR (BROKAW): This summer I will be leading more than 3,000 members of the Greatest Generation and their wives on a Greatest Generation cruise, with stops at Oslo, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Southampton and then of course we'll be taking the QE2 and running it aground right there on Omaha Beach and we'll all go ashore in waves and attack the souvenir shops.
GK: Sounds terrific.
TR (BROKAW): And a part of the cruise will be our nightly storytelling sessions when we get these old geezers pretty well oiled up and they spout off with their war stories and I record them for my new book, The Greatest Generation Regenerated.
GK: A book we're all looking forward to.
TR (BROKAW): It's a book, it's an audio book, it's a calendar and it's a set of really nice placemats and napkins.
GK: All right. Thank you. Ted Koppel, how about your summer? You have any plans?
TR (KOPPEL): I think that the idea of summer is such an American thing with the Fourth of July and the hot dogs and the lake home and everything that we associate with summer, and then of course there's baseball, too, with the batter and the pitcher and the fielders, and of course the grass, and I don't know who it was ---- somebody ---- said that, to understand America, you have to understand summer. The sensuality, the openness, and also the sitting in the car on the freeway, waiting for the car in front of you to move ----- I'm sorry, what was the question?
GK: Don't worry about it. It's okay. Mr. Rogers? What are your plans for the summer?
TR (ROGERS): You want to know my plans for the summer? Do you? Well, I have many plans. Yes, I do. My therapist told me that a vacation is something that enables us to get away from ourselves. Yes, she did. And what Mr. Rogers likes to do is to put on my scuba gear and get my spear gun with the spears tipped with small explosive and swim underwater in search of humpback whales.
GK: Mr. Rogers---
TR (ROGERS): Their singing irritates me.
GK: Mr. Rogers----
TR (ROGERS): Did I say it was time for interruptions? Did I?
GK: I guess not.
TR (ROGERS): I was talking.
GK: I know.
TR (ROGERS): And now I'm done talking.
GK: Good. That's all the time we have today (THEME) for Famous Celebrities, brought to you by MarCon, makers of DelRay. (OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2001