The Promised Land Calling from 2013

featuring Martin Sheen, Paula Poundstone, Lily Tomlin, and more

Brisk Verse

Last week, in Scranton and Akron, Garrison wrote and performed a poem for Memorial Day titled “They Were So Young,” and the entire cast read alternating lines. It was truly magical and moving — even during rehearsals when several cast members were moved to tears by the thoughts and words. The poem is one of many included in Garrison’s newest book, Brisk Verse, which features conversational poetry meant to be read and shared with one another. Send us videos of you reading your favorite selection. Get the book.

THEY WERE SO YOUNG

Listen to the June 8, 2013 show

This week, we revisit a classic from the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, California. With special guests, singer and songwriter Colin Hay, humorist Paula Poundstone, America’s “Acting President” Martin Sheen, comedienne/actress Lily Tomlin, and singing sisters Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele. Plus, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman. Kenni Holmen and Steve Strand join The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, and there’s the latest News from Lake Wobegon. Listen to the show.

Paula Poundstone was still in her teens when she began performing at open-mic nights around Boston. Now one of the great humorists of our time, she has amassed a slew of honors, including two CableACE Awards. There are legion fans of her podcast and her many books and CDs. And public radio listeners tune in to hear her on Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me.

Many know Colin Hay as the lead singer of the chart-topping, Grammy-winning Australian group Men at Work. With anthems like “Down Under,” “Overkill,” and “Who Can It Be Now?” the Melbourne-based band staked out a secure place in pop history. Since moving to California in 1989, Colin has continued to write songs and record his music, in addition to taking acting roles in movies and on television.

In 1959, a young Martin Sheen borrowed a few bucks from a local priest, left his Ohio home, and headed for New York. Since then, he has piled up Emmys, Golden Globes, and other accolades for his performances in movies such as Badlands, The Subject Was Roses, Apocalypse Now, and The Way, and on television for Kennedy, Blind Ambition, and his seven seasons in the role of President Josiah Bartlet on NBC’s The West Wing. For his work as a tireless activist for social and environmental causes, he has received numerous honors, including the César E. Chávez Spirit Award.

Early on, Lily Tomlin enthralled us with Laugh-in characters like Ernestine and Edith Ann; then came one-woman shows like The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe and movie and television roles in Nashville, The West Wing, and others. Since her 1966 TV debut on The Garry Moore Show, she has built a career that has garnered Tonys, Emmys, Peabodys, the Grammy, and more. When she was honored with the 2003 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser noted that “Lily Tomlin, like Mark Twain, offers her genius wholeheartedly, as she levels the playing field all across society and evokes the most healing of all responses: laughter.”

Growing up in Indiana, Jearlyn Steele sang with her siblings as The Steele Children. One by one, they moved to Minnesota and started singing together again. Now music is the family business. For many years, Jearlyn was also the host of Steele Talkin’, a Sunday-night radio show that originated on WCCO in Minneapolis. In the 1980s, Jevetta Steele — along with her family group, The Steeles — toured the world in the musical The Gospel at Colonus. The show had another successful run at Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in 2010. And many remember Jevetta’s Academy Award-nominated performance of “Calling You,” from the film Baghdad Café.

When this classic show was first broadcast, the office was flooded with requests for the touching tribute to Meiko, the cat. Here are the printed words:

She was very old, our old dame,

Our cat, 17, Meiko was her name.

On Friday she was not herself at all.

She lay, her face turned to the wall

Silent and subdued

Saturday, she did not touch her food.

On Sunday she paced back and forth

Across the bedroom floor

And did not brush our leg or purr

Or make a sound. We petted her

And she seemed very far away.

We knelt by the bed where she lay

And felt desolate and sad

And told her, Good cat, good cat

And then this delicate creature

Of an affectionate nature

Had to be carried outside

And taken for a short melancholy ride

To the vet’s office where with gentle affection

She was given the merciful injection

As we stroked her and said,

“Good cat. Good cat.” And she lay down her head

On our lap

And took her nap.

We miss her gentleness and grace,

The little eyes, the solemn face,

The tail flicking where she lay

In a square of sun on a summer day.

It’s childish, to feel such grief

For an animal whose life is brief.

And if it is foolish, so it be.

She was good company,

And we miss that gift

Of cat affection while she lived.

Her sweet civility.

A cat has not much utility

But beauty is beauty: that's

Why the Lord created cats.

We miss our cat of 17 years

And if you’ll sit down by my side

I’ll scratch you up behind your ears

Until you are well satisfied

And then bring you a plate of fish

And figs and dates fresh off the tree

Or any treat that you may wish,

In our old cat’s sweet memory.

Lullaby little cat, wherever you’re at

May you lie in the sun and be loved by someone

May you curl up and rest, with a quilt for a nest

May you run, may you leap, and be young in your sleep.