December 28, 2005
Dang, is this year almost over? In some ways it seems like it has flown by, in other ways it has seemed to drag on forever. A lot has happened in the last year, some good, some bad, some just downright sad. I would suspect I have talked about a bunch of it in here. When I wrote the first WWWs back in January I was privately afraid I would run out of things to talk about on a weekly basis. Well that hasn't happened yet, which may be a good or a bad thing. I trust most of you who read this on the web site or receive it in the mail find it interesting. Of course if you read it on the web site you can always scroll to the bottom-line, skipping all the bs (brussel sprouts) to find out who the spotlight artist will be. If you receive it in the mail and find it to be a waste of your time or just another piece of junk mail you have to pitch, don't hesitate to let me know and I can remove you from the list. I know what it is like to get mail that goes right to the shredder! In fact I am on some mailing lists I should really ask to be removed from. BUT if you find any value at all in receiving WWWs, then I will keep mailing 'um. Just my way of letting ya off the hook if ya want off the hook. I'd never make a fisherman, I can see it now, me on the bank of the pond asking the fish "Now are you sure you don't mind me keeping you and frying you up for supper?" Now what fish in their right mind wouldn't want to be taken off the hook and thrown back in? Now I ain't implying you all are fish, but I do bet there are some weeks you think there is something fishy about me.

I hope you each one had a Merry Christmas and were able to spend some quality time with the ones you love. With Kelly in my life my Christmas was almost perfect, the thing of course that kept it from being perfect was the fact two of my dearest friends were not here to enjoy it with me. I thought of the Ol' Clark Outlaw several times during the month. He was quite the character and we had some great conversations in the months before he died. He would have been devastated if Bronco had died before he did. I'll bet he was sure surprised on November 19th when Bronco came running up to him. I would say he and Bronco have had more than one conversation with the Big Man about the Broncos going all the way this year and winning the Super Bowl as the perfect conclusion to Bronco's life. Now you may think this is all a little farfetched, a man and a dog talking to God about a football team, but is it really? My inner child doesn't think so.

I was glad Kelly and I were able to go to Kirksville to be with my family on Christmas morning. I have made that trip so many times trying to imagine I had someone special with me, but this year it was not just my imagination. I really don't know how I lucked out to have such a sweet girlfriend in my life. It can't be my perfect livin', cause I am far from perfect. It can't be that I was so optimist that someone special would eventually come into my life, since those who know me well knew I was convinced I would be alone for the rest of my life. It can't be that God answered my prayers, since I figured there were a lot of people worse off than me who weren't getting their prayers answered, so it had seemed pointless to pray. The only thing I can figure is that it was the grace of the Good Lord who was tired of seeing me mope around. I do thank you Lord for Kelly, forgive my pessimism and lack of gratitude. Wait a second, this is WWWs not a prayer journal! Sorry…I still ain't got that there delete key fixxxxxxxxxxed. The good Book say it's not good for a man to be alone and I would say I am definitely the poster child for that verse. It was sure nice having Kelly in my life this Christmas. I seriously do not know if I would have made it through losing Bronco without her being there for/with me. I love you sweetie! Dang this ain't a love letter either, crazy deeeeelete key.

The Ol' Orange, White and Blue was flying proudly over Bronco's grave when Kelly and I stopped by on Christmas. I am, of course, referring to the Denver Broncos flag I had placed on his grave back on November 19th. It was good to visit with Bronco. He thought the Broncos shirt I had gotten for Christmas was pretty cool, He said he had been worried about me and the girls, but then the Ol' Clark Outlaw had taken him to the edge of Heaven and shown him how he could look down and see how we were. He said everyone in Heaven is getting Moses and the Ol' Clark Outlaw confused. I guess they both look a like and are always talking about the Raiders, Moses about the Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Ol' Outlaw about the Oakland Raiders. I can see how that could be confusing. Bronco said to tell you all hello, he said he had really wanted to come on the show before he died, but he was afraid the novelty of a talking dog on Midnight Country would put all the other stations out of business. He was an awfully thoughtful dog I tell ya.

Spring is still a long ways off, but the Blossom is out at Anna Rose's. As you know Anna Rose lost her dear cat Bootsie a month ago yesterday, on the November 27th, but Bootsie knew her momma needed companionship, so she arranged for spring to come early. Anna Rose is the proud mother of a new cat she named Blossom. I have had the privilege of meeting Blossom. She is definitely her mother's daughter, quite the character to say the least. Congratulations Anna Rose. My two girls, Mear and Goldie are both happy for you too.

So what New Year's Resolutions have you made? I've decided losing weight is definitely not one I will make. It seems whoever is responsible for making sure we keep our resolutions took their job a little too seriously this year when they took 75 lbs from my heart on November 19th. I don't do the resolutions thing much myself really. I figure any changes I need to make will be just as important in July as they are in January. So I try to be aware of these sorts of things all year long. God knows I don't need more reasons to beat myself up and un-kept News Year's Resolution just end up being that. If you're into that sort of thing I wish you the best. I do hope to continue making MC a show you enjoy listening to more and more, but I am always trying to do that, not just on January 1st. As always we are open to your suggestions as to ways we can improve the show.

Well it ain't gonna get more Country than this week's spotlight artist, Hank Williams, Sr. Fifty-three years ago this coming Sunday Jan. 1st Hank was double booked, he was scheduled to play in Canton, OH, but the great booking agent up above had him booked for a gig in Heaven. We all know that gig took priority. Unlike last year we won't be playing Hank for the entire show, but I do guarantee you will enjoy the 15-20 songs we do play between Midnight and 3:00.

I guess I have no idea what the new year will bring for each of us, but whatever it is I would say with the help of the Good Lord and real Country Music we will be able to deal with it. Thanks to everyone who helped me through this past year. I am afraid to try and name everyone who has been there for me 'cause I'll miss someone, but I do want to say Anna Rose and her sister Loretta, June and her daughter Susan have all gone out of their way to ease the pain I have been feeling. Thank you. I hope Midnight Country will meet a need in your life in the coming year.

Have a safe and Happy New Year's Eve, but don't stay up too late 'cause you won't want to miss Hank come Sunday night/Monday morning,
Woody

December 21, 2005
Well it wasn't that bad, now was it? The 5 ½ hours of Christmas Music that is. Will you be able to make it 51 weeks now until the next Midnight Country Christmas Special? A time or two I almost found myself getting into the Christmas spirit. It reminds me of the Earl Thomas Conley song "That Was a Close One." Ah well I must admit a time or two I have found myself singing a Christmas tune or two around the house. I figure I'd just as well admit it since Mear or Goldie might try to use it to blackmail me if I don't. Don't worry I won't start singing on the show anytime soon. (Anna Rose breathes a sigh of relief.) Christmas time is okay really; I just don't like society telling me how to celebrate it. It continues to become even more and more commercialized, if that is possible. Somehow I think the real meaning of Christmas gets lost in all of the hustle and bustle. I suppose some of it is okay, but I can think of better ways of celebrating the arrival of the only reason I have the courage to face each new day. As down as I can get at times of great loss, if I didn't have the hope found in the Christ child, well I'd ah probably hung it up long ago. I trust each of you can sort through all the stuff thrown at us religious or secular and find your own peace during this special time of year. I think I will get off my soapbox for now, it is too dang cold out here and my neighbors are looking at me kind of funny. I guess I could move my soapbox into the house, but then my cats would think I was losing it and when Kelly stops by well she might confirm their fears.

I think my favorite song I played this year was Waylon's version of "Away In A Manger." I could have set it on repeat, let it play for an hour on the show and not gotten tired of it. In fact while working on the computer last week I did let repeat several times. I think I will do that again now as I write this. Dang it is some good stuff I tell ya, nothing fancy just good pure Country as only Waylon and other real Country artists can do. I think I WILL move my soapbox inside…just a sec. I'm back, all right let me climb back up here. As you may recall I went to see Dale Watson in St. Louis on the 9th at a little place called "Off Broadway," nothing real fancy, bigger than Mojo's but smaller than the Blue Note. At the last minute Kelly had something come up and wasn't able to go. I figure it was a good thing though, had she heard "Live" Country in its purest form she would have wanted to move to Austin where Dale plays on a regular basis. As much as I love Dale's music I'm not sure I am ready to move to Texas (the home of the Dallas Cowboys). Anyway my sister Gelene who lives in St. Louis and I were still able to go. We got there early in order to get a front row table, in fact we were early enough I was able to park in front of the building. A couple hours later I got to thinking "I bet Dale would like to park all his tour buses in front." So I decided to go outside and see if he was there yet. Eventually the three eighteen-wheelers and two tour buses pulled up in front. They said Dale's private chopper would be landing in a bit. Ya know it is Christmas; I really shouldn't be lying to ya all. Let's pick it back up where I quit tellin' the truth…A couple hours later I got to thinking "I bet Dale would like to park his van in front." Sure enough in a little bit Dale's van pulled up with Dale driving. He rolled down his window and I offered him my parking spot. He said, "Are you sure man? That would be great!" So I moved the pickup and then helped Dale's band "The Lonestars" unload their amps and instruments from the back of the van. In no time they were setting up. They then proceeded to put on one heck of a show again like Waylon nothing fancy just good pure Country. Dale even stopped a time or two to talk to people who audience members had called on their cell phones. What a hoot. Not one person left thinking "Boy that Dale is really full of himself." People were lined up afterwards to talk to Dale and shake his hand. A man sitting next to Gelene and I was able to get Dale to sign his guitar. I heard Dale said, "Man that is a nice guitar, you sure you want me to write on it? If I'd known you had it here I would have played it, heck it is nicer than mine." Of course the guy wanted Dale to go ahead and sign it, after all, from talking to him he was a huge fan of Dale's. I even got another picture taken with Dale and will have it on the web site real soon. I joked with Dale's drummer Herb that it had been a tough decision to make as to whether to go to St. Louis to see Dale or to stay in Columbia and see Big & Rich who were at the Mizzou Arena the same night. Of course those who listen to the show know I didn't even have to think twice about who I would rather see. Back in the day I would have been impressed and blown away by a big fancy production but as I have gotten older I like it simple, real and as Ron would say "Just above the grass." I like real Country Music because it talks about stuff I can relate to, stuff I am going through or have gone through. I don't care too much about what the "Rich and Famous" are up to. Short of winning the lottery, which I have rarely ever even played, I will never know what it is like to have more money than I know what to do with. I'm not really even that envious of the "Rich and Famous" anyway. If I were one of them I can see it now on the front page of the National Enquirer, "Woody Takes Two Weeks Off, Is He In Betty Ford?" or on the front of one of those black and white tabloids "Woody's Dog Dies or Was He Really Abducted by Aliens?" I can live without being Rich or Famous and having all my life shared with the whole world. I can't live though without my weekly fix of playing real Country, real late, for real people who really enjoy it as much as I do. Before I get off my soapbox again let me finish by saying, if you like real Country do whatever you can to support it. Do like I did, choose to drive a little ways to support a real Country artist. Call commercial Country stations and request current Country songs that are traditional, thank them for the Classic Country shows they do have and tell them if they want to hear the kind of Country you really wish they'd play all the time to check out Midnight Country! Well you can skip the last one; they might tune in while this redneck hillbilly hippie is talking, think "Gosh he's awful" and never even hear the music.

Well I am almost out of room so I'd better reveal this week's spotlight artist, huh? As I said on the show if there is a Christmas song or two you just didn't get enough of I will be happy to play it, if I have it course, but for the most part I am planning to get back into our usual routine. Of course that could all change if Anna Rose takes me hostage and forces me to play all Christmas music. From what she has said she is just getting warmed up with her celebrating Christmas. Heck if she kidnaps me we might still be playing Christmas music in July! Just kiddin' ya Anna Rose. This week I'm going to spotlight Red Sovine. He seems like the perfect choice for the day after Christmas. Turn the tree lights on, build a fire and cozy up with those you love and listen to some songs that are sure to bring a tear to your eye and a smile on your face.

Have a very peace and love filled Christmas, hug the kids, grandkids, dog/cats and tune in Monday morning as I play ya some real Country, real late that is real goooooood,
Woody

December 14, 2005
Monday after doing the show I felt kind of a letdown. Kind of like the day after a funeral when reality really starts to set in. I suppose at some point I will conform to society's norm and stop talking about losing Bronco, but it may not be any time soon. He was not "just a dog" to me, fortunately no one has made that comment to me yet. I'm afraid if someone does they may discover I am not always the mild mannered, easygoing guy people think I am. Ah well, what can you do? We as a society don't even value human life that much (unless it is our own or that of someone just like us), so why am I surprised when people don't value the life of a pet. I still just can't believe the conversation Kelly and I overheard at a flea market on the way to Kirksville a week prior to Bronco's passing. You may have heard us talk about it on the show. Some ol' feller was giving a woman a hard time about her dog; he said he was glad she hadn't brought it in that day. He even went so far as to say he would pay to have it put down. I don't know if Kelly heard as much of what he said as I did or if she was just feeling extra tolerant that day, but I kept expecting at any moment for her to verbally tear into the guy. It may have just been an inside joke between them, but from talking to the lady later outside of the guy's earshot she didn't seem to think it was very funny. Obviously the ol' fart never had a friend as good and faithful as Bronco was to me.

I know from talking to some of you the show was hard to listen to this week. Anyone with even half a heart would surely have been moved at times when listening to the show, then those who like me have lost a pet were not doubt moved to tears a time or two (at least). I held it together pretty well on the air I think, but trying to stay shutdown in order to suppress emotions probably led to my feeling depressed later on Monday. Last week in here I made the comment "Now days though if I am happy you will most often be able to tell it on the show or if I am sad, the same will be true." I do though try to show some restraint and not always let it all hang out. At times I am overwhelmed by the sadness of everything I know members of the Midnight Country are going through or have recently gone through. I believe though the Country Music we play on the show can serve as a healing balm on a broken or hurting heart. Growing up I thought any song that was not happy and didn't have you jumping with joy afterwards was not something the Good Lord would want you to listen to. Yet I have found that sometimes the best thing for a sad heart is a sad ol' Country song that gets the tears to flowing. Amazingly afterwards I feel much better, with a sense of peace I would never have felt if I had tried to deny what I was really feeling.

I sure do miss Bronco, yet I am so thankful for the seven and a half years we had together. I know I can go on because when I got home Monday morning two of the sweetest, most loving cats you could ever wish for were waiting there for me. I dread the day something happens to Mear or Goldie. I will, of course, want to share memories of them on the show, but unfortunately I don't know of any songs about cats along the line of "Old Shep" or "Tribute to a Dog". Dang it I wish I would have learned to play the ol' guitar when I was a kid. Back then I dreamed of being a singer/songwriter about as much as I dreamed of being a DJ. I have written some lyrics over the years, but not playing a guitar has been a real handicap. Of course back in the 70's when the end of the world was to happen at any moment according to my church, then learning to play a guitar seemed rather trivial and pointless. Ah well, what can ya do? I didn't get the nerve up to try radio until my late 30's, so maybe there still hope I could learn to pick in my 40's. In the meantime Mear purring in my ear as she lies on my chest or Goldie talking to me when I stroke her head will both be music to my ears.

Last week I mentioned the comment I had made to a friend, "at times I am not too crazy about being so open on the show and now having to talk about losing my dog." Yet after talking to so many of you who can relate to what I am going through I am glad (at least most of the time) that I do open up on the show. June and her daughter Susan have both been very caring and understanding, sharing my loss as if Bronco had been their own. Anna Rose has blown me away with the way she has been so concerned about me even while experiencing the equally devastating loss of Bootsie herself. So many have e-mailed as well to express their sympathy, such as Kevin, Rob, Scott, Chip and Sandy. The phone calls then from Grant, Matt, Harold, Cindy, Debra and Ron have meant more to me than you all will ever realize. The card from Mexico Mildred topped it all off. What a sweet lady and what a kind, caring Midnight Country Family I have been blessed with. Thank you each one. I just wish you each one could have met Bronco. He was good dog and a great friend.

I am sure from listening to the show it became rather obvious that one of the many things Kelly and I have in common is our love of animals. I want to say a big Thank You to Kelly for coming in and doing the show with me. God knows I've done some sad ones in the past when it was just me up there, but having Kelly with me made my Bronco Tribute so much easier. Thank you sweetheart!

This week of course there will not be a spotlight artist, but rather a spotlight theme. It will be (quiet down now Anna Rose) our annual Christmas Special! 5 ½ hours of nothin' but Country Christmas Music, if ya ain't got your fill of Christmas Music yet then this should do the trick! Someone asked me the other day what I wanted for Christmas and I said "A 7 ½ year old Golden Retriever named Bronco." I will try to get into the Christmas spirit this week, no promises though. This may be one of those weeks when I have to fake it a little. No matter how I might be feeling before the show, talking to you all always lifts my spirits though. I know I've said this before, but never hesitate to call the show, even if you don't have a song you want to hear, it always makes my night to hear from each of you.

One last Bronco story…for now. Before someone stole my big pet carrier, I would often take Bronco to Bear Creek Trail or other places in the back of the truck. Often Bronco would be so excited about going that he would jump right into the back of the truck, then of course start barking his head off when I closed the door to the pet carrier. Yet when it was time to leave wherever we had been, Bronco would be tired and I would often have to pick him up and put him in the back of the truck. After losing Bronco I have been like Bronco would be at the end of our walks, too tired to jump up in the truck. Thanks to each of you for picking me up. I hope then that I can return the favor when you need picking up by the music we play or something we might say on the show. Bronco wasn't heavy because he was my "son", you won't be heavy because you are my "family."

Have a good week and tune in Monday as we celebrate the hope Christmas brings,
Woody

December 6, 2005
I knew in the back of my mind that unless I went first I would one day have to deal with losing Bronco, my Golden Retriever. I had no idea it would be so soon. In light of the fact I took two weeks off from doing both the show and writing WWWs it is, I suppose, rather obvious the last 2+ weeks have been extremely difficult for me. For me to decide to not do two things I truly enjoy doing is not my norm. I take doing MC more serious than a lot of people take jobs they are getting paid to do. Yet losing my best friend was like getting hit in the gut or more like the heart with a sledgehammer and so I had to take some time off to at least partially try and recover from the shock.

Friday night Nov. 18th before going to bed I had my usual difficult time convincing Bronco to come in the house. He was playing with a basketball in the backyard and seemed to find that much more appealing than going to sleep. If only I had know it would be the last time I would be able to play with him here on earth. After telling Anna Rose that Bronco had gone home she made the comment that the Nov. 15th WWWs could have been written after Bronco's passing instead of before. I just, for the first time after Bronco's death, reread the Nov. 15th WWWs. Rather strange to say the least. Perhaps the Good Lord was preparing me for the coming loss. For some time now I have been aware of how fragile life is and so more often than not I have made it a point when leaving the house to tell each of my kids I love them. Every Monday morning after the show I would breathe a sigh of relief as I turned onto my street and saw my house still standing, knowing that inside my kids were safely waiting for me. In spite of this awareness I had, there were times I know I would not give them the love and attention they deserved. Yet for some reason, again perhaps God had his hand in this, in the last days prior to Bronco's death I made a point to show Bronco some extra attention. I suppose God knew I would beat the hell out of myself for not having done more with Bronco, so He wanted to make sure I would be able to cherish the memories of those last days.

I understand not everyone who may read this will be able to relate to where I am coming from as I grieve my loss and that is okay I suppose. I'm not going to spend time trying to convince anyone of anything or try and justify the deep grief I feel. I have spent too much of my life trying to mirror the emotions of those around me. Now days though if I am happy you will most often be able to tell it on the show or if I am sad, the same will be true. If you hear someone say, "This week's Midnight Country is a rebroadcast" well then you will know I am either really sick or so sad about something that I am not able to do the show. I suppose "so sad" is also the reason I have not written WWWs for two weeks. The first week I missed all I would probably have said in WWWs was "Why, why, why?" The second week "I just can't believe he's gone." The week after Bronco died I was talking with my friend John and I said at times I am not too crazy about being so open on the show and now having to talk about losing my dog. John said, "Yeah, but there are times you do enjoy opening up and sharing on the show." He was right. I will always cherish the show recordings of when I would talk about Bronco, Mear and Goldie. On the MC Family page the late great Clark Outlaw put it pretty well when describing why he liked the show. "I like Midnight Country because of the host first and foremost. I also like it because of the wide variety of Country Music such as anything from Honky Tonk drinking songs to Gospel songs. I also like it because you almost feel like you're part of Woody Adkins' family. You know about his pets, his ex-girlfriend, his childhood, his family and whether he had a good week or a bad week. All of this together makes for a really great Country Music show. I might also add that when one of his listeners is going through a hard time or is hurting; he hurts right along with them." Sums it up, huh? Not only is the music about real life, I your host share my real life as well, the good, the bad and now the sad. This reminds me of a story.

I made the Ol' Clark Outlaw mad when he was lying there in the hospital last summer. I had just met and started going out with Kelly. Being as close as we were I wanted my good friend the Ol' Outlaw to meet my new girlfriend. God knows he had heard me mope long enough about my ex on the show. Anyway he didn't want Kelly to meet him for the first time there in the hospital. Well I ignored that line of brussels sprouts and took her to meet him anyway. Again God must have had a hand in it, seeing as the Ol' Outlaw would never have met Kelly otherwise. I think Bob (the Ol' Outlaw) forgave me, if not he certainly has now, seeing as he has my son to play with up there in Heaven. I just hope he doesn't remind Bronco that his favorite football team is the Raiders.

I'm not sure I would have survived losing Bronco had it not been for Kelly's support. Immediately after realizing something was wrong with Bronco I called Kelly even before I called Dr. Hussey. I knew I would need her help. She met me at the vet's office shortly after I arrived. She knew the right questions to ask and understood the answers we were given. Though she had only known Bronco since May seeing the tears in her eyes you would have thought she had spent the last 7 ½ years with him as I had. After we lost Bronco she didn't even hesitate to change her plans and make the trip with me to Dad's farm to bury my boy. Since then she has endured listening to all the reasons I have theorized as to how I should/could have prevented Bronco's death. Thank you so much Kelly for being with me through this very hard time. I love you!

The third call I made that Saturday morning (after Kelly and the vet) was to my good friend and MC Family member Anna Rose. I asked Anna Rose to pray for Bronco. Anna Rose and I had been worrying the last few days about the deteriorating health of her cat Bootsie. Anna Rose was shocked to hear the news of what was going and then devastated to hear when Bronco didn't make it. For the next week she kept checking up on me while dealing herself with the uncertainty of her cat Bootsie's future. On Sunday evening of the 27th I got the phone call I dreaded receiving that Bootsie too had gone home. I had the chance to meet Bootsie a few times and I could tell that she meant the world to Anna Rose just as Bronco did to me. Perhaps there are guardian angels none of us can see, but I wonder if perhaps we have guardian angels we can see, but don't recognize as such because they are lying on our laps or at our feet in the form of a cat or a dog. They also may take human form as well. Anna Rose has gotten me through many nights when doing the show was hard. From the night I first heard Waylon had died, to going through a tough breakup and now losing Bronco, Anna Rose has been there. If she ain't angel, ya could have fooled me. Thank you Anna Rose! I want to say a big THANK YOU too to each of you who have helped me through this time.

This week the spotlight will be on sharing my favorite memories of Bronco and playing some of my all time favorite songs. Parts of the show will no doubt be very sad, but at the same time parts will be very happy. Bronco, Mear and Goldie have all three brought so much joy to my life and though it hurts like hell to have lost my boy I still would not trade those memories for anything in the world. You cannot put a price on the unconditional love of a pet. I would also like to share on the show any memories/stories you have of your animal kids whether they are still living or have gone on. Just send me an e-mail or give me a call Monday morning.

Have a good week, keep warm and tune in Monday as I pay tribute to my dear Bronco,
Woody

November 29, 2005
Due to Bronco's passing there was no WWWs this week.
Woody

November 22, 2005
Due to Bronco's passing there was no WWWs this week.
Woody

November 15, 2005
Today is another rainy day, my kind of day. It allows me to work on the 'puter while looking out on all my leaves without guilt, knowing it is too wet to rake or blow them. Sometimes I wonder if I was adopted, seeing as my Dad and brother were always much more comfortable outdoors than I was. Yet as I have said before someone has to be on the other end of the radio that the farmers listen to while working. Going up to Kirksville always reminds me that I seem to have been cut from a different mold. I guess I take more after my Mom than my Dad. Mom was a schoolteacher all her life and so like her I am more comfortable working with ideas rather than implements. I was always and still am to some extent a big dreamer. As a boy I always liked looking at the JC Penny and Sears catalogs, particularly the Christmas ones. I tell you my mouth would water looking at all the toys I just knew would fit nicely into my imaginary world. Kelly and I were at Penny's a while back and I noticed they still had catalogs, even in these days of computers and web sites. Yesterday I got a Hewlett Packard catalog (computers, etc.) in the mail and while looking through it I was reminded of how excited I used to get. Now being an adult and no longer having parents to buy me things for Christmas, well reality sets in and I realize not everything I drool over today will be under my Christmas tree. Wait a sec, I have never put up a Christmas tree anyway. So perhaps that is the problem. Think if I decorate a tree I will then find a $2,000 laptop under it on Christmas morning? I doubt it, but that is okay. I have learned the saying is true, "The most important things in life are not things." Oh sure I'd like to have a top of the line laptop I could take to Ron's and I'd like to have a big fancy pickup custom painted with the Denver Bronco colors to drive over to Ron's, but the most important thing is that even when I drive my old Ford over there, when I get there I am welcomed by a good friend. I could have gone to Broadcasting school and spent a lot of money, but would still have walked away unable to "buy" real world experience and the friendship of a veteran DJ.

Anytime I am faced with a crisis I realize how important friends and family really are. Sometimes it is someone I love who is facing death, someone dealing with a broken heart or a lost dream, someone losing a dear friend who just happens to be an animal or an accident like I had with Kelly Saturday evening. At times like these you realize life is short and all you really have in life are those you love. Cars, homes, jobs, even dreams can be replaced, but lives can't be. I feel so helpless at times and that was never truer than Saturday evening. It hurt like hell knowing that I had injured an innocent animal and that I did not have an immediate way to put the deer out of its suffering. It hurt even worse to watch Kelly hurt. Unlike my computer or TV there was no button I could push to undo or redo what had just happened. How some people can intentionally be so cruel to animals I will never know. I know my three animal kids have probably saved my life or if not my life certainly my sanity. I have a quote on one of my computers that reads "They are our friends... partners...protectors...ever-loyal...all-forgiving...to their hearts' last beat...the least we owe them is to live a life that is worthy of their devotion" St. Roch, Patron Saint of Dogs. If you have ever had a pet you loved with all your heart then you know where I am coming from. If not, then I could write an entire book on the subject and you would still not understand the unconditional love of an animal. I have a listener to MC who has become a dear friend over the years. She is currently going through a difficult time as she watches her pet suffer. I ask that you keep them both in your prayers.

Sometimes I second guess myself and wonder what the point of Midnight Country even is. I was sharing this with someone last week and he said, "You touch people's lives through the show. Do you think most DJ's would care about a listener's pet being sick?" I said "Probably not." I suppose then the show is about much more than just playing music, but rather the way in which the music can touch lives. Whether it serves as a reminder of happier times or brings a tear to your eye as you recall someone who you have lost. My job is to be there to play the music that best represents whatever you are going through. Most weeks I think or at least hope you find some of the music relates to your life. When I was younger and used to go to a lot of Southern Gospel concerts with my Dad and Step Mom Virginia I found it rather annoying that so many of the songs were about going to Heaven. As I have gotten older and life has been hard at times, I see things from a different perspective. Today I think it is okay to find comfort in songs about Heaven and being reunited with those we lost. Even in the short time MC has been on the air we have lost many listeners or loved ones of listeners. It was two and a half years ago my great-niece Anna Belle was killed. She, as you may recall, had been on MC with me. It will have been two years ago this Thanksgiving night that Eleannor passed away. She had cancer and would often call me to let me know how she was doing and to request her favorite song "Nothing I Can Do About It Now." It was one year ago this Saturday that the Ol' Clark Outlaw lost his sister and Grandma South lost her daughter Mary Lou. Yet the Ol' Outlaw didn't have to wait long to see Mary Lou again. They were reunited then on July 2nd of this year. Don lost his dad and allowed me the honor of remembering his dad with some very comforting songs. Of course I have learned of some of the losses you all have experienced prior to having met you via the show, such as Ron losing Mary. The Ol' Outlaw's sister-in-law Missy Burns lost her daughter prior to my meeting her. In my own life I have lost my brother-in-law Paul and my step mom Virginia since doing MC. So maybe some of you younger listeners will find all my songs about Heaven annoying, but in time, like me, you will find comfort in those songs.

I know this weeks WWWs will probably not be adapted for the funny papers, but that is okay. Perhaps next week I will be in a different frame of mind when I sit down to write. Yet life is fragile and I was, of course, reminded of that Saturday evening when I hit the deer and later visted with Judy in the Hospital. Enjoy each moment of each day as best you can. God knows I know how hard that can be at times. If there is ever song you need to hear on MC to help brighten your night never hesitate to call. Ok?

Mear says "Hi". She just stopped by to get her head scratched. Kelly and I are planning to watch the CMA Awards tonight with my buddy Kevin Burns. Unfortunately I guess my nomination for "CMA DJ of the Year" was lost in the mail. Winning that award was a dream I had as a boy set up there in the living room playing DJ. Reality set in of course and I was lucky I ever got up the nerve to make that call to KOPN. My cousin Marvin who I talked about last week won the "CMA Small Markets DJ of the Year" once. Ah well I think I am at least Kelly and Anna Rose's favorite DJ, active DJ that is. I'll never knock Ron out of Anna Rose's #1 spot. Finally a smiley face. This week I will be putting you under my spell again as I spotlight Jean Shepard.

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I play second fiddle to an old guitar (the song that is),
Woody
Woody

November 8, 2005
Man oh man was this week's show cool or what? Everyone I've talked to really enjoyed my conversation with the legendary Ron Lutz. Even a KOPN Board member who had never heard Ron before e-mailed me to say it was quite a treat to hear my "famous" guest. I just got a call from Ron's agent and his appearance fee has tripled since Monday morning. Now I didn't tell his agent this, but if my math is correct 3 times zero is still zero. Hopefully they won't figure that out and we will have Ron on again real soon. I received an e-mail from a faithful listener to MC who said growing up he thought his folks' radio only got two stations, KMOX out of St. Louis and KFAL. He had some great stories about getting ready for school while listening to Ron on KFAL. From what I've heard some of you say, no one would have known I was nervous had I not said something prior to talking with Ron. I've never been very good at hiding things from you all. From crying on the air when Waylon died to laughing my head off while kidding Anna Rose, whatever I am going through will probably come out in some way on the air. Now how that radio guy in Jeff City could go on the air after poisoning his wife I will never know. If I killed an animal bigger than an ant I would probably have to tell you all about it. Well maybe not that extreme, but certainly the guilt of killing a person would eat me alive and so I would have to tell someone.

The cool thing about having Ron on MC will be all his stories from his 42+ years in Country Radio. I know I learned a lot just from the two conversations we had this week and I am looking forward to learning so much more. Notice I said "Country" Radio, though I've not ask Ron this yet, I would bet his love of Country Music came first and then his love of being on the air. Of course I can't speak for Ron, but this is certainly true for me at least. One of the reasons I have hesitated to pursue a career in commercial radio is because I would probably have to spend a lot of time paying my dues playing music other than Country. Ron has even pointed out that if I were to work on a mainstream Country station I wouldn't be able to even remotely play the kind of music I do on MC. I kind of wish things were like they were when Ron was still on KFAL. Now it seems more and more local stations are being bought up by the big broadcasting conglomerations and the bottom line is no longer what the faithful listeners from over the years want to hear, but rather how much money can be made, even if that requires changing formats. It is sad I tell ya. All the more reason a station like KOPN is so important to closing the gap between what you want to hear and what is actually on the air. It amazes me that Ron was at the same station for 38 years. This is almost unheard of these days. I've only got 33 more years to go to catch up with him, think Midnight Country can continue that much longer?

It is interesting how the Good Lord has put people in my life who inspired me in my pursuit of doing Country Radio. As you heard me say Kelly and I went to Kirksville last week with Bronco, Darth and Sarah (my k-9 son, her k-9 son and daughter). We ate supper at a place in Kirksville called Pancake City. As we went in to sit down I saw my cousin Marvin McClanahan, his wife and son. Marvin was the first person I knew who was doing what I dreamed of doing. Back in 1972 Marvin started on KIRX, an AM Country station in Kirksville. Since then Marvin and the Country format have moved to the FM dial and is called KTUF, but it is still owned by the company who owns KIRX. A short time before I started volunteering at KOPN I sat in one day with Marvin while he did his morning show. I shared with Marvin last week how he had been an inspiration to me over the years. Marvin then had a cousin on his dad's side Jerry Minshall, who was on the radio in Wichita and now is the News Director at a Country station in Nashville. Jerry and his family used to attend my church when I was a boy during their visits to Kirksville. I was always star struck. Jerry was closer to my brother Dean's age and they had been friends when they were younger. Back in those days both Marvin and Jerry wore their hair a little longer than average. So even though I always blame Ronnie Milsap for the long hair I have now, I think they are partly responsible too. Of course they have outgrown the long hair thing, so Anna Rose there may still be hope for me. By the way Anna Rose ain't too crazy about my long hair. Fortunately Ron hasn't held it against me, though he does like to kid me about it. As I said Monday I was glad Ron didn't tell me until after we had visited a couple times on the phone that he had been a Country DJ for 42+ years. If I had known I would probably have fainted or done what I said on the show. I still can't, well yes I can believe I said that. Of course I think it was fortunate as well that Ron had come to enjoy the show before he saw my long hair. Destiny is always a work, huh? Even my first contact with KOPN was a "God" thing. As you probably have guessed from listening to KOPN people who are into playing Country aren't exactly a dime a dozen at the station. Fortunately though they have taken me in and welcomed this redneck hillbilly hippie into their ranks, but still it isn't like a hundred people are just dying to replace my Country show up there. Anyway…(my mind wondered for a bit there, sorry) the first person I talked to when I called KOPN about volunteering was John Duncan. John had been in radio for a number of years and had worked at stations with various formats, including, you guessed it, Country! Though John is no longer at KOPN he served as a mentor and encouragement to me in my early days at KOPN as Midnight Country was just getting off the ground. John is still in radio and I run into him from time to time around town. I owe a BIG Thank You to Marvin, Jerry, John and now Ron for being there at different points along my path. So the next time you call Midnight Country and have that special song sent out to someone or in memory of someone, know that it is not by mere chance MC is on the air, but rather a result of the Good Lord's working through some pretty cool guys.

A lot of you listened to Ron when he was on KFAL and continue to listen to the Rooster Creek show ever week. Unfortunately for me I never knew Ron prior to his calling the show, though you know I would give my left pinky to have heard him all those years. Everyone though who listened to Ron has a Ron story and probably a question or two for Ron. Feel free to send me any stories or questions. I will be happy to share them with Ron and some of them will no doubt come up during our on-air conversations. To ensure I quote your stories or ask your questions correctly please mail or e-mail them to me. I've been known to get busy on the phone during the show and forget to remember something important.

This week's spotlight artist will come with a price, talk to your heart and see you want to accept my invitation to the blues, if not please release me from any obligation to spotlight Ray Price.

Have a good week and tune in Monday 'cause I'll be there if you ever want me,
Woody

November 1, 2005
I am starting this week's WWWs Monday evening. Bronco, my Golden Retriever, is lying on a rug by the office door with a football and mini basketball by his head. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye when I look at him over at him. Mear, my oldest cat is napping in a box on top of the bookcase. Goldie, my younger cat, is grooming herself in a chair beside me. It has been crummy outside most of the day, but I'm sure you already know that, huh? It sure got dark early this evening, but being an inside pup myself I really don't mind too much. Growing up on the farm I always looked forward to raining days since that meant I could stay inside and play with my toys, play radio, etc. I visited with Carl, a member of the MC Family, late in the show. He was talking about NASCAR and Carl Edwards. Carl said he had started following NASCAR for the first time this year. For some reason I've not gotten interested in NASCAR too much yet, though as a boy I loved going to Demolition Derbys and Stock Car races in Kirksville. I guess NASCAR is really just the fancy version of the Stock Car races I went to. The one thing though that my conversation with Carl reminded me of was when the Joey Chitwood Thrill Show would come to town, now that was cool! On those rainy days…(just a sec, Bronco has butted his head up under my left arm wanting some attention, I'll be right back)…he's gone now, guess my scratching his chest was what he wanted. Anyway…on those rainy days I loved to play Thrill Show with my Matchbox cars, but the name of my show was different. It was the Woody Adkins Thrill Show or WATS for short. I made ramps out of cardboard and decorated them with variations of the show name. It was a lot of fun, I could and did spend hours in my fantasy world. I even did some non-life threatening stunts outside on my Honda mini bike and then my motorcycle. They were neither one big enough to do anything too spectacular on, which is probably just as well or I might not have lived long enough to pursue in the real world my other dream, being on the radio. You can probably tell from reading WWWs on a regular basis that it doesn't take too much keep my mind occupied. It is like starting out on a trip without a map, you never know where my mind will end up. I doubt I would ever be very good at writing a long fiction book. By the time I was done making all my twists and turns I would have even myself confused. I guess I'd better just stick to writing these weekly short stories. Now don't get me wrong, it is not that what I write are "stories" as in "made up". Well at least not the first person stories I tell. As for the ones I repeat from lets say Anna Rose, now that is anybody's guess.

As always Anna Rose stood faithfully at her post throughout the night. Grant, Carl and Matt all called late in the show as well. As you heard me talk about on the show I had a fortune cookie from lunch on Sunday that read "You Will Sleep Well At Night", so I was a tad bit worried. I then got Anna Rose all worked up because she was afraid I take fortune cookies as the "gospel truth", my choice of words (gospel truth), not hers. I quickly put on my Dr. Woody (Phil) hat and reassured her it was just something to share with everyone and that I don't take fortune coo…zzzzz…zzzzz….zzz. Oops sorry I feel asleep I guess that fortune cookie was right after all! Just kidding Anna Rose! I had a surprise message on my cell phone late in the show as well. It was Kelly! She got tired of trying the station number and so she finally called my cell, but since was she was dog sitting for a friend and her cell phone was dead I didn't recognize the number and didn't answer anyway. So she just had to get back in line with the rest of ya. That'll learn her not to let her cell battery run down, huh? I had another surprise this week, but fortunately I didn't find out about it until after the show. I always know that God is listening to the show and though I didn't talk to him during the show, I assumed that Ron was listening at least part of the night as well. So to say the least I try and stay on my best behavior and do as good of a job on the air as this redneck hillbilly hippie is capable of…now hush up Anna Rose, it is OLD News that I am far from perfect on the air. Yet nonetheless I think I should get a T for trying. Well anyway I stopped by KOPN this evening and the station manager David Owens said "Great show, I was with you all night." Come to find out David couldn't sleep and unknown to me he was in the office working all night. I said "Boy it is good I didn't throw a party!" I'm almost afraid to listen to the show recording now, but I think he did say "great" show or wait maybe it was "grape" show in reference to the drinking songs I played. Doggone now I have that to worry about. There's always something to worry about I tell ya. If it ain't a hurricane it is the station manager hearing all the hot air coming out of my mouth. He has said in the past that he keeps the station on in his bathroom at home and has heard parts of the show. I was just hoping his low fluid diet kept him asleep most of the night. Naw, I ain't too worried I guess. I'm pretty proud of the show we do every week for the most part. Hey if Ron Lutz listens to it can't be all bad!

Speaking of Ron, the fan mail has already started and he's not even been on the show yet! I got an e-mail today from someone who said they were a faithful listener to MC. They asked if they had been dreaming or was it true that I had said I would be interviewing Ron on the show. Well unless I am just dreaming this whole Midnight Country thing myself, yes indeed it is true! Ain't that gonna be cool! At this point Ron and I are planning on testing the waters a bit and see how it all goes. For now I will be talking to Ron during the breaks 2-3 times a week early in the show via the phone. If the conversations are anything like the ones Ron and I already have off air, then you are in for a treat to say the least. The listener who wrote me said he had listen to Ron for as long as he can remember and right up until Ron retired. Well Ron it is time to pull out that old glove and bat, come out retirement and be a hit like you were for 38 years on KFAL! You all be patient with me now, it may take this T-baller a while to get in sync with a Hall of Famer like Ron.

I want to send a big hello out to all the readers of the paper version of WWWs. I was talking to Ruby this week and she said she enjoys reading the letters. Ruby's sweetie Chip even made sure she called "Woody" before they drifted off to "Sweet Dreams". It is great to have the two of you as a part of the MC Family. Tell Lucy Hi! M&M I hope I finally found the right cotton pickin' song for Missy. Of course M&M stands for the sweet listener I named "Mexico" Mildred. Loretta if Anna Rose ever starts acting up be sure and let me know, ok? Hey June, I missed hearing from you, Susan and Chris this week. Did Charles take away your radio privileges?

I'm gonna sleep on the spotlight artist (not literally now Anna Rose) and let ya know tomorrow who it will be…is the night really over? Dang! Well at least the four walls are still standing, no tornadoes or earthquakes overnight in my world. And the fortune cookie says…"Jim Reeves". Have a good week and call me Monday or I'll have to play "Oh, How I Miss You Tonight",
Woody

October 25, 2005
As I write this week's WWWs I am listening to a potential spotlight artist for the next show. I am almost 100% sure I will spotlight this person, but it will be up in the air until I actually post WWWs on the web site. So I am NOT going to tell you who it is until the end. Try to show some restraint if you can. I know Anna Rose has probably already skipped to the end to see who the spotlight artist will be. You obviously know that every week we have a spotlight artist on the show. I have been thinking that perhaps here in WWWs we should have a new feature every week called the spotlight error. It seems I often share with you in here a major blunder I made on the past show and so this week will be no exception. Have you ever, like I do, driven by a car wreck, a speeder pulled over or an ambulance at a house and wondered what happened? Well I figure you do the same with MC when an error occurs. Often the error is late in the show and so a lot of you probably never even hear it. Yet this week's error was hard to miss if you were listening to the show from the beginning. Nope your watches/clock were not running fast and yes MC did start several minutes late. Have you ever been on your way to an important appointment only look down at your gas gauge and discover you were about out of gas, then by the time you stop to get gas you get to your appointment late?! Well that is sort like what happened this week. I usually get to the station by at least 11:30 and get everything ready to go. There is a connection I make to the main computer and until this week it has usually worked just fine. I normally double check it well in advance of midnight instead of just prior to the show starting, which is, unfortunately, what I did this week, but as I said it usually works just fine and so…you guessed it, this week it wasn't working "just fine". Well B.G. Brown…(Mear just laid down on my left arm and so I will be right back). I'm back, my cat's needs always take priority over my writing B.S. in here. Get your mind out of the gutter now; everyone knows B.S. stands for brussels sprouts! Anyway…as I was trying to correct the problem B.G. Brown the host of the High Lonesome Sound discovered I was a sailor in a former life. I used words she rarely hears me use and words I would never use on the air. Finally I came up with a work-around solution and was able to get the show kicked off properly. Now ya know, huh?

As I am talking on the phone every week and I see other lines lighting up, I worry that those people won't keep trying. Then when the show is over I think of people I didn't hear from and so then I start to worry. I worry that they tried to get through, but I never answered and so they gave up. Or I worry I said/played something they took offense to and so they had stopped listening. I don't suppose there is an easy answer to either possibility. As for calls coming in I can't get to, I figure you are like me and you hate to be put on hold, so I just talk with the person currently on the phone and hope the other callers will keep trying. As for saying or playing something people find offensive, I do my best to put everything to the "Grandma" test. If I would be embarrassed for my Grandmas to hear something then I don't play it. Of course both of my Grandmas are in Heaven, which actually makes it even worse since if they are listening to the show up there that means the Good Lord might overhear the show as well. I also know I sometimes play artists who some people might not like for whatever reasons. For instance last week I played the Dixie Chicks and as you recall there was a whole "thing" with the Dixie Chicks a while back. I also play and read promos for community or station events and shows on KOPN some people might not agree with, but ya know the same country that allows me the freedom to do a Classic and Traditional Country also allows others the freedom to express themselves. I purposely do not take on controversial subjects myself on MC, but I do know I may offend some people unintentionally. I believe though that the world is big enough for different perspectives. One caller who pledged his support during the membership drive said he gets his news from Fox News and his Classic Country from Midnight Country. Others who listen to MC wouldn't watch Fox News if it were the only network on. Yet despite all of our differences we have in common a love for real Country Music. I'd better move on. Hopefully I haven't stirred up too much controversy by trying to make the point that I try to avoid controversy on the show. Anyway…I trust you enjoy most of the show most of the time. Keep callin', callin', callin' (I'll eventually answer!) and listenin' too!

It was great to hear from Mexico Mildred this week. She is Missy Burns' mom and of course Missy is the Ol' Clark Outlaw's sister-in-law. Mildred, though I've never met her in person, seems to live up to the initials of the name I just gave her M&M, a real sweet lady and very generous too I might add. Not only did she support MC during the Membership Drive, but she also recently gave Missy a book to give to me. It is called "The Country Music Book of Lists" and it is a very handy tool I use to prepare for the show. Thank you so much Mexico Mildred! I'd loan the book to Ron to read, but I'm afraid he would never give it back. Just kidding! Ron is a person I would trust with anything I own and is certainly one of a very, very few people I would trust to do Midnight Country. Some programmers on KOPN rotate week to week; others have subs they use on a regular basis. I do neither, because like it or hate it I want you to know what to expect every week when you tune into the show. Now if Ron were to ever host the show you would never be able to tell it wasn't me from the music being played since we have such similar taste, but when the music stopped and the DJ came on, well that would be a whole other story. Ron would do such a bang up job that you would think you had died and gone to Country Radio Heaven. You would definitely not want to come back to earth and hear me again. Short of Ron hosting an entire show, which unfortunately for you may not happen, we hope to start talking with Ron on the air by phone in the very near future. You think it is hard to get through now, just wait until the thousands of Ron Lutz fans hear that he can be heard from time to time on MC! The PowerBall odds might start looking pretty good in comparison to getting through to MC. I do want to clarify one thing, I won't be able to take your calls on the air as I am talking to Ron, but you will certainly be able to call me after we are off the air and I will be able to relay your messages to Ron. Come to think of it you can do that already, since I'm always telling Ron something a caller has said. I hope to pull this off very soon, but you may not have any warning, so keep listening!

Now that you've read the wonderings of a middle-aged crazy man it is time to tell you that this week's spotlight artist will be…aw I think I will wait until another place, another time. Just kidding! Calm down and don't get your chantilly lace all messed up. Jerry Lee is who it will be!

Have a good week and tune in Monday for your favorite thirty-nine and holdin' DJ,
Woody

October 18, 2005
As Mear (my cat) lay on my chest Monday morning as I was waking up, I kept saying "Conscience, conscience, conscience…" and believe it or not it was coming out correctly. If you were listening between 4:00 & 5:00 you heard me trying to say I had just played Carl Smith's song "Guilty Conscience." I have learned a lesson the hard way many times on the air. If there is a word you have to really concentrate on to pronounce correctly, trying to say it on the air is a sure fire way to guarantee you will blow it. Just further proof I'm not ready for primetime, huh? Don't you say a word Anna Rose; I know what you're thinking. I know I'm breaking another rule by pointing out my error by writing about it here where the whole world can read it. I've heard a couple people talking recently about Mac Davis' song "It's Hard to Be Humble." I tell ya there's no danger of that becoming MC's theme song anytime soon. I'm still humbled and blown away by all the support MC received during the Membership Drive. If that cocky little Woody who used to play DJ in the middle of the living room floor was still around he might get the big head. Yet life slowly sucked all that cockiness out of him and so you are left with me. I have a bumper sticker on my pickup I bought at the Peace Nook that reads "Those Who Abandon Their Dreams Will Discourage Yours." A lot of truth to that I tell ya. I try, though not always successfully, to listen and take seriously young people as they share their dreams. If we stop dreaming at any age we lose that zest for life. It is better to pursue a dream in an imperfect way and to even fail than to never pursue it at all. I grew up believing God expected perfection and the people who taught me that notion hid behind a front of supposed perfection. I have my doubts today that they were perfect. Notice I'm still not totally convinced they weren't perfect; they did such a great job of snowballing me. Anyway in this context growing up I was afraid to pursue my dream of being a DJ. It was before Christian radio was as big as it is now. Of course many frowned upon Country Music and I suppose some of their points were valid. Yet I was afraid to pursue what today I see as a way God can use me to touch people's lives. Country Music pretty much lays it all out there, the good, the bad and the ugly. Kind of like the Bible does too, huh? It is kind of weird I suppose that at times I turn WWWs into a personal journal where I struggle with my own "issues". There ain't no waitin' until I'm dead and buried, you get to read my journal NOW! What is my point in all of this? Well I'm not sure I had a point when I started writing, but I think it all boils down to one thing. If you have a dream of doing something, anything really, well anything legal, moral, etc. , don't let the notion that you need to do it perfectly stop you from even trying. God knows I haven't let it stop me from doing MC! I put a ton of time into preparing the show and it never fails that every week I make some blunder I am embarrassed by. Yet I am pursuing my dream and slowly but surely I am making improvements, though perhaps only baby steps.

I hope that the Cardinals are still alive by the time you read WWWs. Boy that was something else Monday night, huh? I had the thought while Pujols was on deck "Ya know he could hit one out" and sure enough he did. I'm gonna kind of miss Ol' Busch Stadium, even though it has been years since I have been to a game. It is, after all, the only Cardinals ballpark I have known. Granted the old Busch Stadium formerly known as Sportsman's Park was still in use when I was born in '63, but I wasn't into baseball until after the new Busch Stadium opened. I always thought it was cool that they moved the big section of seats next to the field around to the side in order for the football Cardinals to play. Now I'm kind of a spring and fall Cardinals fan, with the seasons so long it is hard for me to stay focused, but come September that little Woody I mentioned earlier starts to get excited if the Ol' Redbirds are in the runnin'!

It was great to get back into our normal routine this week. Between Kelly answering the phones and you all coming through big time with your support of MC, the membership drive was a whole lot less stressful than normal. Still it is nice to have that behind us for now, of course come February…better start your "Save the Country" fund today. Be someone willing to give a dime for your Country! Remember…"A Dime a day…" Anyway it was great to visit with everyone who called this week without the added stress. I am a little bit worried about Anna Rose. She said she had a bad leg this week. I tell ya if I were her I would not get chicken at that place anymore! Oh wait…it was her own leg, not a chicken leg. Anna Rose has been enjoying this stretch of me being giddy after I met Kelly. Anna Rose had quite a job on her hands nursing me back to health after that there breakup back in '02. Ron and Anna Rose have both met Kelly and given their stamps of approval. Now if I could just convince all Kelly's friends to do the same, nah…I just kidding, they all seem okay with her seeing me. Kelly's three dogs love me, so does it really matter what the "humans" think? It was great to hear from June this week along with her daughter Susan and Susan's fiancé Chris. I didn't get to talk to Charles though; he must have had enough sense to not stay up half the night listenin' to the radio! Of course he needs his rest in order to keep an eye on June. She's a character now! Little Woody never dreamed it could be so much fun getting to know listeners who called in. Of course back when he was "playing" radio he didn't get any calls and his only requests were to move all that "radio playing" stuff out of the way. The Ol' Clark Outlaw's brother Harold called the show this week. He requested I play some songs for his mom Grandma South. He and a buddy were listening to the show on the Ol' Outlaw's stereo; they said the show was sounding "goooood"! Dang I miss Ol' Bob the Outlaw. Every time I play Marty Robbins I think "I hope the Ol' Outlaw ain't listening up there tonight." For some reason he didn't care too much for Marty's songs about women and getting shot. Perhaps the songs hit too close to home, he liked his wild women now. It was nice to hear from Ruby and Chip again this week. Ruby requested I play "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", though I don't know Chip and Ruby real well, the song seems rather fitting for them as they seem to be real "sweethearts". They are a really nice couple who I met while eating at Lucy's Corner Cafe here in Columbia. And…of course…Chip knows all about Ron Lutz and KFAL! I'm starting to wonder who hasn't heard of Ron. Boy little Woody doesn't realize how lucky we are that Ron listens to MC! Kevin Burns, his son Kaleb and I consider ourselves quite lucky to have sat in on a Rooster Creek show last week. Thanks Ron! I hope I didn't blow the Taco Bell commercial; I was just speaking the truth though. I done run out of room again, dang it. Whatcha say we spotlight the "Gentle Giant" this week, Mr. Don Williams? We're gonna keep playing this good Ol' Country 'til all the rivers run dry!

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I pray "Lord I hope this show is good",
Woody

October 11, 2005
Major League Baseball may have their MVP Awards, but they ain't got nothing on us 'cause here at Midnight Country we have the VGL Awards. What the heck is that you ask? It is the "Very Generous Listener" Awards." And this Fall's winners are…(drum roll please)…Don, Anna Rose, DeeAnna, John & Missy, Mildred, Brenda, Carl and Grandma South! Goodness gracious you all made my Fall. A Big Thank You to each of the VGL Award winners for supporting Midnight Country during the Membership Drive! The Ol' Clark Outlaw would be proud of each of you and would be extra tickled to know that his mom Grandma South, his brother John, John's wife Missy and Missy's mom Mildred all gave to support what had become his favorite show on the radio. I remember when the Ol' Outlaw first learned I was doing a radio show he was blown away and thought it something else that he personally knew someone on the air. As time passed I think he was less impressed as he realized I am just your everyday guy who happens to be lucky enough to do something I love. Yet something else changed over time as well, the Ol' Outlaw and I became very close friends AND he began to play an important role in shaping Midnight Country. So needless to say he would think it is great that John & Missy pledged their support to MC in honor of the Outlaw and his sister Mary Lou. Thank you to each of you for supporting MC from yours truly AND the Ol' Clark Outlaw who is no doubt there in spirit with me every week as I do the show. Three cheers for all the VGL Winners!

I thought Anna Rose and I were going to have an argument over the phone this week. She was trying to convince me I had written in WWWs that I would be spotlighting "Don" Watson on the show. I think what happened was she confused Dale Watson with Don who I thanked in WWWs for doing his part to keep Classic & Traditional Country alive and well on MC. I can see how she could get that mixed up though because from what I know about Dale Watson and from what I am learning about Don, it seems they both firmly believe in doing whatever it takes to "Save the Country." Now I'd better watch it or I'll get myself confused, I can just hear myself saying on the show "That was Don Watson going out by request to Dale." Anything is possible on MC, apparently I had my mental clock set on Bronco, I mean Mountain Time, when at 3:35 AM I said it was 2:35 AM. Thankfully Kelly was there to correct me. I am still always afraid I will give the numbers wrong, like the night I combined the toll free number and the e-mail address. I give the numbers so often and without thinking that it is a wonder I don't do it more often.

Something else happened this week that is just further proof of the fact anything is possible on MC. If you had told me a few months ago that come October I would have a new girlfriend, that she would come up and answers the phones for me and that she would talk with me on the air I would have said "What in the heck have you been smokin'?!" Well needless to say you would have been right and I would have lost my shirt had I bet ya. Monday evening I was talking with John, the Ol' Outlaw's brother and he was asking how much we ended up with $ wise. When I told him he said, "Dang, sounds like you owe Kelly big time!" Well John's right, you all came through at the tune of $125 more than during the last membership drive! I think all the credit on this side of the microphone definitely goes to Kelly. Kelly not only was a hit with all of you who called in and enjoyed visiting with her, but she also did a darn good job talking on the air with me. Who knows next Membership Drive we may need a couple of people to answer phones while Kelly and I talk on the air! Now I should make one thing clear, all the nice things Kelly said about MC were her ideas, they were not scripted and she was not paid to say them. I know, like you, I find that hard to believe. For a second I thought she must have been talking about another show. I thought to myself, "Dang I wonder when that show is? It sounds like a good one." How I ever lucked out and met a gal who enjoys Country Music I will never know. I'll bet Ron's wife Mary must have pulled some strings up there in Heaven to make it all happen.

Speaking of Dr. Lutz, Ron did another fine job of helping me select the spotlight artist music this week. Ron was not particularly familiar with Dale's music except for what he has heard me play on MC, but that, of course, doesn't matter when you have an expert ear for real Country Music like Ron does. I hope when all is said and done I end up knowing 1/100th of what Ron knows about Country Music. It was so neat on Saturday after Ron and I were done going over Dale's songs and we were about to hang up I said "Hey Ron (my redneck hillbilly hippie way of addressing the Doctor) you got another second?" I then ask if he was familiar with Joe Maphis. Duh that was a dumb question, like asking a Cardinals fan if they have ever heard of Stan Musial. Anyway in two minutes time I read Ron the list of Joe Maphis songs from the CD I have and without even hearing any of the songs Ron told me the best ones to play, along a couple stories about Joe. Amazing, huh?! Then this week at 5:25 AM as I was wrapping up the show I got a call from Grant, a faithful listener who is a college student. He said he had been listening all night as he studied and that the show had been great. Ron is such a goldmine of information and so I really just see myself as bridge between generations as I seek to pass Ron's wealth on to young people like Grant.

Now for the rest of last week's story, as I was saying…There was a gentleman standing there waiting and he said "How you doing this morning?" I said I was all right and that I had just gotten done doing a Country Music show on KOPN. He said, "I have that station on a radio at home." After we each ordered our food I asked if I could join him. Being a friendly sort of guy, not put off by my redneck hillbilly hippie look, he said "Sure." We had a great conversation; I learned his name was Larry and that he had lost his wife three years ago. Of course then as we talked about MC I had to do a little name-dropping and you guessed it, Larry had his own "Ron Story." He said "I remember seeing him at a concert with some woman." I asked "Betty Sue?" "Yep that was her", he said. Of course Betty Sue was Ron's sidekick on KFAL. Dang it I'm out of room again, but I look forward to sharing many more "Ron Stories" as I continue to meet people who have known Ron. I was too pooped this week to hit McDonald's on the way home, but hopefully I will run into Larry again and enjoy another interesting conversation. Who knows he may tune in to MC sometime, of course I gave him a card.

Now that the hurtin' of the membership drive has passed, whatcha say we spotlight Connie Smith just one time? Sounds like a plan to me!

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I cry, cry, cry that Kelly's not there,
Woody

October 4, 2005
Well once again I got all worked up and worried myself sick for nothing. As always you all came through for me. On this week's Edition of Midnight Country we exceeded our first week goal by $15, ending up with a total of $175. A BIG Thank You should go out to Anna Rose and Don, both went above and beyond what I ever expected. Anna Rose had even jumped the gun by mailing her pledge of support ahead of time! Wouldn't it be cool if someday so many of you sent your pledges in early that the station said "Woody, don't even worry about asking for support because you've already exceeded your goal and the Membership Drive hasn't even started!" Perhaps that day will come if I can get better at selling everyone on the importance of supporting a show like Midnight Country. I know that an extra $40 can seem like a lot to fork out at once when times are hard and money is tight, but I would say most of us can afford $.10 a day. Do you have an old, empty piggy bank setting around? Maybe you could set it by your change pile and then once a day drop in a dime. This time next year then you will be just shy of the $40 membership and you won't have even missed the share change. Perhaps a good label on the piggy bank would be "Save the Country Fund". It seems like a cute little saying but it may be more serious than we realize. My buddy Don takes keeping Classic and Traditional Country on the radio so seriously that he pledged $100! I tell ya now that is some serious believing in the cause of keeping real Country alive. Thanks so much Don! Don has been telling me about his friends Bob and Julia who live in Nashville. He has been telling Bob about Midnight Country and is working on a tape to send him that will let Bob hear what we are doing on the show. Bob is frustrated with the direction he sees Country Music taking. I hope by hearing the tape he will be encouraged to know that at least here in Mid-Missouri Classic and Traditional Country is alive and well on the radio. It would have to be frustrating to live in the Capitol of Country Music and not be able to hear much real Country. The few times I have been to Nashville and scanned the dial I have found it interesting that I can pick up more Country stations here in Columbia than I could down there. I'm not just talking about Classic Country radio either, but that includes any Country radio, even the pop stuff. Ok I'll pause for a few minutes while you go dig out an old piggy bank and write "Save the Country Fund" on the side….Are ya back yet? Dang what took you so long? I didn't mean you had to fill it up right now. Seriously I think I am going to do this myself. I understand what it is like, the Membership Drive rolls around before I know it and then I find myself scrambling to come up with the cash or available credit on my cards so that I can practice what I preach. Believe you me if I didn't love Country Music I would not stay up all night playing it for ya all, I wouldn't care how much you liked it. They couldn't even pay me to play a lot of the so-called Music or even so-called Country Music that is out there!

On a less serious note, a BIG Thank You needs to go out to Kelly, my girlfriend, for all her work Monday morning answering the phones. Some of you who know me pretty well, know how stressed out I get prior to the first weekend of a Membership Drive. There are so many questions running around in my head, like what if no one calls at all, what if no one calls with requests, what if no one pledges their support, what if I miss a call from someone wanting to pledge a $100,000? Well the last one is a bit of a stretch, but I think you get my point. So I tell ya having Kelly there to take your pledges was such a great relief. I was then able to concentrate on taking your requests, visiting with you, getting your requests worked into the show, and figuring out new creative ways to stick my foot in my mouth! Thank you Kelly! I love you sweetheart and not just because you're one hell of a worker, but 'cause you're cute too…oops this isn't just going to Kelly, huh? Dang I need to get that delete key fixed. Aw well, we're all family here, right? I don't seem to hide my feelings in here very well anyway, do I?

This week we will be spotlighting a newer artist, one who you will never hear on a Commercial Country station, at least not anywhere in these parts. He is definitely doing his part to save the Country and keep Traditional Country alive. You are already familiar with this person because we play him every week. Yet perhaps a song here and there hasn't really allowed you to get a sense of how good he really is. I wish I could say I am spotlighting him because he is coming town, but unfortunately that is not the case. Still I do have a great offer for you, for a pledge of only $20 you will be able to go to London England via a CD and hear him "Live". I'm talking of course about Dale Watson and his "Live in London, England" CD. This will allow you to support Midnight Country at a reduced amount from the $40, get a great CD and still get to select a half hour of music for a future show. Also this will get ya off the hook this membership drive for only 20 bucks and then this time next year your "Save the Country Fund" will have built up to just shy of $40. What a deal?! I have a limited number of these CD's so you will want to call Kelly early to take advantage of this special offer!

Yesterday I watched more of the ceremonies I had recorded that were held on Sunday at the last regular season game played at Busch Stadium. Jack Buck's widow talked for a bit and she was telling how that every time she goes to Busch someone will stop her with a "Jack" story. Well something similar happens to me every time I tell someone about MC. Often in the conversation I will mention that Ron Lutz listens to the show and helps with the song selection. I can't count all the times the person will say "I know Ron or I remember listening to Ron or is that Rooster Creek Show still on?" Well this Monday morning was no exception. At 6:00 AM on my way home I was sitting at a red light that just wouldn't turn green for me, I was getting irritated 'cause I was heading to McDonald's to get some breakfast. I'd already been to one McDonald's and the drive through had been closed due to the delivery truck being in the way. The light finally turned green, then when I got to McDonald's they hadn't opened the door yet. There was a gentleman standing there waiting and he…Ya know I've run out of room and so I'm gonna make you wait until next week for, as Paul Harvey would say "The rest of the story."

Don't forget to start your "Save the Country Fund", remember "A Dime a Day Keeps the Pop Away!" Have a good week and don't miss Dale's music and the chance to chat with Kelly again,
Woody

September 27, 2005
I'm having a little trouble concentrating on WWWs at the moment since I am watching the Broncos/Chiefs pre-game show on TV. I will probably need to write this in a couple of settings. I hope no one holds my love of the Denver Broncos against me. It is probably good that I am doing the show here in Columbia and not closer to Kansas City. The Broncos are really the only sports team that I follow closely. Even though I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan, it seems easier to keep up on twenty football games that occur once a week than to keep up with and watch 162 regular season games that the Cardinals play from April to October. If you can't figure out how a native Missourian came to be a Broncos fan then you might want to read the August 8th WWWs in the Archives.

Well I didn't make it very far in writing WWWs. I got all caught up in the game and never made it back to the 'puter Monday night. The Broncos did win the game 30-10, but I have learned the hard way over the years as a Broncos fan that it is not wise to get too cocky after a win like this. The Broncos have been known to whip up on a team in their division early in the season only to have the favor returned later on in the same year. What does all of this have to do with Country Music, nothing really, but it is just what was on my mind as I sat down to write WWWs last night and whatever I am wondering about at the time even if unrelated may slip by the censors into WWWs.

I hoped you enjoyed Conway this week. My buddy Don said just when he thinks a spotlight artist can't be topped I pull another great one out of the bag. I have a feeling I will run out of material long before I run out of people I should spotlight. I think I ended up playing a little more of Conway than I intended to and more than I might normally play of a spotlight artist, but good grief he has so much great stuff. It is kind of like going to Golden Corral or the like and trying to only eat one plate. I have a feeling I am in for another grand buffet this week to try and choose from. I am going to go ahead and reveal this week's spotlight artist. I know doing so early in WWWs may throw Anna Rose off since she said she likes to skip to the end to find out all the good stuff, like the spotlight artist and whether I talk about her. Well tough Anna Rose, remember you are on my naughty list after not reading WWWs last week. It cracked me up when Anna Rose called just before the show started and requested "The Rose", not knowing that Conway was the spotlight artist. I guess it just blows the notion that "if you write it, they will read it", at least in a timely fashion. Anyway sit down and grab the nitro glycerin, this week I am spotlighting none other than Porter Wagoner! How can I ever top that one? Wouldn't ya know I'd spotlight someone like Porter during the membership drive of all weeks?! Now you're gonna have to listen to my pleas for your support in order to hear Porter. How will ya ever deal with the guilt of not becoming a member of KOPN? Well a simple call to me or Kelly and just over $.75 a week will buy you 52 weeks of guilt free listening to Midnight Country! What a deal! We had a very successful membership drive on MC back in May. I hope to have another good 'un this fall so that after the next two weeks we can get back into the routine of concentrating on playing great Classic and Traditional Country and not worrying if we met our goal.

The calls were steady this week and included three first time callers, pretty cool, huh? One of the calls was from someone I had told about MC while eating lunch at a local café. The second I did not find out how they happened to call (I can hear the Ol' Outlaw saying "Shame on you"). The third caller said they were just "scanning the dial", heard something they liked and kept listening. Sounds like how the legendary Ron Lutz discovered the show. I wonder if he would have ever called the show had he known I would rope him in and plunder his vast storehouse of knowledge. Yesterday I was so full of questions and wild ideas that I couldn't wait until evening when my cell minutes are free and so I just about talked his leg off during the day. Just imagine if you were a wannabe scientist and Albert Einstein called ya up and said he found something you were doing interesting, then he made the mistake of giving you his home number. Welp that would pretty well describe my relationship with Ron, except for the fact I have the wild Einstein hair instead of Ron. I guess until Ron changes his number I'm gonna keep calling. Of course Ron will probably think as he reads this "At least I answer the phone when you call." Yeah I know it is sometimes hard to get through on the show, just don't give up ya all. Maybe we should bring back the old party lines so that I could talk to everyone at once, though I don't think that is how the party lines worked. You'll just have to do like Anna Rose and get a phone with redial. Poor Anna Rose is always having to call back because I am getting another call, but she is a trooper and made it clear to the end again this week.

I was sitting at a stoplight this morning and saw a sign about a lost poodle. It said the dog was greatly missed and there was a $300 cash reward. I have always dreaded the day and hoped I would never see the day when one of my animal kids was lost. I would never be able to offer a reward equal to what they meant to me. How could you put a price on unconditional love? It got me to thinking though and I hesitate to make this comparison because I know Midnight Country could never mean to you what my animals mean to me. Yet what is MC worth to you every week? Is it worth the price of two candy bars per week at Wally World? Or a Happy Hour draft beer? Or a cheap hamburger? If MC were no longer on, would you miss it just a little? Now we're not going anywhere and so I'm not going to pull an Oral Roberts on you and threaten that God will take me home if you don't call and become a member of KOPN, but it is something to think about. $40 a year is not a lot when compared to being able to hear real Country for 5 ½ hours every week, knowing too that there is a live DJ after midnight just a call away who will do his darnest to get your requests on. With the exception of some Saturday morning Commercial Country stations' shows, you would be hard pressed to find another local DJ with the freedom to play any Classic Country tune you want to hear. Please know that I understand that some of you truly cannot afford $40 or even $5, but some can and so think about what you can do to help us reach our goal during the Membership Drive. As much as I enjoy writing WWWs the words from Porter's song comes to mind, "I've Enjoyed as Much of This as I Can Stand," so I'd guess I'll quit in case I hear Kelly call my name. Besides I need to go eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow I'll cry…I mean I'll start my dyet (diet).

Have a good week and as always we will be playing all your requests come Monday morning, but if you don't call I may just play Porter's "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight" over and over ,

Woody

September 20, 2005
Another good one I tell ya, a lot of interesting calls and several songs never before played on Midnight Country. The Ol' Clark Outlaw would have gotten a kick out of hearing Carl Story and The Maddox Brothers & Rose CD's he had sent me way back when. The process I go through to get a CD ready to play on the show always fascinated him. First I have to load the music on my computer and then put all the song titles in a database. I typically have a backlog of several dozen CD's in need of processing to get ready to play. I could type the song titles in from scratch during the show like most other programmers do, but I would much rather copy and paste requested song titles which is much less time consuming and thus be able to visit with everyone who calls. I do my best to use technology to my advantage as I seek to keep Classic and Traditional Country on the radio. On a typical week we play an average of one song from CD and then type the title into the playlist from scratch, the rest have been entered before hand. The picture on the Contact page here on the web site is a good idea of what I look like throughout the first half of the show, a phone in one hand, a computer mouse in the other and a big smile on my face as I talk to all you who call. I can't recall who I was talking to when my sister Colene took that picture, but if I were a betting man I'd bet it was Anna Rose. She's a hoot now, but I think I've already told ya that. I'm getting' a little more worried about her though I tell ya. It was one thing for her to talk to the groundhogs, but now she says they are talking back! Sounds like a story for Animal Planet, huh? Of course I told ya about Bronco talking to me in a dream I had awhile back, so maybe I have no room to talk.

Another big thanks to Ron for his help selecting the music from the spotlight artist this week. Ron said one of his granddaughters who is a big fan of Patty Loveless helped him with the selections and so a big thanks to her too. I told Ron you all would be surprised if you knew everything that goes on behind the scenes to get ready for MC. I had two callers tell me they thought the show was sounding better since Ron has been working his magic on the song selections. At first I was a little worried about that giving Ron a big head, but then I recalled what a humble, down-to-earth great guy he really is. He welcomed Kelly and I with open arms Friday night for a spur of the moment visit. Well actually Kelly got the open arms (hugs) and I got a rather firm handshake. I tried to squeeze back, but…anyway I do have an appointment with a doctor this week. The doc at the ER thought I will be able to use my hand again after much physical therapy. I should have been more careful since it just stands to reason that a powerful man like Ron is in Country radio would then have a powerful handshake. It was great to visit with ya Ron.

How'd ya like the latest feature on MC, the Ol' Midnight Country Depot? A great idea I think. Like giving the weather it will take me a while to get all the kinks worked out, but we'll get there. Thanks to Chip for the suggestion and for providing us with the Arrival and Departure info each week. We're still working on getting some good sound effects to play as an intro and outro to the segment. We are always open to comments and suggestions about ways we can make the show better. There is always room for improvement, but with Chip's, Ron's and all your help we just might turn this into the best Country show ever, second of course to Ron's Ranch when it was on KFAL and the Rooster Creek Show still on KFAL. Hey being third place behind those two shows would suit me just fine!

Speaking of arrivals at the Ol' Midnight Country Depot, it will twenty-one years ago on Friday Sept. 23 when Anna Rose's sister Loretta was born. I'll bet they tie one on Friday night now that Loretta will be legally old enough to drink. Oops there I go making up tales again. I think Loretta has already been twenty-one a year or two at least. A BIG Happy Birthday Loretta! I hope you and Anna Rose don't get into too much trouble celebrating. On a somber note it was 60 years ago yesterday Sept. 19 that my Grandpa Diehl, my Mom's Dad, passed away. I suppose it is rather obvious then that I never met him, but it is kind of sad that none of my Mom's kids met him either. My brother Dean was not born until the next month of that year. We're supposed to be having a big BD party for Dean's 60th Birthday next month. As you may recall my Dad's dad died when Dad was 16, so I never met either of my grandpa's.

Anyway…Bronco, the girls and I survived the storm yesterday evening. My street looked like a river for a while. Kelly and her crew survived too, a couple of her dogs Sarah and Darth are terrified of storms and so Kelly always likes to be at home with them when it is like it was last night. It seemed to go on forever, one biggie passed and then another one moved through. Hopefully Kelly and her animal kids were able to get some sleep. I mentioned on the show that I think Kelly is going to help answer the phones for me during the membership. It was funny when Ron called he said "I figured you'd get Kelly worked into that somehow." Yep he was right. She had offered to help during the drive back in May, having just met I thought that would be asking a lot, but now…well. Here's something to think about between now and the drive, is Midnight Country worth $.77 a week to you, particularly when you throw in the opportunity to call and talk with Woody's new girlfriend? Welp if it is then be sure and call during the membership drive, the basic KOPN membership is only $40 a year which works out, you guessed it, to less than $.77 a week! You'd be hard pressed to find a jukebox that would play 85 Classic and Traditional Country tunes for just over $.75! If you do call be nice now and don't tell Kelly all your dirt on me, we want her to stick around!

Speaking of my jeans fittin' a little tight due to Kelly's good cookin', I can't believe we haven't spotlighted this guy on the show yet. Yep you're right Darlin' (or Dude in the case of you fellers), we're gonna spotlight Conway Twitty on this week's MC. If Anna Rose gets to tellin' me about her talking groundhogs I'll have to play Conway's "It's Only Make Believe" for her. You won't want to miss the magic that Ron works on this week's playlist and of course I'll be playing all his great selections, after all "That's My Job!" Don't forget to tell everyone you know about the show and the web site. A lot of people have computers these days and so it is as I always say "A quick and easy way to tell someone about the MC." www.MidnightCounty.org

Have a good week and don't forget to send me your birthdays for the Ol' Midnight Country Depot Arrival board,

Woody

September 13, 2005
My buddy Ron pretty well described this week's show when he said, "Ol' Johnny's sounding pretty good tonight". If you missed the 3rd Annual Johnny Cash Tribute I feel for ya. Did you run out of coffee? Were you out of sick days? Did you forget to set the recorder? Well what can I say, there is always next year I suppose. The good news is that we play Johnny just about every week on the show anyway, just not nearly as much as you did hear or could have heard on this week's show. Thanks to Ron I played several songs I would have normally overlooked, lesser-known gems of Johnny. Thanks Ron.

Normally I would not say this, but I hope most of you didn't listen to the whole show this week. During the last stretch of songs I made two major errors, which totally messed up the ending of the show. Of course if you didn't listen to the whole show now you wish you had so you could have heard my blunders. First of all I did not have the songs in the same order on the computer as they were in the list I read prior to kicking off the last set of songs. Second I disconnected an external hard drive from the computer which I should not have done considering the music I was playing was coming from it. Normally this would have been okay, but when I had moved my last set of songs from the external hard drive I had copied>pasted, instead of cut>pasted, so I then got confused and was playing from the wrong folder. I know that all these details may not mean much to you, but I was rather embarrassed particularly since I had just had a first time caller prior to this happening. What can ya do? It is just further proof that Midnight Country is "live" and subject to human error. Every week when preparing for the show we shoot for perfection hoping that by doing so we will only miss the target by a few hundred yards and not thousands. It is all right though; I'd rather readily admit I am not perfect than to be like some of the people I knew growing up who thought they were.

You may have heard me mention on the show that Kelly and I went to Wooldridge Saturday evening to the Steam Engine show. It brought back a lot of memories and no I'm not old enough to remember using steam engines, but as a boy we did often go to Mt. Pleasant IA to the Old Thrashers Reunion. The highlight of those trips and the one thing I remember most was when I saw my hero Ronnie Milsap in concert. I talked with a guy Saturday evening that is a part of the Mt. Pleasant Old Thrashers Reunion and he said they still have the Country concerts as a part of the Reunion. As for all the steam engines and old farm implements, I recall not being as interested in that aspect as my Dad was. Of course he grew up using a lot of what we saw and so it no doubt meant more to him than it did to me. Now that I am older though I find myself much more interested in these sorts of things, but unfortunately Dad is no longer here to explain what different things were and how they worked. As a boy when we went on vacation Dad used to not understand why I would rather nap than look at the scenery. My favorite line would always be "Are we there yet?" Of course now as an adult I want to revisit all those places we went to as a family. I used to beat myself up a bit for not having been more interested as a boy, but I've come to realize that it was probably just a normal phase I was going through. As you get older your interests and priorities changes and that is okay. I had Kelly take my picture sitting on an old Allis Chalmers tractor. It reminded me of the John Deere MT we had when I was a boy. As I recall it rode rough and the gears were hard to shift, but it may not have been that bad, I was just pretty small when I first drove it. The John Deere 630 we had seemed like a Cadillac in comparison, but it couldn't even compare when we started having tractors with AM radios on the fenders. It was then that I started dreaming of being on the other side of those radios.

On Saturday night Kelly and I also watched the Iron Weed Bluegrass Band play there at Wooldridge. I felt kind of like a big shot radio man when Jane Accurso with Iron Weed told the audience about Midnight Country. My head shrunk back down to normal though when the break came and went and only one person came up to talk to me about the show. Ah well, it would be hell if I were good lookin' and famous both, I'd never be able to go out in public. Come to think about it I don't have to worry about the good lookin' part either. Fortunately for me Kelly sees a diamond underneath this ol' chuck of coal, either that or she is in serious need of glasses. I was devastated to learn this week that I can't sing. I was trying to give Anna Rose surround sound by singing along with Johnny on the phone while talking to her, but not being one to beat around the bush or to sugarcoat the truth, Anna Rose let me know a singing career would not be in my future. So much for the other dream I had while driving that ol' MT. On a side note, I think Mear, my oldest cat may be part goat, she just walked up and butted my hand wanting me to pet her and of course I did. My animals know what they want, when they want it and how to get it. Oh yeah, the one person who did come up and talk to me about MC was a friend of and listener to, yep you guessed it, Ron Lutz. I hope when I retire from Midnight Country that 1/1000 of the people who I run into that know Ron will have heard of MC and Woody Adkins. I hit the jackpot when I lucked out and Ron became a regular listener to MC. I tell ya people perk up and take me serious when I say Ron Lutz listens to the show!

I talked to June this week and she said her granddaughter in Florida is doing much better and going to computer repair school. Carol, June's sister-in-law, is also doing better. As for Charles, well June said he is still a hand full, but she's keeping him in line, most of the time that is. Whoa, wait a second now, I just made up the part about Charles, June didn't really say that. The trouble with the truth is I sometimes forget to tell it or like to stretch it. Speaking of an artist with a song named "Trouble With the Truth", we're going to spotlight Patty Loveless this week. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much good traditional Country she does.

Have a good week and tune in as I sing "Here I Am", wait a sec, that will be Patty singing "Here I Am" (Anna Rose just breathed a sigh of relief),
Woody

September 6, 2005
If you read WWWs on a regular basis you know that I will sometimes complain about the weather when the temperatures are at one extreme or the other, but yesterday was just right I tell ya. You couldn't have asked for a nicer Labor Day. I actually got out and enjoyed it for a bit myself and I hope you all did too. Kelly brought two of her dogs, Darth and Sarah, over to play with Bronco for a while. As hot as they got you would have thought it was 105 degrees. Broncos doesn't get the chance to play with other dogs too often, but when he does he definitely takes advantage of the opportunity. In the past I have thought I should get him a playmate, but now that I've met Kelly who has three dogs I don't think that will be necessary. Bronco will be doing good to recover from Darth and Sarah's occasional visits, I'm not sure his heart could handle another dog to play with full-time at this point. We'll have to get him built up to that.

I didn't talk a lot about Katrina on the show. Just about every news channel on cable has been talking about the tragedy nonstop. I figured we could all use an escape from thinking about it for a while. I know I can drive myself crazy thinking about something I am powerless to do anything about. For some reason it seems when you see a tragedy like Katrina on TV it can sometimes seem unreal, like a movie or something. I cannot even imagine the devastation and what everyone is going through down there. There are opportunities to help starting to surface though and I am sure we will each one do what we can. I have a friend who answered phones on Monday at the Red Cross, talking with people who were trying to locate loved ones. Last night on the St. Louis TV News they were telling about an old jail that had been converted in the last few days to house families and children displaced by Katrina. I also just got an e-mail about the need for people to take in animal victims (cats, dogs) of the hurricane. And I had just said I was holding off on getting Bronco a playmate …maybe someone reading this will be able to help a needy animal? One of the many sad stories I have seen was about a woman waiting to be rescued. When help finally came they said she would have to leave her dog behind. I understand the importance of saving human life first, but I cannot even imagine being faced with that decision. You never know what you would do until you are actually in the situation, but I would say I would have to stay with the kids. The human death toll is still something I find hard to think about. I guess you get used to hearing about tornadoes or even hurricanes killing 5-10 people here in this country, but 10,000? God have mercy. And New Orleans is just a few hundred miles from Columbia. It is all hitting pretty close to home, isn't it?

If you were listening during the first hour of the show you heard me say it was eight years ago on Sunday that my Dad Harold Adkins passed away. I sure miss him. Due to a hernia he had to sleep most nights in his lazy boy chair and he would often have the radio on. If I had been doing MC at the time and had KOPN reached to Kirksville, I think Dad would have enjoyed listening to the show. A while back a regular listener said MC helped him make it through the night as he was going through a very difficult time. I hope Midnight Country does the same thing for many, many others of you listening. I also like to think I would have helped Dad had I been on back then. In the middle of the night before Dad died he had my step mom Virginia put a Bill Gaither Music video on, one with a bunch of Southern Gospel artists singing. Later that morning Dad passed away in his chair that faced the north and looked out the east window of the home where I grew up. You only have one Dad and I just wish mine would have heard me on the "real" radio instead of just set up in the middle of the living room floor in everyone's way "playing" radio as a boy.

On a lighter note, it was a treat to talk to Anna Rose's sister Loretta this week. Loretta and her daughter Lora Lee were staying with Anna Rose and Loretta was finally able to hear the show. She has been reading WWWs for a while now, but is not able to pick us up in Salisbury. It cracked me up when Anna Rose called later on in the show and was whispering. She was trying not to wake up Loretta who had gone on to sleep. If you knew Anna Rose you would know that her whispering is like me singin', it just rarely happens. The calls were steady this week, but they once again dropped off after 3:00. I need to figure out who is up from 3:00-5:30 and start marketing the show to them. I'm afraid I will burn Anna Rose out having to keep me awake in the wee hours of the morning. Fortunately Carl usually calls around 5:00 and gives Anna Rose a breather. It was pretty neat that we had a first time call from Larry in Columbia around 4:30. He wanted to hear a couple songs by Red Sovine, which we were able to get on.

This week's spotlight artist should be no surprise, you've only known who it would be for a couple of years now. Just in case though you've been on another planet, this week will be our 3rd Annual Johnny Cash Tribute. Of course Johnny passed away two years ago on…Mear is sitting on my mouse at the moment. I hope she doesn't suffocate it! I need my mouse to run my computer. Perhaps she is protesting the fact I am busy typing and she can't lie on my arm. Welp there she went, now she's going to groom on the other desk. Anyway it was September 12th when Johnny passed away and once again we will be paying Tribute to the Man in Black for the entire show. You won't want to miss it and this would be the perfect opportunity to tell someone else about MC!

Writing this week's WWWs has been a bit of a struggle, but I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is Katrina weighing on my mind or missing my Dad. I don't know what it is. I do know life is short and can be shorter still when a tragedy hits. Just live and enjoy your life each day as best you can. I know from experience that a lot of circumstances such as a loss, depression or an illness can make enjoying life a struggle. Hang in there through it all though and never hesitate to call the show just to talk or to request a song that brings encouragement to you. Midnight Country is about real people, dealing with real life, listening to real Country, played by a real…whatever I am.

Have a good week and tune in Monday for all Cash, all night and no I don't mean we'll be giving away cash all night, unless Anna Rose sends me some ,
Woody

August 30, 2005
Well if you listened to the show this week you heard Midnight Country history in the making. After too many moons of crying in my Diet Dew with a broken heart, your host Woody Adkins finally hit the jackpot, won the lottery and had Ed McMahon show up at his door. The first words out of Ed's mouth were "It's a girl!" Well actually a grown beautiful woman, named Kelly. I had been convinced I would never meet anyone again, but thankfully I was wrong. I first met Kelly on April 29 this year. She was volunteering at KOPN when I happened to stop by that afternoon. We next met again at a park 15 days later after several e-mails and calls. At that time Bronco met Sarah one of Kelly's three dogs. Fortunately for me Kelly was much more excited to see me again than Sarah was to meet Bronco. As we sat and talked Bronco barked his head off while Sarah sat with her back to him ignoring his pleas to play. That day was the first of many meetings and fortunately for Bronco, Sarah has warmed up to him a bit more. And so as they say the rest is history. There are a lot more stories to tell, but I will save them for future WWWs and the show. It took me awhile to open up on the show about this newly found treasure named Kelly. After having gone through a devastating breakup three years ago and after some time had passed talking about it on MC, I wanted to be sure Kelly was the real deal and wasn't going to run screaming from the state after discovering what a redneck hillbilly hippy I am. Well as amazing as this may sound the more she gets to know me the less likely it seems that she will hightail it and run. And the more I get to know her the more I start to wonder if she might be my "Mary". Now who's Mary? Well it was two plus years ago I first heard about Mary, Ron Lutz's dearly departed wife of 53 years. The more Ron talked about Mary, the more jealous I became, wishing I could meet someone like her. Welp it may have done just happened. Can ya tell I'm still a little nervous? Being an eternal pessimist it takes me a while to be convinced something is for real, but by talking about Kelly on the show and here in WWWs I would say I have taken a BIG step toward being a believer. And get this, a side benefit to Kelly's being beautiful, sweet and so se…(oops I'd better not say sexy had I? ), is the fact that she loves to listen to the show and to Country Music. Dang have I hit the jackpot or what!

It was another busy night during the first three hours of the show this week. I sometimes wish we had voice mail so I'd know if I am missing any calls. I know a lot of you keep trying, but I am afraid there are some who may try and then give up. MC Family member and my buddy Carl who stopped by this week will tell ya that more than once I was talking to someone and another line or two was ringing. It doesn't surprise me really that so many people have been calling MC lately. Well that is not totally true; my little inner DJ is still not convinced the show is actually going out over the air. Anyway the reason this doesn't surprise me, the big adult DJ, is because according to a Tribune article in the business section on Thursday Aug. 18, 2005 the number one station in Columbia is Country AND get this KOPN's listener-ship is up a whopping 80% over one year ago! Now who really knows how many people are listening to MC, but I'd say a bunch! If we ever have a Midnight Country Family get-together we might have to rent the Paige…oops I mean Mizzou Arena! I've always heard that fast-food restaurants like to build across the street from other fast-food restaurants. I guess a new one will then feed off the overflow and exposure of the original one. Well with mainstream Country being so popular and a Country station being number one according to the Arbitron ratings quoted in the above-mentioned article, then I would say the same illustration could apply with MC, with one slight variation. Midnight Country is NOT a fast-food restaurant built across the street from another fast-food joint. We are a steakhouse with a ***** (five star) rating, serving the thickest, juiciest, most tender melt-in-your-mouth T-bone steaks you would ever want to sink your teeth into! So the fast-food joint across the street may get people in the area and exposed to MC, but once they dine on fine Country Music, they will never want to go back to eating cheap ol' $.99 hamburgers I tell ya! I can just see the Ol' Outlaw grinning from ear-to-ear and saying "Now I told ya a lot of people like the show, but you wouldn't believe me." Dang I miss the Ol' Outlaw.

Now is the time when my face turns beet red with embarrassment. Last week I asked you here in WWWs to pray for Anna Rose's sister Loretta who I said had been sick. Oops, my mistake, it was instead, Anna Rose's niece Lora who had been sick. Anna Rose is (fortunately) letting it slide THIS time since the names Loretta and Lora Lee could be confused. Perhaps I should start recording my conversations with Anna Rose, this could serve a twofold purpose. First, I could prevent errors such as I made last week and second I could retire to Florida from all the money we would make selling CD's of our phone calls. Let just say Anna Rose and my visits on the phone would make the Blue Collar Tour guys (Jeff Foxworthy, etc.) seem like some long boring college algebra class. She's a hoot, but do NOT and I repeat do NOT tell her I said that.

I do know this for a fact (or at least I think I do) when June called this week she said she has been feeling under the weather lately. So keep her in your prayers. Also I would appreciate you praying for Kelly's step mom Royanne as she and her family deal with the tragic loss of her brother Henry who died in a car accident on Friday in Illinois. I think too, it would be appropriate to ask you to pray for everyone in areas hit by the hurricane.

I hope you are not feeling too low from your anticipation blues, but I am finally about to reveal this week's spotlight artist. It will be TEF, sounds like a rapper, huh? I bet Ron will enjoy that! Actually Ron is a big fan of TEF and sounds a lot like him when he raps, I mean sings on the Rooster Creek Show. Just messing with ya Ron. Actually Ron already knows that this week's spotlight artist will be Tennessee Ernie Ford. Ron will be up early all week dealin' with the milkin' blues as he skims off the cream and churns up some sweet Ol' Tennessee Ernie Ford for me to spin on Monday. Don't miss the next two shows now; remember it'll be all Johnny on the 12th!

Have a good week and tune in Monday morning for TEF, that is if I can recover from the exhaustion of loading sixteen tons of CD's in the ol' pickup to play for ya,
Woody

August 23, 2005
Being one who is obsessed with small details at times, I am making a couple changes this week. First, as you heard me mention on the show I have pushed back the time that WWWs and the Playlist will be posted on the web site. It seems I rarely have it posted by Noon on Tuesday and I am tired of that nagging voice that says "Liar, liar" everytime I say on the show when it will be posted. So the new time to watch for it is 2:00 on Tuesday, PM of course and Central whatever-time we are on during the summer. For those who might hit the web site from other countries, look at just about the center of a map of the US, find Missouri, then look at the center of the map of Missouri, find Columbia and then figure out what time 2:00 PM my time is where you are. I have no idea if anyone legitimately hits the site from other countries, but according to my Hosting reports there are hits of some sort from around the world. It could just be foreign search engines looking for pictures of goofy looking redneck hillbilly hippies. It is a shame we don't stream the show on-line. If we did you could move half way around the world and listen to Midnight Country beginning at Midday! I suppose like good wine though, a show like MC is best kept in the dark. Although when I did still drink I never kept any wine or beer long enough to need to worry about storing it so I really don't know if that is true. I guess, as they say, you're just borrowing wine/beer anyway. I was so busy this week doing the show that I think it was after 2:30 AM before I was able to return the Diet Dew I had borrowed. I hope they don't charge me late fees. If at about 2:00 AM you try to call and I am not answering the phone, it may not be that I am busy on the phone at the moment; it may just be that I am trying to prevent an accident because I forgot my Depends. Now I guess I'm usually not so busy that I need to start wearing adult diapers, but this week we were hopping during the first part of the show. I always hate to miss a call, but I know I often do. I just hope you don't give up and stop trying. We had three first time callers this week and a total of seventeen different calls or e-mails, another new record for total calls/e-mails. And that one dude I told ya about awhile back wrote that the calls during KOPN's late night shows are rare. Yeah right, he never hung out with me while I was doing MC! It still just blows my little inner DJ away that anyone calls, let alone a dozen plus five! Thanks for making the show sooo much fun to do. Keep calling; let's hit twenty this week! I'll bet we might have hit twenty had I been able to get to every call. Midnight Country might get so big that the station will have to hire me an assistant, wouldn't that kick you-know-what. Of course if they paid them as much as I make it would still be $0, but you can always tell what a person really loves to do by looking at what they are willing to do for free without a second thought.

The second minor change is I am going to begin dating WWWs on whatever date Tuesday is, not the date of the show, Monday. Although I am usually writing most of it on Monday, it doesn't technically get posted or mailed until Tuesday. I know this is a MAJOR change and will throw some of you off, just kidding now! I'll bet most of you would not have even noticed the change had I not said something. You'd be surprised at how much thought I put into some of the show details. Of course I know there are times when I stop talking on the air and start to play a song that you no doubt wonder if or what I was thinking at all! Just like Lefty said "Look what thoughts can do" or in my case the lack there of at times.

Ever notice how when the seasons are changing minor temperature changes really bother us. Like say in the late spring an 80-degree day seems unbearable, but then come August an 80-degree day is a welcome relief from temps in the upper 90's. The same is true, but in reverse when it comes to fall and winter. But over time we become conditioned to the temperature changes and hardly notice they have gotten so extreme until some relief comes along, then we think "Dang 80-degrees back in May wasn't so bad after all." The same idea can be applied to Country Music, when we were young many of us didn't appreciate, took for granted or perhaps didn't even like the real Country Music that was being played on the radio. Over time though a lot of Country Music started to change and become something different. Yet the change was gradual and perhaps we didn't even realize what was happening. Then like the extreme temperatures we got used to it and forgot what real Country even sounded like. Then a show like Midnight Country comes along and like an 80-degree day it brings a welcome relief from all the hot air from the southeast (Nashville) that has been heating up the Country. Midnight Country and the few shows out there like it, may be our last glimpse into what real Country Music and real radio, for that matter, were like. When I was talking to Ron Lutz on Saturday I said I wished I had met him earlier, perhaps back before he retired from 43 years of being a DJ. Yet it could be that the Master DJ above (the good Lord) had this all planned out just the way He wanted it. Now ten years after Ron retired from KFAL he is able to ensure that, at least on Midnight Country, real Country and real radio will live on. Perhaps instead of regretting I never got into commercial radio back in the day, I should be grateful I never got sucked into the black hole of commercial radio and brainwashed to believe that just because someone in Nashville calls something Country that it is then Country. Now instead on Community radio I have been blessed with the opportunity to keep the Country real and keep radio real as well. I am afraid that commercial radio is losing or in a lot of cases has already lost the personal one-on-one interaction that I am able to experience with the MC Family every week. From talking to Ron it seems to be a glimpse into what his 43 years in radio were like. Thanks for bridging the gap Ron and for lending your expertise to the show.

Keep Anna Rose's sister Loretta in your prayers, she has been sick the last few days. Also continue to pray for June's sister-in-law Carol as she recovers from leg surgery. This week we will be spotlighting a thirteen year old, well that is how old she was when she had her first hit back in 1972. You guessed it Delta Dawn herself; Tanya Tucker will be our spotlight artist this week.

Have a good week, tune in Monday morning and give me a call, but not after 5:30 'cause then it won't be me who says it's a little too late,
Woody

August 15, 2005
Well the ol' transmitter was cranking this week I tell ya. We were reaching plum to Paris. I got a call from Brenda who wanted me to play a couple Garth tunes for her husband and their 10th Anniversary. I would say if we were reaching Paris then we were definitely gettin' to our new listener and family member Mildred there in Mexico. Woe, wait a second Brenda didn't sound French to me (not that I would know what a French person sounds like) and I could understand every word she said. Dang it, am I embarrassed. I am so glad I didn't say anything on the air. I thought for sure we were reaching over there to Europe. I was even bragging to someone that the Queen of England might be listening. Dang, now if I could just afford a keyboard with delete and backspace keys that worked I could have avoided embarrassing myself here in WWWs. Ah well. Is it getting deep in here or what?! I'll just blame it on my blondish hair.

Well it may take me a while to type this week's WWWs with one hand; Mear just laid down on left arm and is kneading. Never mind she just decided to move. She is such a sweet cat. She just walked past the keyboard and didn't even step on any of the keys, unlike her sister Goldie. Well Goldie is a sweetie too, so I won't hold it against her. A few cat-generated ty (Dad! I want some treats now! Love your daughter, Goldie) pos never hurt anyone I guess, back to the need for a keyboard with delete and backspace keys that worked. Dang, Goldie is good isn't she; I just now noticed that the cat-generated typos actually say something! I've got a Goldie story to tell which reminded me of another story to tell afterwards. I have a paper sack sitting on the desk behind me as I sit here at the computer desk. It seems everytime I turn around and look back there I think for a second it is Goldie sitting there. This in and of itself would not be that strange, but since I know that desk has been Mear's favorite spot to lay the last few days I find it amazing for just a moment that Mear is okay with Goldie being that close to her. Then it dawns on me that it is not really Goldie, duh. The story that this reminded me of was one my sister Gelene tells about one time when she was flying. Apparently the flight was rather rough and it was making her nervous to say the least. At one point, however, as she was praying for a safe landing she looked out the window and noticed the moon. She took that as a good sign and began to relax a bit. She was amazed how that the moon remained there in view the rest of the flight. It was not until they had landed safely that she realized it had really been the light on the tip of the wing. I guess it just goes to show you that your first conclusion may not be accurate. So this week's lesson is to look twice, it may not really be a cat jumping over the moon. Wait a second; it was a cow that jumped over the moon. Yeah right, like I believe that one. Kind of like they are expecting us to believe that some of this noise is supposed to be Country!

Thanks to Ron Lutz the music by this week's spotlight artist Webb Pierce was nothing but pure Country and the cream of the crop at that. As you heard me say Ron studied the list of Webb's songs that I had and picked out what had been his biggest hits. No one would know about these sorts of things better than the legendary retired DJ of 43 years, Ron Lutz. Boy am I glad he stumbled across this redneck hillbilly hippie's show. I'm also glad that some time had passed before he met me in person, by then he had come to love the music we play on MC and so he was able to overlook the long hair on this here redneck hillbilly hippie. As you recall back in May I had ten inches of my hair cut off and then donated it to Locks of Love. It cracked me up then when I went to see Ron last month and the first words out of his mouth were "I thought you said you got a haircut son!" It sounded like something my Dad would have said. With Ron being a father figure and a mentor in the art of DJing then it would only stand to reason that he would say something like that. In a way though Ron is indirectly responsible for my desire to have long hair. After all it was DJ's like Ron who were playing Ronnie Milsap, Waylon and Willie back in the 70's when the idea that I wanted to have long hair started to take root. Well I guess I can't really blame Ron since I didn't know about KFAL growing up near Kirksville (though it did reach up there apparently). Besides knowing Ron I'll bet he was not impressed by the longhair of the Outlaw Country artists even if he did like and play their music. Now Ronnie Milsap wasn't exactly an Outlaw, but he did look sooo cool with his long hair and those sunglasses. I was so impressed that I even had one of my high school senior pictures taken with sunglasses on. Now I couldn't pull off the longhair at that point, attending a Bible school and all, but I did look pretty good, bad & cool with the sunglasses! Now I don't wear the sunglasses as much, but I do, finally, have the opportunity to wear my hair the way I want to, looong that is. Thanks for all your help Ron and for looking beyond our different tastes in hair styles. I'm just glad we do agree on the most important thing though, what real Country Music is and is NOT! This week we will be spotlighting Lefty Frizzell and when I say "we", I mean Ron and I. I look forward to discovering once again this week a bunch of Classic Country gems that I have been overlooking, but will, thanks to Ron, be able to uncover and play for you. It may sound like me playing the great selection of songs by Lefty, but I won't be able to take the credit for it.

Don't forget the Prayer Requests Corner. If you ever have a concern you would like to share don't ever hesitate to let me now so I can include it on the list. I believe there is never anything too small or insignificant to pray about and I've got a feelin' the Good Lord feels the same way. If it is weighing on your mind then it is important. It can be the loss of a pet, a friend, a job, whatever, it doesn't matter. I'll be the first to admit I ain't the world's biggest or greatest pray-er, but I know there are members of the MC Family like June, Kevin and Anna Rose who have a direct line to the Good Lord. Lefty pointed out what thoughts can do, now sit back and be amazed at what prayers can do. They've helped me tone down my rough and rowdy ways I tell ya. Now I'm just an old, old man, tryin' to live while I can.

Have a good week, tune in Monday morning and don't be late with your kisses (or phone calls in the case of you guys),

Woody

August 8, 2005
Another great show this week I tell ya. I had a nice number of calls and enjoyed sipping on a different cold beverage than I normally do. My drink of choice is normally Diet Dw, but my supplier was out for some reason so I had to pick up some Diet Pps. I figure if I don't actually spell the names out completely then perhaps you won't think I am endorsing a particular brand. Of course you all ain't stupid now are ya. It is interesting how that brands, companies, etc. that you are exposed to when you are young will often be your favorites after you grow up. I suppose that is why the hamburger chains try to entice kids with toys. The whole reason I even got to thinking about all this was from what I said on the show when I let you know Peter Jennings had passed away. I mentioned then that I had always liked Peter and had always been a little partial to ABC due to the fact that the AM Country station and the TV station in Kirksville both used ABC as their news network. So I invariably, at least as a boy, thought they were 'It' when it came to news organizations. I also remember going by a Pepsi Bottling Plant in Memphis Missouri several times as a boy, thinking it was cool that pop was made in my neck of the woods and so…oops did I just give the brands away? I should note that here in WWWs just as when I am on the air that the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the New Wave Corporation aka KOPN 89.5 FM. Of course sometimes you may think that the views expressed do not represent those of any sane person either. Aw well, it is better to know you are a little bit off than to think you are normal when you're not and I'll be the first to admit…wait a second I ain't admittin' nothin' in print!

My preferences as an adult carried over into other areas as well. I still think the Cardinals are THE baseball team and when I still drank spirits, I thought they always had to be spirits brewed in Ol' St. Louie. Even my love of the Denver Broncos has its roots in St. Louis. I think I've told this story on the air, but for those of you who don't listen to every second of the show like I do then I'll repeat it. Actually I just lied to ya, remember when I played the Loretta Lynn song twice because I was caught up in an interesting phone conversation with June? I guess if the truth is told I don't listen to every second of the show either. Anyway back to the price of tea in China, oh wait that wasn't what I was talking about. Okay so I do admit my mind does wonder a bit, but that is really old news since I already named this Woody's Weekly WONDERINGS! Back to the Broncos now…finally! Growing up I was a double Cardinals lover, baseball and football. I had a couple of friends in school that liked the Dallas Cowboys. I don't think they just liked the Cowboys because of the cheerleaders though. This was before their hormones had kicked in or at least before they had the nerve to admit that was the reason. Now I on the other hand probably admitted to liking to look at the cheerleaders, but I no doubt felt guilty as heck for doing such a thing. Now I still will not admit to looking at the Dallas Cowboys' cheerleaders, because I did not like the Cowboys in any way, shape or form. Why? Well they would most often beat my favorite team the Cardinals, THEN I would have to deal with my two friends rubbing it in at school. Needless to say on more than one occasion I almost wrote them off as friends. It still makes my blood boil just a bit. But I is growed up now and is a adult, sew eye must put childish notions behind me. I knew I should have paid closer attention in England class, oops I mean English class, plus I never took typing either so hhas dfjgri uqw kjljk utsop. I think I'm still wired from my Diet Pps. There are times when I do honestly make grammatical errors in here and don't catch them, but when there are several obvious ones in a row, well I probably inserted them intentionally. As for paragraphs that go on for ever…

Anyway the Dallas Cowboys played the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII and since I hated the Cowboys sooo much and was tired of the Cardinals never going to the Super Bowl at the ripe young age of 15 I became a Broncos fan. As you recall the Cowboys beat the Broncos and of course I endured a lot of ribbing for it, but finally 20 years later the Broncos did win a Super Bowl in 1998 and my loyalty all those years finally paid off. It only made sense then when I got my Golden Retriever later that year that I name him Bronco. So that is how something I was exposed to as a boy lead to me being a Broncos fan today. Now that I've made all the Chief Fans mad, I think I should get back to something less controversial in this neck of the woods, like say Country Music!

It was an honor to remember with Ron his dear wife Mary's birthday coming up on Friday the 12th. I know Ron still misses Mary and that it is no doubt even harder when important dates like this come around. I was glad I was able to find on vinyl Ray Price's version of "Danny Boy", one of Mary's favorites. I think I understand now why Ron and I get along so well. He was in love with a Leo over 52 years and just over 2 years ago he became acquainted with another Leo, yours truly. I have one regret when it comes to the MC Family page. I wish I would have asked for you to write your birthdays down, not the year of course, I know we're all gettin' old and don't want to tell our age. It is not too late though, if you are on the Family page or thinking of being on there, please know you can list your birthday as well. Now I'd just be happy if I could get Anna Rose to fill out the form withOUT her birthday! I've always got to give Anna Rose a hard time. Thanks to her and Chip and Carl I made it all the way to the end of the show without falling asleep. Now I did hear from several of you this week, but I missed hearing from others, so don't forget those numbers 874-5676 or 1-800-895@hotmail.com. Just messing with ya! You already know the numbers now, just dial 'um! Thanks to Matt and Chip for manning the MC News Desk and letting me know about Peter Jennings and the status of the Space Shuttle. U rock, U2!

I may think that I was coming up with something new when I started WWWs, but nothing is original in this here world. This week we will be spotlighting a Wonderer that predates yours truly, Web Pierce, as we play tunes from his "Wondering Boy Collection". Of course this is assuming BG Brown doesn't tell you I won't be in because "He's In the Jailhouse Now!"

Have a good week and tune in Monday morning assuming I have been good and am not in the Tupelo County Jail,

Woody

August 1, 2005
Talk about an interesting show, this week's was definitely one for the books. I heard from two listeners who I had not heard from in a long, long time, Larry from Centralia and Katie from Jeff City. I also had a first time e-mail from Mark, a proud new dad of a five-day-old daughter Melody. He said he was listening to MC and that she was enjoying the show as well. The subject in his e-mail was "youngest listener?" I would have to say as far as I know Melody is definitely the youngest listener to MC! It is just further proof that young and old alike enjoy real Country Music. I also had at least two, maybe three first callers this week. All in all I think we set a record for MC with the most calls/e-mails combined at 15. Now that may not sound like a lot to some of ya, but it has this Ol' Redneck tickled pink and grinning from ear to ear. I wonder if pink will go with my blue jeans and strawberry blonde hair. Anytime MC is busy I am reminded of a Vox Magazine article from June 10, 2004 titled "Making some late-night noise Graveyard shift DJs at KOPN/89.5 FM burn the midnight oil and break the shackles of the daylight hours" by Joel Cusumano. Joel had put a note in my box and I e-mailed him about doing an interview, but he never wrote back. If he had I would definitely have had a different story to tell over what he wrote "The best these DJs can wish for is a phone call to the station's request lines, which happens, rarely, on these lonely nights, just a small encouragement from one night owl to another telling them that they love what they're playing." Ah well the world may never know how much Midnight Country is a part of your lives and how often you do call to let me know you are enjoying the real Country we play. It reminds me of a fantasy my cousin Dwight and I used to talk about all the time. Don't worry the fantasy is G-rated. Anyway we thought it would be cool to be really loaded, meaning to have money coming out of our ears and for no one to know it. Like say for me to go into a restaurant looking like the redneck I am and to be treated with less awe and respect than if they knew I could buy and sell 'um ten times over. I guess there's not much danger of that fantasy coming true, but I certainly did feel like a rich dude when I left KOPN at 5:30 AM this morning even though the world may think no one listens to a show that is on in the middle of the night like MC. Obviously Joel didn't make up what he wrote and so if you listen to other late night shows on KOPN be sure and make those DJs' nights as well by calling and letting them know you enjoy what they are doing. Let's make those "rare" calls a thing of the past when it comes to KOPN late night! Now I realize that doing MC can be a roller coaster. Last week, as you recall, I was subtly complaining that it had been pretty slow, but on the average most weeks I am tickled at least partially pink.

In the early days of MC I used to worry about not knowing everything there is to know about Country Music. I still feel a little silly sometimes when I stick my foot in my mouth, but normally someone comes to my rescue. Often it is Ron or Chip, this week Anna Rose and Larry helped me out. I had forgotten and apparently didn't read long enough in my research to recall that Carl Smith had been married to June Carter Cash. Anna Rose reminded me of this and so I was able to sound a tad bit more intelligent than I was at the moment. Then Larry called and confirmed that yes what I was saying was true and that Carlene Carter was Carl and June's daughter. I have sometimes wondered if the nationally syndicated radio show hosts have people sitting there in the studios feeding them information. Well if the do, then they ain't got nothing on Midnight Country I tell ya!

I was telling someone about the show today and the guy said he didn't really listen to much Country, that he preferred the older Country to what is being played today. Well if he thought that would shut me up, he was wrong! This seems to often be the case when I tell someone about the show. Of course sometimes the person will say "I pretty much like any music except for Country." I then know at that point it would be pretty much pointless to continue the course I wanted the conversation to take. I figure if they don't even like the Poppy Country then they sure as heaven won't like what I play on MC. Anyway the person I told about the show seemed like they might seriously check it out. He even said he is usually still up that late on Sunday night/Monday morning. Cool, huh?

As you noticed the last two weeks we have started reading the weather a couple times an hour and have also been giving the time. We are also coming on the air one more time an hour. I decided to implement these changes after a little birdie whispered the suggestions in my ear. Actually that is not the truth, it was more like an eagle said "Son, why don't ya ever give the weather and time?" This eagle also said they would like to hear me talking more often than just three times an hour. Well I had always figured the Iron Workers of America's motto applied to this. The motto is "Less Wood is Good Wood." Actually I made the motto up and Ron Lutz is not exactly an eagle, but he is definitely not a little birdie either. Still I always figured people would rather hear music than me talking. Yet when ya think about it my talking is what sets MC apart from just another music channel on your satellite or cable. So you either like hearing me talk or if ya don't then I am surprised that you have taken the time to read WWWs. After all this is a form of me talking. My whole point in discussing these changes I've made was this; we are always open to your suggestions as to ways we can make the show more enjoyable to listen to. After all you are the reason we do MC! You've heard of New Year's Resolutions, but have ya ever heard of Mid-Summer Resolutions? Well my Mid-Summer Resolution is that I'm gonna live some before I die. After all it's a great life if you don't weaken. After this past week's show I'm feelin' 'young' again and ready to live fast, love hard and die young. Well I think I am already too old to die young, but perhaps I can still do the other two. Now if I were not a nice guy I would leave you with just these sentences as clues to who this week's spotlight artist will be, but since I'm a nice guy and you've bribed me with candy kisses I'll tell ya we are going to spotlight Faron Young this week.

Have a good week and tune in Monday morning 'cause ya know I can't wait for the sun to go down Sunday night so I can play ya some good Ol' Country at Midnight,

Woody

July 25, 2005
Well if the forecast we read throughout the night is accurate then we should be getting some relief from the unbearable heat this week. I hope you enjoyed this new feature we are implementing into the show. At one point I think I did give the weather from time to time, but I guess I just got lazy or wondered if anyone missed it if I didn't read it. Anyway thanks to my good buddy Ron for the suggestion. Give me a week or two to work all the bugs out. Of course a bug or two still slips in on an almost hourly basis even when I am talking about stuff I am used to. I guess I just ain't ready for prime time yet. Maybe there IS a reason I've never gotten a shot at an evening time slot! Ah well, if I did I'd just have to change the name of the show, the web site address, the e-mail address, the business cards…dang sounds like a lot of work to me. So maybe I should quit dropping subtle hints that I wish we were on earlier. Actually to toot my own horn a bit I think I have heard worse people on the air than I am. If I had a high show esteem I'd be dangerous I tell ya. I'd put Crook and Chase out of a job and change the face of Country radio. I was telling Ron recently that I sometimes wonder if I should come up with some high-powered on-air personality, like "AND NOW HERE'S MERLE HAGGARD!" Ron said NO!, just be yourself, don't try to fabricate something. Ron even said that when he met me for the first time he could have had his eyes closed and would have known just from my voice who I was. In other words I sound in everyday life just like I sound on the show, no fabricated fancy over the top type of on-air personality. However, when I am on the air I do try to tame my inner redneck a bit and use as proper of English as I know, but I do still slip from time to time.

Boy the phones seemed a little slow this week. I've been scanning all the obituaries today to check for any MC Family member's names. I hope some of ya haven't passed on due to the heat now. I myself always check the obituaries first thing in the morning to make sure I am still alive. It would be embarrassing to show up somewhere and not realize that I had already crossed over. Now please know I am not making light of the seriousness off the heat and the potential for it to kill someone. My point was just that I missed hearing from some of ya this week and I DO (seriously) sometimes worry about ya all when I don't hear from ya. I think if it hadn't been for Anna Rose calling I might have fallen a sleep around 4:00 AM. Thankfully she kept me entertained with her stories about Bootsie and her neighborhood groundhogs. Anna Rose do you take Visa? I know I need to send you a payment for your "keeping the DJ awake" services.

It was great to hear from a first time caller this week. As you recall I sent a couple songs out to Mildred in Mexico early on. Mildred had sent a couple of requests to me via her daughter Missy Burns, the Ol' Clark Outlaw's sister-in-law, then after I played the songs Mildred called and thanked me for them. It was nice to put a voice with a name that I had been hearing a lot lately. I was also relieved to know that Mildred wasn't a figment of Missy's imagination. You may think this sounds a bit odd, but I have had several imaginary relatives and friends over the years. Now my "real" family thinks I am nuts when I talk about my "imaginary" family and friends. I suppose they have good reasons for thinking that. There have been times though when I felt disconnected from the "real" world and it seemed easier to talk to imaginary people than real people. There are a couple of drawbacks though. First, even though they are great listeners, they never have any thing to say back to me. I suppose if they did start talking back to me though that would totally freak me out. The second thing is imaginary people ain't much to look at and it takes a lot of mental energy to try and keep in mind what I think they look like. Fortunately I enjoy connecting with everyone who listens and calls/e-mails MC, so it has been a while since I have talked my imaginary family and friends. Now before you totally freak out and never listen to MC again, keep in mind two things. First, I don't really think my imaginary family and friends are real. The second thing, there are ten, twelve and eighteen years between me and my two sisters and brother, so let's just say I had a lot of time alone growing up on the farm to cultivate a very active imagination. Thus, I suppose, is the reason I never run out of things to wonder about in WWWs. Just be thankful I do most of my wondering in here and not on the air, otherwise I might never have time for any songs! Now I've forgotten what my point even was, oh yeah "Welcome to the Midnight Country Family Mildred, thanks for listening and for the call." Grandma South even called me this week, which was very nice. I hear tell she's been walking without her walker! What a woman and what a fighter, way to go Grandma. Now Grandma is one of the few people I've talked to who actually seems to be enjoying this hot weather. I think she got tired of always being cold in the hospital and so she is enjoying being home where she can regulate the temperature to her liking. Now the Ol' Outlaw was more like me and so he would agree that it has just been too hot.

I sure enjoyed Reba this week. She has sure recorded some sad songs, which is, I suppose, why I like her music so much. If teardrops were pennies I would be a millionaire, speaking of an artist who has recorded a song titled "If Teardrops Were Pennies", what ya say we spotlight Carl Smith this week? Are you teasing me you ask? Nope this is no loose talk on my part. I'd say it is time to live a little and listen to some good ol' Country Music Carl Smith style. You'll have to listen this week to figure out how many song titles I just used.

I hope you've been telling your friends and family about the show, imaginary or real it doesn't really matter. There's been a time or two I think some imaginary people have called the show, since when I would answer no one would be there. Oh wait, that may have been Anna Rose giving up on me. Just so ya know, I have witnesses that Anna Rose is not a figment of my imagination even though I have no picture I can put on the web site. As for Loretta, I think she is real too, at least Anna Rose showed me a picture of someone she said was Loretta. Ya never know about her though. I do know Bronco, Mear and Goldie are real. Mear is lying on my desk at the moment.

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I drop in to say goodbye, oops I mean hello,

Woody

July 18, 2005
Well was this week's show hot or what? I hope you enjoyed Jerry Reed as a change of pace. As you know he was to be the spotlight artist on the July 4th show, but due to the passing of my dear friend the Ol' Clark Outlaw an old show was played instead. Frankly I was a tad bit nervous about playing that much upbeat Classic Country in one show, but from the calls everyone seemed to be enjoying Jerry and the songs I selected to compliment his material. My buddy Ron said Jerry was sounding pretty good, so if Ron approves then to heaven with what everyone else thinks. Just kidding! Everyone's opinion counts in my book, but with Ron being the honorary host of Midnight Country…well Ron's blessing on the show is like the Pope's blessing on a Catholic ministry. There just ain't nobody else who knows real Country like Ron Lutz. Of course the Ol' Clark Outlaw knew his Country Music too. I've learned a lot from both of them now. As for Anna Rose, she's got me a little worried. There a rumor goin' 'round that she's been caught listening to some Casino station that isn't exactly Country. I think I may need to add her to the Prayer Requests list. You may think I'm joking, but a person going astray like that is no laughing matter!

It was great hearing from everyone this week. One member of the Midnight Country Family said they really enjoyed last week's Tribute to Ol' Clark Outlaw with John and Missy Burns. I was afraid they weren't listening, but they said they hated to call during a special show like that. Now, now the ONLY time you shouldn't call is NEVER. Even if the show is not on the air you should still call and tell whoever answers "Dang, I sure miss hearin' that good ol' Country." Actually it wouldn't even hurt to call the business office line and say "Man that Country Music on Monday mornin's is too good to be kept in the dark!" Notice my inner Redneck is comin' out as I am leavin' a lot of "g's" off my words. I was always told growing up in church that saying "Gee" was just short for usin' the Lord's name in vain. So I'm just trying to be ood now. Oops I think I should have used a "g" in front of "ood". I am drivin' my spell checker nuts.

It is kind of nice to have nothing too major on my mind this week as I write WWWs. Being the pessimist I am, I am always prepared for the next disaster though. I was talking to Carl late in the show and we were talking about everything going on in the world. We both agreed sometimes it is a whole lot less stressful to not even listen to the news. I figure until a nuclear bomb blows out my windows or until my heart stops then all is as well in the world as can be expected. I figure the Ol' Outlaw is on the other side just shaking his head, thinking "If you all knew the party to come you wouldn't let all the bs (brussel sprouts) worry ya!" I've often said if a person could die, know what the other side is all about and then come back they could sure enjoy this life a whole lot more, at least I would. I've heard of people having near death experiences from time to time. I've also heard of someone having a near life experience too, meaning (I think) they actually chilled out and enjoyed life. I suppose I have had a few near life experiences myself. Doing Midnight Country would definitely fall into that category. If the people in the front office knew all the fun we have on MC they would be amazed. I've heard a long time late night DJ say they wondered sometimes if anyone was even listening. Let me tell ya this if I got no calls or e-mails I would definitely wonder why I wasn't home in the comfort of my bed listening to my music there instead. In the early days the calls were few and far between, but thanks to the growing MC Family the slow nights are pretty rare. I think the music we play on MC is like a good rain on a cornfield this time of year, people just soak it up. One listener who e-mailed this week wrote, "Don't let it go to your head, but you're doing a bang up job." Well with my low show-esteem I don't think there's too much danger of that. Although my show-esteem has definitely increased over what it was when I started the show.

Speaking of going to the top of the mountain and living to tell about it. I was finally able to dine on the cooking of the Master Chef Anna Rose. After wondering around half of Columbia I finally found Anna Rose's and was treated to groundhog and apple crisp "To Go" after a delightful visit. Yep I am amazed as you are that I actually ate groundhog. Well actually it was ground up pork, which is after all ground hog, right? Let's just say Anna Rose knows her way around an apple crisp and knows where to buy the best boughten ham salad you'd ever want to eat. When Dad's sister, my Aunt Leila died I thought I would never eat decent ham salad again, but this here stuff Anna Rose ran across is pretty dang good now. My spell check seems to think "boughten" is not a word, which it may not be. Nonetheless when I was a kid we used to talk about "boughten" milk as opposed to fresh milk, "boughten" eggs, bread, etc. For cryin' out loud doesn't Microsoft load "redbonic" words into their software? Dang, apparently redbonic ain't a word either, nor is ain't, dang it! I'm just gonna have to design my own software! What is redbonics you ask? You've heard of ebonics? Well redbonics is what us here redneck hillbillies speak thank ya very much.

It was nice to play a song from June to Grandma South, the Ol' Outlaw's mom. The Ol' Outlaw would be proud to know June is continuing with the requests for his family. I also had a call and request from the Ol' Outlaw's niece Debbie. She asked that I play a song in memory of her uncle Bob and her mom Mary Lou. Matt from Columbia requested a song for the Burns Family that I don't recall ever playing on the show before it was "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" by Johnny Cash. I received a new picture of June and Charles for the web site, which I hope to get uploaded early this week along with finally adding Carl to the MC Family page. I think we finally have the web site thing resolved. I apologize again for the inconvenience. I'm also going to add to the Host page a couple of pictures of me with John and Missy Burns. The picture with Missy is outdated though since she is a year older than she was at the time the picture was taken. Happy Birthday today the 18th Missy! This week have I got a deal for you! We're going to spotlight Reba Entire, focusing primarily on her early and more traditional material. At least I think I am going to spotlight Reba, of course it could only be in my mind. "What am I gonna do about you Woody?"

Have a good week and tune in Monday as one redhead spotlights another,

Woody

July 11, 2005

I bet the Ol' Clark Outlaw is no doubt grinning from ear to ear right about now up in Heaven with his sister Mary Lou. Being the humble sort of guy he was I bet he is surprised that I dedicated a whole show to him. I'll bet too he was blown away and pleased to pieces to hear his brother John and John's wife Missy on the show with me. He's probably thinkin' "Dang, that was pretty neat!" No doubt he had a tear in his eye when he heard John read once again "In Loving Memory of Robert F. Burns" written by Missy. He probably thought, "She had me figured out pretty well, didn't she?" I always come away from doing a show like this wondering how it came across to you the MC Family and if I was able to adequately convey what was in my heart. The feedback so far has been "Mission Accomplished." The show was extra special because John and Missy came down to be on the show. I know it was no doubt scary for them both, but I think the anticipation was no doubt worse than the reality. Once we all were settled in and got the first break behind us I think they really enjoyed themselves. Once upon a time a listener evolved from being called Bobby Burns on the air into being called the Ol' Clark Outlaw. Now his brother John Burns has evolved into being called Wolfman John! What a hoot it would have been to have them both on the show together.

As it often is when you lose someone special like the Ol' Clark Outlaw, you have regrets. There are things I wish I would have done, like have the Ol' Outlaw on the show a second time. I had no idea though that the window of opportunity would be so small. I guess I should cherish the times we did spend together. The recorded conversation from the show back in November was just a small sample of the long, some times deep conversations we had over the years. The Ol' Outlaw loved his family and they were often the focus of those conversations. He hated to see his sister suffer and her passing no doubt was harder on him than most of us realized. It amazed me though to watch both of them as they fought to stay alive, first Mary Lou back in the fall and now Bobby. The human will to keep living is very strong and I'll never seen that more evident than in Bobby. One Saturday John, Missy and I were told Bob had a 5% chance of pulling through, the next Saturday he was alert, smiling, trying to talk. I got a couple of smiles out of him that day, first when I told him June and Charles had been up to see him. The second was when I told him Kevin Burns had e-mailed me that he had been up to see the Ol' Outlaw, but found him sleeping. The Ol' Outlaw had a radio there in ICU and I told him Kevin had said he knew I (Woody) hadn't been there recently or the radio would not have been set on KPLA. Kevin said "If you had been there it would have been set on a Country station!" The Ol' Outlaw just grinned real big when I told him that. If I had known things were going to take a turn for the worse I would have stayed longer that day. During the Ol' Outlaw's final hours his brother John insisted the radio be kept on a Country station. I'm sure Bob was proud of John for that and was no doubt smiling on the inside as he lay there. During all of this I was reminded of why Community radio is such a great thing and is even better because I get to do my own show. The Friday before Bob passed away on Saturday I called a Country station during their lunchtime request show and asked them to play "The Outlaw's Prayer" by Johnny Paycheck. I asked that they send it out to the Ol' Clark Outlaw from Woody. Well unless they played it almost immediately during the time I walked from the pickup up to Bobby's room I don't think they played it because for the next almost two hours I sat with my ear glued to the radio there in Bob's room and didn't hear it. I even said to the DJ I would really like to get this on because this person is near death in the hospital. Of course I asked that they not say that part on the air. The DJ didn't seem to recognize the title of the song and I even said that if he couldn't find "The Outlaw's Prayer" anything by Johnny Paycheck would be okay. Of course during the time I listened I heard them play requests for all the current Pop Country crap. Needless to say I was a bit irritated. Later though I got to thinking there are times I haven't been able to find requests, but in my own defense I think most of the time I acknowledge on the air the fact I couldn't find it and then I try and play an alternative song for the person. Granted, even though I hope there are a lot of people listening to MC and that I do get several calls, I sure it is a drop in the bucket compared to what the DJ I talked to gets. If KOPN were to ever move MC to the noon hour I bet I would be overwhelmed too. Can you imagine a show playing the kind of Country we play on MC during the day? It would no doubt cause a riot as people starved for real Country would make a mad dash to their radio and then to their phones. If that day ever comes the Ol' Outlaw will no doubt throw one heaven of a party up there. I was pleased to learn from a nurse that they had turned on Midnight Country for Bobby the Monday morning prior to his passing the following Saturday. Boy how did I get off on that long story? Oh yeah I was talking about the Ol' Outlaw and his fighting spirit. What a man. If you missed it on the show be sure and read the "In Loving Memory of Robert F. Burns" written by Missy Burns. It is included in with the paper version of Woody's Weekly Wonderings and is also here on the web site. In the near future I will be laying out a separate page on the web site as a Special Tribute to the Ol' Outlaw. I hope to include more pictures along with a couple WWWs and Missy's writing.

I was talking earlier about regrets. There's another regret I have and one that actually bothers me a lot. As you know one of the members of the MC Family is Ron Lutz, the legendary retired DJ from Fulton. He was on KFAL for 38 years and continues to host the Rooster Creek Show every Saturday at 11:25 AM. I always wanted to take the Ol' Outlaw over to Ron's to sit in on a taping of the show. I just knew Bobby would enjoy the heck out of it and that he and Ron would hit it off right away. Of course I never took him over there and now I regret it. The Ol' Outlaw was a bit hesitant about the idea though when I would bring it up. He would say something like "Now Ron is your friend and it wouldn't be right for me to come tagging along." I would then say something like "Well if you're a friend of mine then you would be welcome at Ron's." Dang it, I wish I'd a done it now.

The Ol' Outlaw loved my stories and I've just got to sidetrack for a minute to tell one on Ron. I just recently met someone who said they used to listen to Ron on KFAL back in the 70's and 80's. According to this person Ron and Betty Sue were THE big morning show and KFAL was THE Country station in this region. This guy said though that what made him a fan for life of Ron was even before the 70's when this person went over to Fulton and was on one of Ron's Kids Birthday Shows. This person then grew up and even advertised the business he started on KFAL. I can't wait to ask Ron more about this. If I had realized what a big man in Country radio I was talking to when Ron first called the show I would probably have peed my pants because I would have been so nervous. However, if you've ever talked to Ron you know you feel right at home in no time at all. I know the Ol' Outlaw would've too.

As you may have heard me tell on the show, the Ol' Outlaw and I went to the "Everybody's Got Love" CD release concert in Boonville back in December. On the way to the concert we stopped by the Columbia Mall and shopped a bit. I'm afraid to tell rest of this story to Bronco, because it would break his heart to hear this about his rich Ol' Uncle, the Outlaw. While we were there though the Ol' Outlaw bought several items bearing the Oak Raiders logo, such as a flag, a license plate, etc. How the Ol' Outlaw was led so far astray we may never know. On his trip out west to discover a favorite football team he should have stopped and stayed in Denver! I suppose though that it makes sense when you think about it. I guess Raiders and Outlaws do go together. Had I known the Ol' Outlaw was a Raiders fan prior to getting to know him I might never have given him a chance. In case you don't follow the NFL the Denver Broncos and the Oakland Raiders do not like each other at all and that is putting it mildly. Of course the Kansas City Chiefs are in the same division and so neither the Ol' Outlaw's or my favorite team are not exactly loved in this neck of the woods either.

Well I gave myself extra room for WWWs this week and last, but I'm still running out of room. I am sure for as long as I do MC the Ol' Clark Outlaw will come up again and again in WWWs. As I said last week he definitely helped to make MC what it is today. One last story in closing though. Back in November when the Ol' Outlaw's sister died I went to the Lemstone Christian store here in Columbia to buy some sympathy cards. I told the lady who waited on me a bit of what had happened. She showed me some books dealing with grief and the loss of a loved one, but I wasn't particularly wanting to buy any books, just sympathy cards and so I thought it a little odd, but next she showed me a coin with a cross on one side along with the words "In Loving Memory", then on the other side it read, "Gone, yet not forgotten, although we are apart, your spirit lives within me, forever in my heart." The thought occurred to me that I should get two of the coins and ask that one be putted underneath Mary Lou's hand and I would then keep the second. Thanks to her family I was able to do this. Thanks to John I was able to do the same for the Ol' Outlaw. "I miss you ya Ol' Clark Outlaw you. I'll see you again someday though, just make sure Bronco, Mear and Goldie are welcome in Heaven too." Thanks again Wolfman John & Missy for making the show so special!

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I spotlight Marty Robbins (just kidding ya Ol' Outlaw, that's a whole other story), I'll be spotlighting Jerry Reed this week,
Woody

July 4, 2005

Saturday evening at 8:09 PM I lost a very dear friend, the Ol' Clark Outlaw aka Bobby Burns. A week ago Saturday I had renewed hope that Bobby might pull through, but as the week wore on those hopes began to fad. I thank you for understanding why I did not do Midnight Country "Live" this week. There was no way I could pull together the kind of Tribute I want to give the Ol' Outlaw in such a short time. Honestly I'm not sure I could have pulled it off emotionally either. It would have been hard to resist wanting to talk about Bobby, but on the other hand it would have been hard to talk about him without breaking down. As you know the Ol' Outlaw was a very dear friend of mine. Bobby and I have become very close friends over the last few years. We had become acquainted when I dated his niece Jackie, but we continued to talk even after she and I split up. At first it was hard to continue the friendship with Bobby, but as time began to heal my heart it became easier. After I got my cell phone we would talk for hours at a time, sometimes several times a week. When Bobby called I would always insist he let me call him back since I had free nights & weekends. He would often say "Well I'm not gonna talk long." An hour later I would say, "See you should have let me call you back." Eventually he became less bullheaded and let me call him right back.

As you are accustomed to in WWWs my mind will wonder a bit as I write about the Ol' Outlaw. As Mrs. Rosewood announced throughout the show I will be doing a Tribute to Bobby during the first three hours on this week's MC. I will be playing some of his favorite songs and songs his family and you the MC Family request. I will share many memories of times spent with Bobby. Memories I will always cherish. I will even play parts of the show when Bobby came down and we did a Tribute to his sister Mary Lou who passed away back in November 2004. I think for now I will not go into a lot of the memories I want to share. If I miss some during the show I will share them in next week's WWWs. So instead of specific memories right now I want to talk about how the Ol' Outlaw has helped to make MC what it is today.

Midnight Country has evolved over the years into what it is today. When MC started almost five years ago I really wasn't sure of the direction I wanted the show to take. I played more of the current Country, including some of the Pop stuff, as much as I hate to admit it. It was still not your everyday Country show, but it was not standing out from the rest as much as it does today. It gradually began to dawn on me from the calls and requests that people were really starving for real Country Music. This became even more apparent after I began doing the show both on Thursday mornings and Monday mornings following the High Lonesome Sound. Eventually I gave up the Thursday morning slot because someone thought a different type of show should follow the preceding show on Wednesday night. There were two people though who played a big part in solidifying in my mind the course MC should and would stay on. First it was the Ol' Outlaw and his belief that people wanted to hear real Country Music and that this was part of what made MC unique. Second it was that voice in the spring of 2003 that asked me the question "How long you been doing Country son?" I would later learn the voice on the other end of the phone was that of Ron Lutz, a retired DJ of 43 years from Fulton. In the weeks after when Ron would call the first words out of his mouth were always "Soundin' awfully good tonight son, boy I liked that song by…" Knowing these two men believe in me and what I am trying to do on MC means more to me than words can express. Ron is definitely like a father figure to me. The Ol' Outlaw is a combination of being like a brother and a father. One of the nurses in the hospital asked if Bobby was my dad, another if he was my brother. Something though that Bobby's brother Johnny said to a nurse when they asked who we were summons it up best. He said "I'm his brother John, this is my wife Missy and Woody here is Bobby's best friend."

Needless to say MC has come to mean the world to me. I could never have imagined it would take on a life of it's own as it has. The second way in which the Ol' Outlaw helped to shape MC is probably even more of what makes MC unique than the first. Bobby of course knew about my having Bronco, my Golden Retriever, and my two cats Mear and Goldie. At some point though I talked about the three of them on the show. Bobby thought that was just great. He said, "People enjoy hearing you tell these stories and so you need to tell some every week." Late in the show when he would call me when talking about the show he would often comment more about the stories or lack there of, than he would about the music. He loved the Country Music, don't get me wrong, but it was my opening up with the MC audience that he thought made the show unique. Doggone ya Bobby, you were right too. I have had several comments from listeners who have said they look forward to the stories. It was also Bobby who first planted the notion in my head that everyone who listens to MC was like a Family. So you rarely hear me talk about the listeners or audience, it is always the Midnight Country Family. This, of course, gave birth then to the Family page here on the web site. Bobby never saw the page, but he was proud as heck to be on it. He told everyone he met about the show and the web site. He would say "I don't know anything about computers, but if you go to this web site and click on Family you will see a picture of me." While Bobby was in the hospital and before he became really sick he would tell everyone he talked to about the show. I thought "Dang, he and the people he tells about the show need know what an important role he plays in the show, so I printed up some business cards with the title "The Ol' Clark Outlaw, Listener Recruitment Specialist." The night I took them in to Bobby I asked him if he had ever had a job where he had business cards. He said "No" and I said, "Well you do now!" He was pretty darn proud of those cards and was happy to know that only he and Kevin Burns had been given this important position and title with the show. Okay so I am getting into some memories, but they are all a part of how the Ol' Outlaw has helped to shape MC. I think it would be appropriate right here for Bobby's own words to state why he liked MC. This is what he wrote and sent me for the Family page. "I like Midnight Country because of the host first and foremost. I also like it because of the wide variety of Country Music such as anything from Honky Tonk drinking songs to Gospel songs. I also like it because you almost feel like you're part of Woody Adkins' family. You know about his pets, his ex-girlfriend, his childhood, his family and whether he had a good week or a bad week. All of this together makes for a really great Country Music show. I might also add that when one of his listeners is going through a hard time or is hurting; he hurts right along with them." I think I could have skipped everything I have said above; this statement pretty well sums it up, huh? What a man the Ol' Clark Outlaw was and a damn good friend too. I consider it an honor to have been there with his family Saturday as he passed from this ol' world to his home with the Ultimate Outlaw. Like Jesus, the Ol' Outlaw wasn't afraid to rock the boat, he wasn't afraid to say what he thought and to stand up for what he believed in. I wish I had a tenth of the backbone the Ol' Outlaw had. There were several times in the last month and a half I thought we were going to lose him, but he kept fighting. He was a fighter, but he has won the war and now can rest in peace. I figure it is daytime all the time in Heaven, so he will never again have to fight sleep to stay awake to listen to MC.

The Ol' Outlaw will be laid to rest on Thursday. There will be a visitation from 1:00-2:00 PM and the funeral will be at 2:00 PM. He will be buried in his hometown Clark. The funeral will be at:
Million-Taylor-Patton Funeral Home
320 South Williams Street, Moberly
(660) 263-0234
If you would like to send the Burns Family a card feel free to send it to:
Burns Family
c/o KOPN's Midnight Country
915 E. Broadway
Columbia, MO 65203
I will be sending flowers signed "The Midnight Country Family"

Please keep Grandma South and the rest of Bobby's Family in your prayers, this week and in the weeks to come. I would also appreciate your prayers as I prepare for Monday's show. I have lost a dear friend and there will be a definite void in my life from now on. I only hope on Monday I am able to convey what the Ol' Outlaw meant to me personally and to the show.

I suppose it goes without saying that I will not have a spotlight artist this week. Again I apologize for the show not being "Live" this past week and for obviously not spotlighting Jerry Reed as promised. I will get back into our routine of spotlighting an artist on the 18th's show. I know you all understand and I thank you for that. If you have a song you would like played on this week's show in memory of the Ol' Outlaw don't hesitate to e-mail me or call early in the show.

Have a good week and be sure and tune in Monday for a very special edition of Midnight Country,
Woody

June 27, 2005

I know there is one trip I won't need to make this summer and that is to Worlds of Fun or Six Flags. My life is enough of a rollercoaster without needing to pay big bucks to have my heart lodged in my throat. Man oh man. I'm sure every one of you has been in my shoes multiple times in your life. One moment you are cautiously optimist, the next you panic and then sink into despair. If you then have, as I do at the moment, two people critically ill you can find yourself at both extremes at the same time. The last I heard my sister-in-law seems to have stabilized and the Ol' Outlaw is making some improvements. I'm keeping my fingers, toes, eyes and anything else I can think of crossed, hoping things will at least hold steady and hopefully improve too. There was a story I thought about sharing on the show, but decided to share it here in WWWs instead. I was afraid I might get a bit emotional and not really tell the story as well as I would like. As you know my sister-in-law Judy has been quite sick the last few days and is on a unit at the hospital where there are a lot of very sick people as well. Sunday afternoon as I was sitting in the hall talking to my brother Dean, a woman walked by with a yellow lab type dog. The dog seemed too easily distracted to be a service dog and so I thought it seemed a bit strange to see a non-service dog in the hospital. My brother told me though what was going on. Apparently the dog's owner was in the hospital with leukemia and had only hours to live. The hospital allowed this woman to bring the dog up to see the owner in their final hours. The dog as it passed us was apparently leaving. Boy oh boy, those of you who know me very well at all know where I am going with this story. If it were me on my deathbed and someone brought Bronco, Mear and Goldie to see me one last time, well let's just say they would have one hell of a fight on their hands if they tried to leave with my kids. I have some friends and family members who I would like close by when that time comes, but there on the bed with me I would definitely want my three kids. I pray that seeing the yellow lab gave its owner courage as they faced their final hours.

It is just me or was Kitty sounding pretty darn good this week? I like this spotlight artist thing we've been doing since the start of this year. I think it gives the spotlight to artists who we might overlook otherwise. Yet it isn't too much so that if you don't care for a particular artist you can still enjoy the rest of the show. June commented on hearing for the first time "Will Your Lawyer Talk to God?" I was tempted to editorialize a bit when I played that song, but decided against it. I have a feeling though a fast talking high-priced lawyer won't impress God much. I believe only the grace and mercy of the good Lord will give any of us a chance. Anyway I don't believe I had ever played that song prior to this week. So this whole spotlight artist thing is helping me to go a little bit deeper into an artist's material than I might otherwise.

We have a new member to the On-line MC Family this week. I want to say a big WELCOME to Carl. Actually Carl has been a faithful supporter of MC and a regular caller as well. So he was, of course, already a member of the MC Family, but now he will be on-line so the rest of you can get acquainted with him. By midweek I should have him added to the Family page. I'm still after Anna Rose to send in her sheet for the MC Family page, but she is not cooperating very good. I guess I will have to send Mear and Goldie over to talk to Bootsie. Perhaps her faithful cat will be able to convince her mom of the importance being on the Family page. If I knew any groundhogs I would work another angle by having them talk to Whitey Ford, Anna Rose's latest addition to her family, a groundhog. I should clarify though, which I did not do on the air, this here groundhog Anna Rose has adopted is not an indoor pet, at least not yet.

Ron said there was nice breeze over there in God's Country (Callaway County) last night when he called. Lucky for him he isn't surrounded by all the buildings and concrete like there is here in town. It got me to thinking about how I'd sure like to live in the country again someday. I would miss my high-speed internet though, but I figure someday they will have it everywhere. Of course as stressed as I've been lately I might end up moving so far out in the boonies that I might not even have electricity. Now how in the world would I run my fan year-round? On second thought I think I'll stay put for now.

If you missed me mentioning it on the show, Grandma South is going home today after a long stay in the hospital due to her broken hip. From talking to her she is as excited as can be. I can't say as I blame her really. When you're used to calling the shots it can get kind of old rather quickly being in the hospital. I wouldn't know what calling the shots is like though, since I have two cats. They say a dog belongs to the owner, but with a cat the owner belongs to them. My girls are pretty easy to work for most of the time though. If their food bowl gets low they sometimes will knock it off onto the floor to get my attention. Unfortunately sometimes it still has some food in it, but then Goldie will usually eat it off the floor…eventually. I think Grandma South would enjoy having a cat again. It sounds like she has had a whole mess of 'um in the past. Is "mess" the right word? I think mess would better refer to the mess of fried chicken, dumplings, corn on the cob and peach cobbler that I'm hoping Anna Rose's sister Loretta is gonna cook up for me someday up there in the country by Mendon. Speaking of mending, I've got some jeans I need to send up her way. J It is funny how my mind wonders off to the subject of food, huh? Anyway I'll keep ya posted on how Grandma South makes the transition back to small town life after spending time in the bustling metropolis of Moberly.

With the temperatures being so hot and Monday sure to be a real blast I thought we would pep things up a bit this week with our spotlight artist. It was requested a while back that we spotlight the Alabama Wild Man, Jerry Reed and so that is what we will do this week. Jerry also recorded some fun songs with the Old Dogs (Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, Bobby Bare, and Jerry Reed) and so I'm sure some of those will make it into the mix. Don't forget the Prayer Requests Corner and feel free to share your requests with the MC Family.

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I do a bang up job. What can I say? When you're hot, you're hot!
Woody

June 20, 2005

John Denver's song "Some Days Are Diamonds (Some Days Are Stone)" came to mind as I just sat down to write this week's WWWs. The chorus goes like this: "Some days are diamonds some days are stones, Sometimes the hard times won't leave me alone, Sometimes a cold wind blows a chill in my bones, Some days are diamonds some days are stones." I just left the hospital where my sister-in-law Judy is in ICU. She is having a rough night. The moon was full as I walked to my pickup. When I got home I let Bronco out to do his thing and I heard sirens in the distance. I talked to the Ol' Clark Outlaw's brother John this afternoon and he is still in a very fragile condition. Last night when I went in to KOPN I felt like all my days had turned to stone. I had and still have a lot of things on my mind. Some of the things are appropriate to share, others are not I suppose. It was tough doing the show this week with so much on my mind. I try to hide when I am feeling down as I am on the air, but I know you can no doubt sense it at times. My good friend and faithful listener Anna Rose picked up on it when she called. Like the night I found out Waylon had died she called throughout the night to make sure I was okay and to try and cheer me up a bit. Sometimes life just sucks and it is never more apparent than when you are afraid of losing someone you love. I am currently afraid of losing two people I love, my sister-in-law and the Ol' Outlaw. I am also faced with a personal decision which is not appropriate to share at this point, but which could mean the loss of something very close to my heart. If and when the time is right I will share it with you. My point? Well it may not be much more profound than what I have already said, "Sometimes life just sucks". The song "If It Weren't For Country Music I'd Go Crazy" just came to mind and that I should listen to some Country as I write, but then I realized the computer where I have most of my Country Music stored is tied up. So instead I have pulled up and am listening to the Christian group the Imperials who have their roots in Southern Gospel, but who then made a move into Contemporary Christian music. I am listening to "Because He Lives", a song written by Bill Gaither. I find a lot of hope in Gospel Music. Frankly my faith has been put to the test many times over the years. I had a lot of notions about God instilled in me as a boy growing up in church, which have really messed with my head. I believe though that a person can find hope in the Gospel message even in the midst of whatever hell they are going through. I trust that the Country Music I play on MC can help put into words some of the range of emotions we all experience as we deal with life and that the Country Gospel Music we play will help everyone who listens to find the peace we all long for during the "Days That Are Stone." Like other times when I have not felt like doing the show, once I actually started the show and started talking to everyone my spirits did lift. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your calls and e-mails every week. They mean more to me than you may ever realize. You are there for me and I hope you know I am here for you. I know from talking to many of you that you too have experienced great losses in your lives and have found MC to be a comfort through your difficult times.

There are always two sides to a coin. In spite of my mood I think this week's show went pretty well. We had another first time caller, Jo, who wanted to hear anything by Willie. The Ol' Outlaw would be excited about that as he has always been when I would tell him we had a first time caller. I got to visit with Ron about his dad Elmer and to play a couple of his dad's favorite songs. Anna Rose has been sharing WWWs, the printed version, with her sister Loretta from up in Salisbury. Even though she can't pick up MC she still gets a kick out of reading WWWs and she will begin receiving WWWs by mail starting with this weeks edition. She thinks Anna Rose and I are a bit touched because we are so crazy about our four legged kids. I suppose she may be right, but at least we don't live in a town named after a type of steak! J Instead we live in a town named after the dude who discovered this here country. Just messin' with ya Loretta, welcome to the extended MC Family! I had several requests from Grant, Luke and PDJ listening over around Montgomery City. They hung with me the entire night and said they were playing crochet at the crack of dawn. The e-mail from my three kids Bronco, Mear and Goldie requesting "I Love" by Tom T. Hall made my night. How and when they figured out how to use the computer I do not know. Those are just a few of the behind-the-scenes highlights from this week's show.

Some people have wondered how or where I come up with something to write about every week in WWWs. When I started writing these back in January I was afraid I would run out of things to talk about, but most weeks I find I'm trying to reign myself in to keep within the allotted space. I have a great imagination. I used to dream up some biggies when I was a boy driving Dad and Dean's John Deere's on the farm. I would imagine famous Country artists pulling up in their buses and stopping to talk to me because I was some big shot DJ, singer or songwriter who happened to enjoy driving a tractor as a hobby. Of course this would impress all the imaginary girls who would see me interacting with Waylon, Willie, Merle, etc. Needless to say reality has set in over the years and no famous Country artists are knocking on my door. The imaginary girls have turned into adult women who I have given up on trying to impress by being something I am not. I am content "Here In the Real World" as Alan would say, but my imagination still allows me to view the real world with my own unique twist on it all. I think sometimes I am better able to unleash my imagination when I write than when I talk on MC. I get tongue tied at times and wonder if the story I just told on the show made as much sense to you as it did to me as it was rolling around in my head. I guess this is why I think the web site helps to complement the show and what we do on the air.

I'll be glad when things settle down a bit. I know I have not been spending as much time with Bronco, Mear and Goldie as I would like. They are good kids and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. Speaking of kitties, I want to spotlight Kitty Wells on this week's edition of MC. I don't have a ton of her stuff, so it won't be hard to request a song I may not have. Nonetheless I want to play what I do have on the show here in Heartbreak U.S.A. Check out the Prayer Requests Corner and never hesitate to share a concern you have. I will be happy to share it with the MC Family.

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I make believe I am a big shot DJ,
Woody

June 13, 2005

Well, well, well I once had a teacher who said the worst ink is better than the best memory. Meaning it is better to write things down than to rely on your memory. I suppose this would apply to typing as well. There is one catch though; you have to remember to read what you wrote. Last week Anna Rose reminded me that Ron Lutz's birthday was coming up on the 14th, but doggone it I didn't think to read the note after I wrote it! It has been one of those weeks to say the least. Anyway as soon as Ron mentioned tomorrow is Flag Day a connection started to be made in my head and when he said it was also the birthday of someone who carries a lot of weight in Country Music I remembered what I had forgotten. Of course had Anna Rose called and reminded me I could have avoided looking sillier than usual, but for some reason I didn't hear from Anna Rose at all last night. Maybe her phone died completely. I sure hope not, 'cause I missed hearing from her. Perhaps last weeks WWWs had her so confused she forgot when the show was even on. Now that the Ol' Outlaw and Grandma South are both still in the hospital and can't listen to or call the show and Anna Rose forgot to call I would have been in a heck of a mess if it weren't for everyone else who called and e-mailed this week. I see now why they say not to put all your eggs in one basket. I still missed hearing from Anna Rose, the Ol' Outlaw and Grandma South though. Anna Rose always cracks this egghead up. Ron told a cute story about his girls when they were little. On Flag Day the teacher would ask them if they knew what was special about the 14th since all the flags were flying. They knew right away the answer to that question; it was their dad's birthday! They're all grown up now and I bet they have told their kids and grandkids the reason for all the flags on June 14th. Happy Birthday 77th to my favorite retired DJ, Ron Lutz in Fulton! I think it is pretty cool that Woodrow Wilson is the President who made June 14th the official day to remember the flag. After all he has the distinct honor of having one of this Country's hardest working farmers named after him. Harold Woodrow Adkins, my Dad who was born in 1920. Of course Wilson should feel doubly honored since the infamous MC DJ was then named Woodrow as well. Growing up a staunch Republican I was a little concerned that Dad and then I were both named after a Democrat. Now that I am somewhere between the two parties most of the time it doesn't bother me as much. I think my sisters still have a hard time accepting that Dad sometimes would say he was a Democrat. Actually I think my bother and I recall him saying that more than they do. I guess they tried to block it out. I heard it said though that Democrats used to be more like Republicans. I think I should probably change the subject before I start making a donkey or elephant out of myself and get into an area I am NOT an expert in by any means.

I talked to The Ol' Outlaw's brother John Burns just a bit ago. It sounds like the Ol' Outlaw is still making progress. He still has a long way to go to be back up and chasing those wild women again, but boy just over the weekend he has made remarkable progress. Continue to keep him and Grandma South in your prayers. I would say Grandma must be almost bored to tears since she asked me last night when I was going to be up again to see her. I told her she was one of the few women that seem excited to see me. She's a character now; I see where the Ol' Outlaw gets it. Now Grandma is a character in a good way, but I think the Ol' Outlaw was bit of an ornery character at times. I can't think of anyone besides the Ol' Outlaw I would want on my side though if I got in a fight. For some reason the Ol' Outlaw and his sister Mary Lou both took a liking to this Ol' Redneck and I could never ask for two better friends. As you know we almost lost the Ol' Outlaw last Monday night, but I have a feeling his sister up in Heaven sent him back 'cause she knew someone needs to keep an eye on yours truly. I lost a dang good friend when Mary Lou passed away back in November. Speaking of good friends it was nice to finally meet Charles and June O'Dell face-to-face up at the hospital on Friday when they stopped by to see the Ol' Outlaw. Dang good people now. I think we need to get Charles on the MC Family page. He doesn't always stay up like June does, but I could tell he liked Country Music just from talking to him. Of course he seemed to enjoy telling War stories just as much as he liked talking about Country. Actually I think he enjoys telling those stories a tad bit more. It still just blows me away what a great bunch of listeners I have been blessed with. I could never have imagined how special this whole doin' a radio show could be. Just imagine how much more special it would be if we were on in the daylight. Well I guess for a few weeks now it is almost daylight at 5:30 AM. Another faithful listener was asking about what room the Ol' Outlaw is in. He said he might try to get by and see him. As I said on the show I will keep you posted as to how he is doing here on the web site under "Midnight Country News Flash!"

It was great to have another first time caller, long time listener call the show. Brenda called and wanted me to send a song out to her husband Steve. She said he is a "Deadhead" and always records a lot of the shows on KOPN. Welcome to the MC Family Brenda and Steve. It was also great to play some requests for Missy Burns, the Ol' Outlaw's sister-in-law. I think she is going to be another promoter of MC like the Ol' Outlaw. She has already told her mom and boss about the show. I got a kick out of Kevin's requests, the stretch of songs using the numbers 1-6. There are so many angles I don't think of and so I always look forward to the requests for mini themes. I must be tired because as I was writing this I was thinking I had better be deciding on a spotlight artist for this week. It then dawned on me, "Duh, it is the Fathers Day Special silly." So if you have a special request and dedication for this week's show be sure and get it to me ASAP! We will, as you know, be playing a bunch of songs about dads this week. Don't oversleep or fall to sleep early since most of the songs will be within the first three hours. The songs you request don't necessarily have to be a song about a dad. Any song that reminds you of your dad will be fine. I'm already planning to play "Ragged Old Flag" again this week for Chip as he remembers his dad.

Don't forget to say a prayer for the Ol' Outlaw. Most Country shows don't do this, but since MC is not your everyday Country show I would like to invite you to share any prayer requests you might have and I will pass them along on the show and on the web site.

Have a good week and tune in Monday as I play songs in honor of my Dad and yours too,
Woody

June 6, 2005

Boy the phone calls and e-mails poured in during the first part of the show this week, but then they started dropping off after 3:00 AM. Anna Rose must have been having phone trouble again because she didn't call me throughout the night like she usually does. I'm mentioning Anna Rose early in this week's WWWs to kind of play a trick on her. She told me that when she reads WWWs she goes to the end first to see what I have written about her. Since I am talking about her early on it will throw off her whole routine. I am taking a risk in playing this trick though because she may accidentally on purpose forget to bake the apple crisp she has been promising me. As always it was good to hear from everyone this week. There were two regular callers who I didn't hear from though. I knew I wouldn't and I knew it wouldn't feel like MC because I didn't hear from them. As you know the Ol' Clark Outlaw is still in the hospital as is his mom Grandma South. Refer to last week's WWWs for why I call his mom, grandma. Grandma South is back to her old self according to her granddaughters. Before long she will be baking a groundhog. The whole groundhog thing is an inside joke. I have to assume when I write WWWs that you have been keeping up with past WWWs otherwise some of what we talk about may not make much sense. I hate to be too redundant since I know several people read it every week. Perhaps after I have been laid to rest in the East Center Cemetery east of Kirksville someone will publish WWWs in book form with an index for easy cross-referencing. As I just wrote that I realize how arrogant I may sound, thinking that anyone would want to read my ramblings after I am dead and gone. Oh well…I always said that Garth Brooks was Woody Adkins with self-esteem. I used to envision myself jumping around on stage like Garth, but then I realized I couldn't sing. Perhaps I could still lip-sync though? Somehow I don't think that would be enough, seeing as I have never had a Tim McGraw or Kenny Chesney waistline. If I get hooked on Anna Rose's apple crisp I will have trouble even fitting in to the jeans I have now! It is pretty obvious with the way my mind wonders that if WWWs were ever published it would be an editor's worst nightmare. They would either have to publish it as is or give up in utter frustration. I should perhaps point out that I do know (hopefully) how to stay on track when needed. Some of my wondering around is intentional. In this case though my, intention was to mention something before I got off on groundhogs and apple crisps. I wanted to let you know the Ol' Clark Outlaw is hangin' in there. He has had a rough week there at the hospital, but as I said on the show he didn't let how he felt stop him from making requests for this week's show. It just goes to show ya what a big heart the Ol' Outlaw has. Keep him in your prayers again this week. One of the many bright spots of this week's show was when June and Ashley called to send out songs to the Ol' Outlaw and Grandma South. Ashley said she didn't know the Ol' Outlaw personally, but that she had seen his picture and read about him on the MC Family page. She said she thought he sounded like a really neat guy. I think this whole MC thing goes way beyond me playing some Country songs on the radio. I believe there is a Family bond that has and continues to form between everyone who listens to the show. The Ol' Outlaw has encouraged me over the months to be open about my life with you all on the show and in WWWs. There have been times when quite frankly I didn't feel like sharing too much, but he has said that is what makes the show so special. I think then as I have opened up it has encouraged you to call and share what is going on in your lives. I still think about Eleannor a faithful listener back in 2003. She would call on a regular basis and soon felt comfortable enough to share with me the battle she was fighting with cancer. Some weeks she felt better than others, but she was always brought a smile to my face when she would call, visit and request her favorite song "Nothing I Can Do About It Now" by Willie. I look forward to talking to her face to face for the first time someday in Heaven.

Continuing with my effort to throw Anna Rose off I am going to go ahead and reveal the spotlight artist for this week's show before the end of WWWs. Since I was just talking about baring my soul with you all, well I didn't use those words, but that is still what I did…I think I should spotlight Bobby Bare this week. Get it baring…bare. Sorry I couldn't resist. Actually I was considering Bobby Bare prior to coming up with that little play on words. I take this spotlight artist more serious than you may realize, in fact I would fight the world just to satisfy you the MC Family. Oops, there I go again using song titles. Sound familiar?

Bronco is lying on the back porch again today. His Dad is kind of tight and is still holding off on turning the AC on. I had wondered why Bronco preferred laying on the concrete to laying by the fan. Chip, however, filled me in on why. He said, "Bronco digs the concrete floor because its cool and dissipates the heat." Of course Ron said that if I cut off more of my hair I wouldn't even need AC this summer. If I did though Bronco wouldn't look like his Dad. I've been told Bronco and I would win a contest for pet owners and their pets that look alike. The first summer I had Bronco I did have his hair cut, but after seeing him my ex and I said we should never do that again. He looked so different and we were afraid he would never look like a Golden Retriever again. Fortunately though his hair grew back out and he looked normal again. I think that is what the Ol' Outlaw is hoping will happen with me, that once my hair grows back out I will once again look like his favorite longed haired redneck. By the way it was good to hear from Ron this week. He said he feel asleep last week and missed the show. I bet he was worn out from fishing on Rooster Creek. If we don't get some decent rain I'm afraid the creeks are gonna dry up though. Both of my cats, Mear and Goldie, are doing okay, catnapping more than usual with the heat. Of course it will get hotter as the summer goes along. It was weird ending the show this week with it being so light outside, that will change too in a couple weeks or so. Did I mention how good it was to hear from everyone this week, even what's her name? I didn't forget ya AR, read the whole thing now! I've got a trivia question for ya in closing. If you leave home and walk at 4 miles per hour for 125 hours, where will you be? The answer is the same as a Bobby Bare tune we will no doubt play on this week's show. Keep Ol' Outlaw and Grandma South in your prayers!

Have a good week and tune in Monday for lullabys, legends and lies,
Woody

May 30, 2005

Some weeks when I sit down to write WWWs I wonder if I am really wondering about anything that week. I then get started and find I'm having to reel myself in to fit the space I have allotted for WWWs. So as we launch into writing another WWWs we shall see what passes from my mind through my fingers to the keyboard only to appear as words on a computer screen that you will then read on the web site, as an e-mail or a letter. As I write this I am listening to a recording of this week's show. Right now Reba is singing "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" the song first made a hit by Lee Greenwood. I actually wanted to make reference to this song being first recorded by Lee, but as I was about to say something on the air I started to draw a blank on his name. I hate it when that happens. It happened later in the show as well, but that time I didn't stop myself before I had inserted my entire foot in my mouth. As you recall I was talking about the KOPN Cakewalks to be held during the Twilight Festivals on Thursdays in June. Too late I realized that I wasn't really sure what a cakewalk consisted of. In fact now as I write this I am not sure if cakewalk is one or two words, but my software seems to think it is one, so I will go with that I guess. Anyway thanks to Chip I was able to share a bit later on in the show what a cakewalk actually is, but not before realizing I should do a better job of washing my feet. After a show I used to obsess about errors I made for days on end. It has slowly dawned on me though I am human and people actually seem to get a big kick out of me sticking my foot in my mouth. I have also noticed professional radio personalities are not always as smooth as I once thought they were. In fact I think they sometimes intentionally feed off of each other's stupidity and errors. So if it can work for them, then it can surely work for me. So since I do the show alone I am left to feed off of my own stupidity, which, even if I do say so myself, I think I am getting rather good at.

I was talking to Mrs. Rose Wood before MC started and she mentioned that a lot of people are starting to listen to Bluegrass on Satellite Radio. There is, of course, concern about Satellite Radio then taking away from local stations. As I said to Mrs. Rose Wood, we've got to keep the personal touch and if we do, Satellite Radio will never be able to compete with shows like The High Lonesome Sound and Midnight Country. Well I suppose a person who is only interested in the music and doesn't care about interacting with a live DJ may choose satellite over us. But if they want to talk to a real person who isn't afraid to stick their foot in their mouth and to share their life, the good, the bad and the ugly, then all the preprogrammed or national programming in the world will not be able to entice them away from local radio. So bring it on Satellite Radio, this Ol' Redneck is up to the challenge.

Anytime I have a first caller it always makes doing that week's show all the more fun. This week I had a first time listener who called after hearing June Carter Cash. He said he normally listens to an overnight talk show, but had run across MC and liked what he heard. He then requested "I'll Fly Away" which I got on during the next gospel stretch. Hopefully he will become a regular listener every week. I told him about the web site and that even though we are a Country show we always sprinkle in some good ol' Country Gospel throughout the show. I always try to ask new callers or people I tell about MC if they have a computer or access to one. If they say yes to either question I make sure they know about the web site. It seems like a lot quicker and easier way to let people know how they can find out more about the show than trying to talk their leg off in the brief time I have to sell them on MC.

Well the Ol' Outlaw said he heard parts of the show this week, but that he drifted in and out. He is still waiting on a new hip, but it sounds like it may be a while yet. They are making some progress though in dealing with the infections, so that is good news. Unfortunately with any good news there always seems to be some bad news too. You know the saying "I'll got some good news and some bad news…" Anyway the Ol' Outlaw's mom Grandma South broke her hip today (Monday). I'll tell ya when it rains it pours. They are to do surgery on Grandma's hip on Tuesday, so be sure and say a prayer for her, but knowing Grandma I would say her prayers will do a lot more good than mine, now as for yours, well I bet yours will do more good than mine as well. I should clarify that the Ol' Outlaw's mom is not his grandma, but I still call her grandma since she is my ex girlfriend's grandma, which makes me my own grandpa right? Oh wait that is Willie Nelson who is his own grandpa. This evening when I was walking Bronco after hearing about Grandma's left hip, my left hip started hurting. I thought with my luck I will break my hip too and end up in the hospital with the Ol' Outlaw. If I did I guess I could then just broadcast the show from up there. I'm a little leery though of having the Ol' Outlaw on the show again. As you recall we had him on just after his sister Mary Lou died back in November when we paid tribute to her. He was a little nervous that time, but now he seems to be getting a little cocky and I'm afraid of what he might say about me on the air. He still seems a tad bit irritated that I cut my hair. In spite of the bad news the Ol' Outlaw got about his mom, he did have one pleasant surprise today. June, a member of the MC Family, called to check up on him and to wish him a speedy recovery. The Ol' Outlaw said that just goes to show ya what a neat show MC is. Who'd a ever thunk that this Ol' Redneck would have come up with an idea like MC that would actually bring a ray of sunshine to people's live? I bet some of my teachers from Bible school would die of shock if they knew! J Way to go June. Now though I'm a little worried about Anna Rose. She was talking about groundhogs again this week, but this time it was the actual animal groundhog, not grounded up hog (pork). Apparently they are hanging out by her house. I expect any week now for her to say she has adopted one and given it a name.

The Statler Brothers will be this week's spotlight artists. Do you remember these guys? I'll go to my grave loving some of their songs and so we'll play 'um on this week's show.

Have a good week and remember you are my sunshine,
Woody

May 23, 2005

If the last two KOPN memberships drives are an accurate indication I would say that Community Radio in alive and doing well in Mid-Missouri. The station has once again reached and surpassed its goal. It just goes to show what an important role KOPN plays in the daily lives of its listeners. In recent months I have also come to believe the same thing about Midnight Country. There is a book that I read from time to time titled "Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow." This has certainly come true with MC during the last few membership drives. I love playing Classic and Traditional Country on the radio and have persisted in doing so even in the early years when the membership drive responses did not yet indicate the money to support the show was there. I do want to point out one thing though, that none, zero, zip of the money raised on Midnight Country goes to me personally. It all goes to pay the paid staff and expenses to keep the station on the air. They say if you really want to know what you love to do and what is important to you, you just need to consider what you are willing to throw yourself into knowing you might never see a penny for your efforts. I love doing MC and KOPN has certainly reaped the rewards from my efforts. Thanks to Carl, the Ol' Clark Outlaw, Scott & Michele and Anna we once again reached and surpassed our goal on this week's edition of MC. I believe that each of you who support MC deserve a big pat on the back. I know too that there are many ways other than financial in which you have supported the show over the years. Even while lying flat on his back in the hospital with his broken hip the Ol' Outlaw has been telling people about the show and handing out business cards. So however you have supported the show I want to say a great big THANK YOU! It is now time to shift away from all this talk about $'s and to focus in once again on why you have supported MC to begin with, the great Country Music.

I hope you enjoyed Dolly as this week's spotlight artist. I was telling someone prior to the show that we were going to spotlight Dolly and they said that Dolly was the Britney Spears of Country Music back in the 60's. I don't totally know what they meant, but I thought it was funny nonetheless. As for this week's spotlight artist I would like to spotlight someone I consider a few weeks back, but decided at that time to spotlight an older artist instead. This guy's great traditional Country voice has brought more than a tear or two to my eye over the years. He has never quite busted out on top like say George Strait or Alan Jackson, but since the early 90's he has consistently recorded great Traditional Country. His song "Too Cold at Home" helped me get through many an afternoon at work and his song "I'll Think of Something" has been my theme song over the years when I have tried to move on when a relationship has ended. If you know your Country you have already guessed that we will be spotlighting Mark Chesnutt this week.

I have an idea that I want to run by everyone and to hear your feedback. This is still in the dream stage, but I am thinking about approaching a local venue/bar with the idea of having a Classic and Traditional Country DJ night with yours truly spinning the tunes. It would be like you all were sitting in on the show with me, but in this setting you would be able to have a drink or two if you like, eat some good food, dance to real Country and also meet some of your fellow MC Family members. It would probably take place earlier in the week when the venue is slower and would begin pretty early in the evening. If this sounds like something you would enjoy please let me know. Your feedback will go a long way in helping me to decide whether to pursue this or not. If you are like me I get frustrated when I go to hear live Country Music because half of what they play I do not consider to be real Country. Even most of your Country bar bands start mixing in a lot of rock as the evening progresses. I know there is a time and a place for such, but I also believe there is a time and a place for the kind of Country we play on MC. As I said it is still only a dream, but a few years back doing a show like MC was still only a dream. So ya never know…

I've not listened to this weeks show recording yet, but as I recall I didn't talk too much about my kids. They are all three doing pretty good. Goldie is a little irritated with me because we have run out of treats and I have not made it to Wally World yet to get more. She is a little picky when it comes to her treats, but I have been trying to keep her happy with a nibble of my food now and then. In the last few days Bronco and I have gotten out of our walking routine, which I am sure has him a bit irritated as well. Hopefully we will be back on track soon before his Dad gets so big I can't make it out the door. He has been keeping cool by lying on the concrete floor by the back door. Sometimes he lies by the fan, but he doesn't seem to be as big of a fan of them as his Dad, since his Dad sleeps with a fan year around. J Mear is as cute and lovin' as ever. She was lying on top of me in bed this morning. She is pretty independent, but when she wants to snuggle with me I do whatever I can to accommodate her even if that means lying still for a while. The three of them seem to have adjusted to their Dad's new hairstyle.

Ron said I am sounding better on the show now that I have had ten inches cut off my hair. I think Anna Rose wants another picture to see the new look. She was shocked when she saw my picture the first time. She had trouble believing that her favorite late night DJ who she has loved to chat with for so many years could have such awful hair. The Ol' Outlaw was caught off guard when he saw my hair had been cut. Fortunately he was sitting down at the time or he might have broken his hip then instead of later. I would never have heard the end of that. He thinks I have sold out and lost the Ol' Redneck look. Speaking of the Ol' Outlaw, he is still waiting on his hip replacement. Say a prayer for him that it will happen soon. He seems to be going through withdrawals from all his wild women. You might not mention that in your prayers though, 'cause somehow I don't think that is as big of a concern to the good Lord as it is to the Ol' Outlaw. Keep in touch now and never hesitate to call or e-mail those requests! You are still the key to making MC great!

Have a good week and tune in Monday so you won't miss the Mark,
Woody

May 16, 2005

Well fortunately for me the back door at the station was open Sunday night and so I didn't have to start singing Ricky's song "Honey, Open That Door." Of course I do have a key I could have used I suppose. I hope you enjoy my use of song titles in WWWs. Sometimes they are rather obvious, other times they are more subtle, but if you know your Country like I know so many of you do then I am sure I don't slip very many past ya. I hope you enjoyed Ricky as this week's spotlight artist as much as I did. At times it felt like I was back listening to Country radio in the '80's. There was a lot of decent Country back then. Now that I think about it though there was some stuff in the '80's that was more Pop than I prefer today. Fortunately our brains are programmed to forget the bad stuff. I just hope when I recall 2005 I can forget some of the Pop stuff they are trying to pass off as Country these days. Notice I keep using the word "stuff"; now Dale Watson though uses a bit stronger word than "stuff" in some of his music to describe the current Country Pop. With this being a family friendly show and web site though I will bite my tongue.

Speaking of stronger words, I don't think that there are strong enough words in the English language to describe the elation and happiness I experienced on this week's show as Anna Rose, Bob and Gene, along with an anonymous donor stepped forward and pledged their support for Midnight Country. To say Membership Drives stress me out would be an understatement like saying the Pacific Ocean is a farm pond. From the calls and e-mails every week I know people are listening to MC, but whether or not I am able to help everyone see the importance of supporting MC during the Membership Drives in something I worry about. Yet after this past week I think I should just chill out, do a good show and know that you will come through for me as you did this week. We are well over half way to reaching our show goal of $240. If my math is correct we are at $170 and still need $70 more. I know that not everyone can afford to give and some of you have already given within the past year, but if you believe in the mission of MC and you can afford just about .77 cents a week then I ask that you consider supporting MC by becoming a member of KOPN. As I have said when we reach our goal I will cut way back on asking for your support.

In case you missed my story on the show this week about Bronco calling the cops I thought perhaps I should repeat it. First off, as you know, if you have seen a picture of me my hair is longer than the average redneck's, so last year on May 11 I went to get a haircut. My hairdresser (now that is a strange word for a redneck to be using) said the minimum that Locks of Love would take was seven inches. So wanting to help out this worthy cause I had her cut off seven inches. Well apparently it was pretty long because even with seven inches cut off it seemed that few of my everyday acquaintances really noticed. In the meantime I heard rumor that the minimum that Locks of Love could use was really ten inches. So with May 11 coming around again I thought I should do some investigating and find out the truth. I found out that yes indeed the minimum is ten inches. I also found the name of the only place listed in Columbia who would cut this tight ol' redneck's hair for free if I donated at least ten inches. Well the rest is history as you can read in the police reports. When I got home on Wednesday night Bronco starting barking and raising hell, Mear ran up the wall (literally) and Goldie drug a phone into the kitchen so Bronco could dial 911 with his nose. After the cops came and a couple DNA tests, everyone settled down and my animal kids were finally convinced that yes indeed that shorthaired freak of nature was indeed still their Dad. It was embarrassing though to say the least. Now not all of this story is true, but I will let you decide what is fact and what is fiction. If you could get in side of my head you would realize that it there often a thin line between the two.

You may have a couple of questions though after reading this partially true tall tale. First, what is Locks of Love? It is a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces for children. Most of the children have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata for which there is no known cause or cure. If you would like to find out more, their web site is: www.locksoflove.org As to why I have gotten my hair cut on May 11 for the last two years. Well it is the anniversary of a relationship I was in for three and a half years ending. So I have figured I would do something positive to mark the tragedy as opposed to going out and doing something I would regret like trying to exhaust the stockpile of Busch beer. Plus it is then easy to remember when I last had a haircut. As short as it is now with ten inches gone, I would say that I may either wait awhile longer next year or just have less cut off. If it gets much shorter the Ol' Outlaw with quit speaking to me.

Speaking of the Ol' Outlaw I just got word that he is flat on his back and not with one of his wild women this time. Apparently he was chasing one of 'um and broke his hip. Well he did break his hip, but I don't think it is from chasing one of his wild women. If it was then he ain't saying at least. As you recall we played "Slow Movin' Outlaw" on the show this week for the Ol' Outlaw's BD which was Monday. I think he took the song a little too literally though, since he "done went and broke his hip" later on Monday. I'm trying to use Outlaw lingo so just in case he reads this he will understand what I'm sayin' At least Anna Rose was feeling better this week and was up to her old tricks of supporting her favorite late night DJ. I would have said her favorite DJ period, but I would say Ron Lutz is permanently at the top of that list. It sounded like Ron was feeling better on the Rooster Creek Show this week, which was good to hear. They sure have a lot of fun on there.

Thanks again to Anna Rose, Bob, Gene, an anonymous donor and to yours truly for supporting MC this past week. It's not to late for the rest of ya. As for this week's spotlight artist I'm afraid it will be a bust, but we're going to try anyway and spotlight Dolly Parton. Hopefully you will always love me unlike my kids who keep asking, "Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That!"

Have a good week and tune in Monday, when it will be all wrong, but I guess that is alright, oh yeah, Get Well Soon now ya Ol' Outlaw you,
Woody

May 9, 2005


Well Mom I tried. I hope that you enjoyed this year's Mothers Day Special as you listened there in Heaven with your great-granddaughter AnaBelle. I'll bet you two got a kick out of hearing the recording of when AnaBelle was on Midnight Country. In some ways it seems like forever since you've been gone Mom. In other ways it seems I should still be able to call and talk to you and Dad on the farm outside of Brashear. I think you would get a kick out of all the new technology that has come along since you went home back in '84. In particular I think you would enjoy having a cell phone with free nights/weekends, where you would never have to worry about running up the long-distance bill talking to your kids, grandkids and now great grandkids. You'll have to ask AnaBelle what a cell phone is. Hope you're saving me a cabin on the backside of Heaven somewhere. It needs to be cat and dog proof. Of course you already know it needs to be dog proof since Bronco's three older brothers are already there. Remind the good Lord about grace and what He did for me on the cross, 'cause without grace I'll never make it there to see you, Dad and AnaBelle again.

Oops…sorry everyone, I was intending to write WWWs, but I got sidetracked there for a minute as I was thinking of what I'd like to say to Mom. Hope you didn't mind listening in for a second there. Remembering my Mom who has been gone almost 21 years and my great-niece AnaBelle who has been gone for two probably made for a rather somber show at times. I hope though that everyone enjoyed this week's Mothers Day Special on Midnight Country. I hope that the songs brought back fond memories of your mother; of the times you spent with her growing up and over the years as an adult. We each only have one mother, like me I am sure you wouldn't trade yours for anything. Sometimes as I plan and then as I do the Mothers and Fathers Day Specials on MC I have to stop and remind myself that some of you are still blessed to have one or both of your parents still living. Take the time to enjoy them while you can. You'll never regret the time you spend with them. It was two months from the time Mom learned she had cancer 'til she was gone. With Dad back in '97 I had a little more warning that he was not doing well. I recall thinking I need to remember and cherish these moments with him, because I sensed that they were numbered.

I am sure you all enjoyed my yearly Tribute to AnaBelle. She would be nine years old now She was so full of life and it was such a tragedy for it to end like it did. I am just glad that her Aunt DeeAnna and I had her up on the show when we did and that we thought to record it. A part of the recording was played at AnaBelle's funeral and it is something I intend to play every year that I do MC. Thanks also to the listener who shared a cute story about his six year old niece with me. Kids are so much fun, whether they are your own or someone else's.

Remember George's song "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?" I get a kick every week on MC out of trying to guess who is going to step up to the plate that week and help keep me awake in the late night hours of the show. Some weeks it is Anna Rose, other weeks Ron, this week though the Ol' Outlaw stepped up to the plate and called me right up until almost the end of the show. I was hoping someone would come through for me because I knew Anna Rose had not been feeling too well this week. It was also nice to get a call from Chip toward the end of the show. Chip and I usually communicate through cyberspace (e-mail). Of course a bit earlier in the show we had a first time caller from Prairie Home. Boy it is always nice to hear from first time callers. I always just hope they will be repeat pretenders. Well hopefully no one who makes the effort to call has to pretend they like the show.

For the next two editions of Midnight Country we will be asking you to support Midnight Country by becoming a member of KOPN during the "You Are The Key" Membership Drive. I would be preaching to the choir if I try to sell you on the importance of a show like MC. Of course I will do that anyway on the next two shows just in case you have forgotten. Last Membership Drive we reached our goal of $200, this time our goal is $240 over both weeks. If we can reach our goal the first week I promise I will cut waaay back on asking for support the next week. You who know me well know I am not a natural when it comes to sales, but the bottom-line is it takes money to keep a show like MC on a commercial-free station like KOPN. Only five of you need to call during the next two weeks and become members at the $40 level for us to reach out goal. Now I know you think my math is off or my calculator broke, but you're wrong 'cause I have already decided I am going to pledge $40 to MC, so we only need $200 more. Think about what you can do and I will be forever grateful for your support. In addition to the ways the station has of saying thank you for your pledge of support we will be repeating our special way of saying thanks to you. As you recall from the last membership drive anyone who makes a pledge of $40 can select the entire playlist along with stories, dedications, etc. for one hour of MC to be played on a future show (don't worry I'll let you know when it is). Now some of you have been dragging your feet from the last membership drive, trying to come up with the perfect hour of music I think, but this offer will stand for one year after the membership drive in which you pledge. If you're thinking you will likely pledge during this membership drive let me know ASAP so we can kick off next week's show in high gear and get your fellow members of the MC Family excited about supporting the show!

As for this week's spotlight artist, I should probably first say we are changing the name of the show to Midnight Bluegrass. I AM ONLY KIDDING NOW! I couldn't resist, sorry. I want to spotlight Ricky Skaggs on this weeks Midnight Country, yes, relax I said "Country". Even though in recent years Ricky has gone back to his roots in Bluegrass, I still love to hear his Country material. So even though we will probably play a Bluegrass tune or two, the bulk of what I choose to play will be his Country stuff. Of course you're welcome to request either one, but as for this ol' redneck…

Have a good week and tune in Monday for Ricky Skaggs, assuming that is, I can get B.G. Brown to open the door,
Woody

May 2, 2005

Well I almost hesitate to say that we spotlighted George on this week's show. It is kind of like going to the circus and sitting behind the fat lady and the world's tallest man. You know you were at the circus because of the occasional glimpses of the trapeze artists, but you still feel shortchanged. I hope you enjoyed the George you did hear, though I know we hardly scratched the surface. I'm looking for an excuse to do an entire show of the Ol' Possum, but I guess this will have to do until I come up with one. We did play his best song though (in my opinion) to kick off the show, "He Stopped Loving Her Today." On again off again over the years I've thought I would like to have that song played at my funeral. You've heard the saying the names have been changed to protect the innocent? Well in this case over the years the woman's name has changed who I hope to stop loving when I die. All the music I intend to have lined up to be played at my funeral may take an hour or two. It is just a shame I won't be there to enjoy it with my 1 ½ friends who will hopefully show up. Dang I'd better lose some weight otherwise it will be hard for 1 ½ people to carry me out of the church. Of course if I decide to be cremated then it might not be so bad. I need to be sure and stay on good terms with my 1 ½ friends. I'm just kidding about only having 1 ½ friends, 'cause I consider everyone who listens to MC my friend. Unless, of course, some of you call multiple times and change your voice each time, then I think there are more than 1 ½ people listening. This reminds me of when I was a boy. My brother Dean, who is 18 years older than I am, would often buy my lunch but as he did he would say he was stocking up nursing home visits. In other words hoping I would then feel an obligation to come visit him after all he had done for me. I think he may have rethought this a bit when his son-in-law Darren jokingly said that when he came to visit him he was going to dress him (Dean) up in a dress. So I'd better keep on the good side of all you who are my friends, so you'll not put me in a dress when I am old and will show up at my funeral.

Well we played a lot of fun new to us, never been played on MC, songs this week. Anna Rose and I were both saying it had been a while since we had heard "B.J. the DJ." I guess that isn't exactly a happy ending song. I did get a kick out of "Country Music Is Here to Stay" though by Ferlin Husky from the CD "Country Music Is Here to Stay: The Complete Simon Crum a.k.a. Ferlin Husky on Capitol". What is it with these short CD titles? This song was requested by the Clark Outlaw and was meant to go out to me the host and all my wild women. I conveniently, thank God, forgot about the wild women angle when I played the song, but the Ol' Outlaw reminded me when he called. I think with all the pain meds he is on for his shoulder that he is hallucinating and confusing my life with his. He's the one with all the wild women, not me! All in all though I really enjoyed the show this week and don't think it went too bad even if I do toot my own horn a bit. When my buddy Ron called I was bragging a bit about all the calls up to that point in the show. He said he had read somewhere it was okay to toot one's own horn 'cause if you don't no one else will. So if at just after 5:30 some Monday morning you're awakened by the cops chasing a crazy man blowing a horn you will know I took Ron's advice after having had a good show. Even the Ol' Outlaw said it was a good show; the best we had done in a while. I asked him if he had been asleep and was dreaming about a good show. He said no, but there again all those meds may have been affecting his mind.

It was nice to play the stretch of Country Gospel songs for Iva "Grandma" South. She has good taste in Gospel Music. When she called to thank me she said that they had just sung a bunch of those songs in church on Sunday. As you know this was my way of saying thanks to Grandma South for calling and supporting MC during the last membership drive. There are still some of you who called and pledged, but have not gotten your sheets in to me yet. I guess we will make one year the deadline. I figure once a year is up it will be time for you to renew your membership. Of course, if you are not a member yet, on the 16th you will have your first of two chances to call and become a member of KOPN. When you do you will be qualified to have a stretch of music that you select dedicated to you just as we did this week for Grandma South. By supporting MC you will be doing your part to make sure that Country Music Is Here to Stay!

This coming show the spotlight will be on a theme instead of an artist. Well that may not be totally true, I think all Mothers are artists too in their own way. My Mom certainly did a good job in molding me into the person I am today. I give her credit for just the good aspects of my character though. Now I know what you are thinking and you are wrong 'cause I do have some good parts. You'll just have to ask my Mom to find out what they are when you meet her in Heaven someday. I think in some ways I am more like my Mom than my Dad. Growing up I preferred reading a book or listening to music over building fence or working with cattle. Although I think I take after Dad when it comes to tearing into projects. Even though MC is not the type of project Dad would have been interested in, I still jump into it with both feet and have pretty high expectations of the outcome like Dad always had when it came to farming. Mom was a schoolteacher all her life. She started out teaching in the old one-room schools and was teaching Special Ed when she got ovarian cancer and died back in 1984. Her nickname at school was Aunt Bea because everyone thought she looked like Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith show. I think Mom would be proud of me doing MC, though like Grandma South she would probably like it even better if I played all Gospel Music.

Well WWWs will be your last reminder before the show to get your requests and dedications in for our Mothers Day Special. The bulk of the first three hours will be songs about Mothers. I will sidetrack for a moment to remember my great-niece AnaBelle Miller who died two years ago on the 5th at the age of seven. We will be playing the recording of when she was on MC at the age of five.

Have a good week and tune in Monday as we pay tribute to all the mothers who tried and are still trying,
Woody

April 25, 2005

Unless you are up every night of the week I would think that like me your sleep pattern is thrown off a bit when you stay up to listen to Midnight Country one night a week. It seems by about Tuesday night I am pretty much back on track, but Mondays can be a bit strange. It is worth it all though to be able to do a show like MC and this week's was extra fun. It was nice to wish Linda a Happy Birthday. I hadn't heard from her in a while. As always I start to worry when I don't hear from a regular listener. Later in the show it got kind of interesting. Anna Rose told me she had just had a ham salad sandwich made from groundhog. Of course I fell for it thinking she meant it was made from the animal groundhog, but she had a big laugh when she pointed out she meant ground up pork…hog, get it? I then went on the air and shared this with you all without thinking through that people might actually eat the groundhogs, the animal. So I got a kick out of Grandma South calling to let me know that she has eaten groundhog and that baked groundhog is actually pretty good. Her son, the Ol' Outlaw didn't recall eating any groundhog though, but ya know he may not know what was in some of the delicious dishes his mom has made over the years. Then I got an e-mail from Chip which read: "It all tastes like chicken...rattlesnake, alligator, squirrel, rabbit, it all tastes like chicken. Which makes me wonder what it tasted like before we knew about chickens?" Good question Chip, I'm not sure I know the answer to that one. It kind of reminds me of the old party lines, which I barely remember by the way. Yet like the old party lines a conversation with one member of the MC family can take on a life of its own when shared with the rest of the MC family. Needless to say I enjoyed a laugh or two late in the show this week.

This weather reminds me of the Oak Ridge Boy's song "It Takes a Little Rain." The main part of the song says "It takes a little rain, To make love grow, It's the heartache and the pain, That makes the real heart show, Where the sun always shines, There's a desert below, It takes a little rain, To make love grow." Well lets hope some love is growing somewhere with all this cool rainy weather. I keep overhearing people talk about going "mushrooming". I guess then if you are closer to nature than I obviously am, since I don't recall eating groundhog, then you might really be digging this weather. I know its that time of the year though and April showers bring May flowers, so let it snow, let snow, let it…I mean let it rain. It won't be long and I will be complaining in here about the heat and my dried up yard. If I could just learn to be happy with what I've got at the moment then I would have it made, huh?

I am pretty darn happy with my animals though. I had a story to tell about Mear, which is why I started off talking about sleep patterns and the like. Obviously my wondering mind got off track a bit. Anyway I was taking a nap earlier and just as I was thinking I should get up Mear came and laid down on my chest. She then put her paw on my hand and laid her head on her paw. Man I wish I would have had a camera, of course if I had moved to get a camera it would have spoiled the shot. It reminded me of another song though, Brad Paisley's "Little Moments" with the line "I live for little moments like that." I eventually moved since I think I always need to be doing something and of course she jumped off. If I would have stayed still she might have laid there for hours. Ya know if you live alone and sometimes have trouble like I do getting along with the human variety of animals then I would highly recommend making a friend for life by getting a cat. I guess I can't speak for all cats, but mine…well I wouldn't trade 'um for nothin'!

Now that I've talked about the past show, complained about the weather and talked about one of my kids I would like to get your feedback on something. How do you like the spotlight artist thing we are doing every week? Should we play more or less of the spotlight artist? Should we continue with the spotlight artist through the entire night? Let me know your thoughts on the matter. I have had a suggestion that we occasionally spotlight categories of singers and certain themes, such as artists with a certain Country style, like the Bakersfield sound and themes such as humorous songs. We are always open to your feedback and suggestions. Unlike commercial radio I do not have a program director breathing down my neck and jumping my case when I play a song that isn't on the Top 40 Country Singles Chart. I think it is easy to take for granted and not always appreciate what a unique thing KOPN really is.

This brings me to another issue; Midnight Country is obviously on at a time of night when a lot of people are sleeping. KOPN is also not the first station people think of when it comes to finding a Country Music show. This then presents two barriers to be overcome. Am I not content with what we have going at this point? You bet I am, well to an extent. I very much enjoy doing the show and talking with everyone who calls and e-mails. So what's my point then? Personally I think there are a lot more people who would enjoy the type of Country we play on MC if they just knew about it. Of course you are probably thinking…"that and if it was on at a different time." Well I'm not sure what I can do about that other than try to do such a damn good show and create such a buzz that the powers that be decide MC should be on earlier. Doing a better show is something I am always working on, but I need your help with creating a buzz about MC. Do you live in a small town, which has a weekly newspaper that might like to run a story about the show? Does an organization you belong to have a bulletin board where you could hang a flyer? Any other ideas? Being rather shy when not behind the mic I could sure use your help with creating a buzz about Midnight Country. I don't want to be thought of as arrogant and conceited, but yet I do believe in the mission of MC.

I just can't resist spotlighting George this week after spotlighting Tammy this past week. Among the songs we play will be cuts from "George Jones Salutes Hank Williams" a new to us CD we just got courtesy of the Ol' Outlaw.

Have good week and tune in Monday for this high-tech redneck as I spin (not eat) the ol' possum,
Woody

April 18, 2005

Well I hope the tears have finally stopped. One caller told me that I was really tearing ya up with some of the songs I was playing on the show this week. He was referring primarily to the stretch that included the new Darryl Worley song "If Something Should Happen", then "Feed Jake", "Tribute to a Dog", and "Tough Little Boys. It was pretty powerful stuff to say the least. With everything that has been in the news it makes you think that is for sure. As I said on the show there aren't a lot of things you can count on in life, but at least on MC I do guarantee to bring a tear to your eye at least once every show. Hopefully we will bring a smile to your face as well, but some weeks I don't guarantee that.

One thing that always brings a smile to my face is to talk on the show about Bronco, Mear and Goldie, my dog and two cats. One caller said she shared with her sister about how I talk about my "kids" on the show and how much she enjoyed it. Now her sister thinks we're both nuts. I guess until you've been so depressed that the only reason you can come up with to go on livin' are the kitty cats lying on/beside you and the dog lying in the kitchen, then you will probably think pet lovers are nuts. Knowing how much I love my "animal" kids I can only imagine how much I would love "human" kids of my own. It makes my blood boil when I hear about innocent children being murdered as has happened recently in Florida.

Try as I might to avoid controversy on MC I think I walked right into some this week without knowing it. Early on I was talking about explaining to Bronco how just because his dad was too busy to play on Sunday that we still had Earth Day coming up next Sunday to look forward to. Well apparently, according to a caller, there is some talk about people bringing their dogs to Earth Day and someone would prefer people left them at home. Well it took a lot of restraint, but I decided not to say anything on the air about the idea. It did remind me though of a bumper sticker on my neighbor's car that says, "At least I can still smoke in my car." Perhaps the day will come when Bronco and I are not welcome at events around town, but at least we will still be able to play at home in the kitchen without offending anyone. Bronco seems happy to play no matter how big the space. As long as he has something to fetch for dad he doesn't care if he had three feet or 100 yards to run after it.

I am listening to the recording of the show as I write this. Boy Buck sounded awfully good this week, as did Ol' Waylon doing Ol' Hank. I think it is probably good that I decided to play a different artist every song on MC, but there are some weeks I am really itching to play a bunch in a row from a CD. I was able to resist the temptation though and did spread out the songs by Waylon. Thanks to the Ol' Clark Outlaw for getting us that CD. Sadly the Ol' Outlaw was laid up in the hospital this week without a radio and didn't get to hear any of the show. I guess his Outlaw lifestyle finally caught up with him and he had to take a break. I wish him a speedy recovery 'cause all his wild women will be lost without him. I knew ahead of time that he was laid up so I knew I wouldn't hear from him this week, but when I don't hear from a regular listener who usually calls or e-mails I start to worry about 'um. Imagine that, I doubt anyone had picked up on the fact that I think/worry too much sometimes. J Never think that you are bothering me by calling. You're actually saving me money in blood pressure medication by letting me know you are okay and listening. If I still drank it would be one less beer I'd have to drink. Okay so maybe the lady is right, pet lovers are nuts.

Now is the time every week when I have to commit to a spotlight artist for the next show. Believe it or not I am sometimes still thinking about it up until this point in writing WWWs. I had someone in mind, but I think I am going to go with someone else. So…drum roll please…the spotlight artist on this week's edition of Midnight Country will be Tammy Wynette. You're gonna have to stand by your man on this one at least until I can make it on my own. Country song titles work so well in everyday conversations don't they? I know, this kid can say the darndest things sometimes. I guess I am just one of a kind, huh? Don't be a stranger this week, call with your requests and let me know how the heck ya all are doing out there in radio land!

Have a good week, keep listening to your favorite late night DJ 'cause we're going to keep doing this dang thing until I get it right,
Woody

April 11, 2005

I know David Allan Coe was able to come up with the perfect Country and Western song when he recorded "You Never Even Called Me By My Name", but I have yet to even come close to pulling off the perfect Country show. This week's edition of MC was no exception. There has been discussion among KOPN programmers about what to do when you make a mistake on the air or have technical problems. Some say you shouldn't apologize on the air for what just happened. I'll leave that debate for the experts I suppose. As for me when I make a major boo boo I figure I'd just well be honest with ya and own up to it. You aren't stupid and you notice my errors, so I figure I shouldn't be stupid and act like they didn't occur. Two of my more glaring errors on this week's show, in case you missed them, were…First I was on the phone with a regular listener and I accidentally played Loretta's "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl" twice. Someone had changed a setting on the computer, I thought I had corrected it, but obviously hadn't. I was caught up in the conversation, but eventually I thought "Dang, I don't remember that song being so long." Sure enough I had played it twice. I was just glad to hear from Ron that it had only been twice! Early in the show I usually get several calls and we sometimes talk for several minutes. I am always afraid that something will happen. Most often I am afraid I will read from my list that I have played a song, which in reality I didn't played. The second glaring error was when I played "Hey Good Lookin'" by Hank as a request then later in the show when I had it scheduled to play by Tennessee and I didn't catch it until after the song had started. Back in the early days I could have blamed it on not getting any calls and being half asleep, but now I just get caught up in interesting conversations with members of the Midnight Country Family and get distracted. Thanks for bearing with your less than perfect host.

Coming up in May and June we will be doing our Mother's and Father's Day shows. If you have a special request and dedication you would like to have played on either of the shows you might consider getting them to me ahead of time. This way I can have them planned into the show and hopefully pull them off in a smooth manner. If you have a story or memory you would like to have me share when playing the song that would be great too, just include it with your request when you send it to me. Both of my parents have passed away and so these shows are a little tough to do. I miss them and wish they could have heard me doing MC. What can ya do though? On my less cynical days I think that perhaps they still can hear me doing the show. Like the Ol' Outlaw I am sure Dad would no doubt catch all my errors and since Mom was a school teacher she would no doubt correct her son's redneck grammar, but over all I hope they would think it was kind of cool that their son was on the radio. Compared to my siblings' accomplishments being a volunteer DJ may not be much, but it is still something I always wanted to do. If you don't eventually do what you feel like you were meant to do then life can start to seem rather pointless. I'm sure even people like Donald Trump have issues when it comes to living up to their parents' expectations. Can ya tell I'm a little tired as I transcribe the Wonderings running through my head this week? So anyway my point is, what was my point? Oh yeah, get your requests/dedications in earlier for the two specials in May/June!

As for this week's spotlight artist it will be Buck Owens, yet another artist who I play some on MC, but should really play more from. If you have a favorite song by Buck be sure and let me know! I was talking to Jerry a regular listener today and he told me to check out Daryl Worley new single "If Something Should Happen". It is good stuff and will no doubt bring a tear to your eye as I play it on this week's show. Also the Ol' Outlaw is sending me the CD "Ol' Waylon Sings Ol' Hank", so we will no doubt be playing a lot from it this week as well. I've not thought up a title for this yet, but I was thinking when I was talking to Jerry. I really need to enlist your help in helping me keep up with new songs I should be playing on MC. Even though I can have two computers doing different tasks at the same time I haven't figured out how to listen to multiple songs at the same time (I mean concentrate and remember what I just heard), so I get behind and need your help!

Have a good week, get out in this wonderful weather and walk your dog (real or imaginary) and of course tune in Monday as I act nature once again,
Woody

April 4, 2005

Spring is finally here I think, though I heard Cleveland had five inches of snow over the weekend, but that's not here right? I've been enjoying the nicer weather by spending more time outside with Bronco. He is still so full of energy. You would think he was 7 months old instead of 7 years old. I hope I still have that much energy when I am forty-nine. Don't you multiply 7 x's 7 to come up with how old a dog is in human years? Don't tell anyone, but I consider Bronco to be human. To hear me talking to him and the girls you would certainly think I think they are human. I had a dream last week that was kind of weird. I dreamed that Bronco and an unknown female Golden Retriever had three pups. I remember thinking in the dream that I would never be able to give them up. I don't know if the dream was a peek into the future or not. I do know I am getting the fever to have a second Golden. I belong to a couple of Golden Retriever Yahoo groups and receive so many cute pictures of Goldens. There seem to be a lot of people who have more than one. I've seen pictures with 3-4 adult Goldens together. Now wouldn't that be a hand full! Of course there is a second fever I have caught (or gotten worse) by being a member of these groups. Some of the members send pictures of their Goldens with their kids. I have saved on my desktop the cutest picture I have ever seen. It is a little curly blonde haired girl asleep with a Golden pup by her side. Oh my! Maybe it is just the fact that spring is here or Father's Day is just around the corner, but my my it makes me regret I have no kids in my life at this point, well human kids at least.

I really enjoyed doing this week's show. It was an honor to remember Mary Lutz by playing some of Ron & Mary's favorite songs. It may sound strange, but though I never met Mary I still feel a connection with her, like I know her somehow. I usually come away second-guessing myself when I have done a show where I have talked about someone's loved one who has passed away. I hope though that I am able to convey at least in a small way how much I know the person meant to the listener and how much it means to me to be able to share in the memories. As you recall we kicked off this week's Midnight Country with Alan Jackson's "Here In the Real World." There's probably no better song to describe the music we play on MC. The music is all dealing with the real world, the world where we love, we lose, we laugh, we cry. As Ron would say that is what makes Country Music so good, it is talking about stuff that is real.

I enjoyed all the calls this week on the show. As you recall there were a couple of first time callers. One of the callers said that he takes a nap every Sunday afternoon so he can listen to the show. That just blows me away to say the least. It was nice to have calls later in the show as well. Anna Rose and the Clark Outlaw both helped me stay awake in the early morning hours. I don't know if you realize, unless you have sat in a DJ's chair, how much the phone calls and e-mails really mean and how much I miss hearing from you when you don't call or e-mail. Calls and e-mails (well letters too) really are the only way I know if anyone is listening. Though after a major blunder on my part I sometimes hope no one IS listening, at least at that moment. After watching some of the cable news shows though I've been learning to relax a bit. They seem to put their foot in their mouths on a regular basis and they are nationwide!

This week's spotlight artist will be Loretta Lynn. Though we play Loretta quite a bit on MC we have never spotlighted her. I think Loretta was kind of like Gretchen Wilson is today, she dealt with subjects considered taboo and ones the other female artists were afraid to touch. If you have a favorite by Loretta you want to be sure I play just shoot me an e-mail.

If you know someone who has always told you MC was on too late, but you know for a fact they get up early, then be sure and tell them to catch the end of the show when they get up. They'd just well be listening to real Country as they have that morning smoke and cup of coffee! Oh yeah and tell them to call too!

Have a good week, if my face is dirty Monday it 'cause I've been hangin' out in the coal mines with you know who,
Woody

March 28, 2005

Well it seems to me, judging from the calls and e-mails, that our first ever Easter Special was a huge success. I would say it is very likely that we will make this an annual Special on Midnight Country. Even if you already called or e-mailed me I would still like to hear more feedback. Did you enjoy the mix of hymns and Country Gospel songs with some of the newer songs? Let me know what ya think! I am still blown away by the Larry Sparks' song he did with Tom T. Hall titled "I Want You To Meet My Friend." I wasn't familiar with Larry Sparks until one night I heard BG Brown playing a gospel song by him on the High and Lonesome Sound. I thought dang that would work on Midnight Country. So as they say the rest is history. You can bet you will be hearing that song again along with others by Larry Sparks on MC.

Bronco and I played soccer today, taking advantage of the nicer weather. Tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer, so I think I will take him for a walk on one of the local trails. There is something about spring that always lifts my spirits, which is good I suppose 'cause they could use lifting from time to time. I'm not a real outdoors type for the most part, but I do enjoy getting out and enjoying nice weather. I have a friend who has asked me to go fishing with him sometime. I told him I wouldn't mind sitting in the boat and visiting, but I don't want to be bothered by a fish. I guess I don't have much patience when it comes to some of the finer things in life. I get irritated when I have to wait at Long John Slivers for my fish. I guess it should come as no surprise then that I prefer sitting at a computer to farming. I think I knew this early on, while my Dad and brother were praying it would stop raining so they could get in the fields I was praying it would keep raining so I could stay in and play radio. A real farmer wouldn't feel this way. As I have gotten older though I have come to realize that just as there is a need for farmers there also has to be someone playing the Country Music the farmers listen to. If everyone enjoyed doing the same thing it would be a boring world. Of course farming is much more high tech than it used to be. My brother Dean was/is always on the cutting edge with gadgets in his tractors. Computers that tell the planter how many seeds to drop, how much to spray and all kinds of other cool things. The most important gadget though, in my mind at least, is the radio. We started out with the AM only radios that were attached to the tractor fenders. This is when I listened to WMAQ out of Chicago while driving a tractor blasting "Luckenbach, Texas" by Waylon & Willie for the whole countryside to hear. Then when we got tractors with cabs they of course had AM/FM radios. My Dad and my brother Dean never quite saw the necessity of having cassette players as well. So do I have a point in all of this? Not really, which is I guess the point of Woody's Weekly Wondering, whatever is crossing my mind at the time. Well maybe there is a point to be made though. Life is too short not to do what you were meant to do even if other people don't understand. Had I not eventually pursued my dream of doing radio, even if it is just as a volunteer DJ, then I would never have meet via the airwaves most of you reading this. Perhaps Midnight Country isn't doing a life changing work such as curing cancer, diabetes, etc., but hopefully we are helping to make some of the burdens of life a little lighter by the music we play and the stories we tell on the show.

It was good to hear from Eleanor's daughter Judy this week. She shared Easter would have been her mom's 71st birthday. It is people like Eleanor who make me believe that MC has a real place in the lives of those who listen. Eleanor of course passed away on Thanksgiving 2003 after a long strggle with cancer. Happy Birthday Eleanor, I still miss your calls! I hoped you enjoyed hearing your favorite song. I bet they have a cool stereo system in Heaven.

This week's spotlight artist may come as a surprise. It will be Alan Jackson. I know he doesn't need our exposure, but perhaps we need to be reminded of how much great Traditional Country he has recorded.

Drop me a line to receive WWWs by e-mail: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com There are still a lot of regular MC listeners who aren't on the Family page yet. Hint, hint!

Have a good week, enjoy the beginnings of spring and don't worry we won't rock the jukebox on Monday,
Woody

March 21, 2005

Well we made it through this week's show feeling much better than the last, though there was a time or two where my voice was acting up a bit. It makes me appreciate the weeks when I feel fine all that much more. At least I didn't totally fall to pieces and I thought Patsy was sounding pretty dang good this week as the spotlight artist. So far the computers are cooperating this week, so maybe I will cancel my order for a gross of pencils and a case of paper. They are great when they are working but when they decide to act up well they can be a real pain.

I was sorry to hear about Forrest Rose's unexpected passing. Forrest was only 48, goodness gracious. I had never met Forrest, but I know all who knew him will certainly miss him. I need to venture into some of the musician circles in town and meet people like Forrest. Not being a musician though I guess their talent easily intimidates me. Ron Lutz of the Rooster Creek Boys said that Forrest had been the Rooster Creek Show numerous times. It sounds like he was a pretty neat guy and loved by all who knew him.

At the time I am writing this I am thinking that I will not spotlight an artist on this week's Easter Special, but I could change my mind between now and the show on Monday. I guess instead of a spotlight artist we will be having a spotlight theme instead. There are some artists who I will no doubt play a lot from this week such as Porter Wagoner, George Jones, Randy Travis, etc., but I think I would prefer to wait and spotlight them on a show when I can play both their Gospel and Country material. Anyway…we'll see, huh? I look forward to doing the Easter Special this week. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to do this before this year. I believe that Country Gospel is an important part of the Classic and Traditional Country Music we play on Midnight Country. From watching the news in the last few days I believe we could all use the hope found in the Easter message now more than ever. I know there have always been tough times and tragic events throughout the world, but now with all the forms of communication it seems we know about everything that is going on instantaneously. It is a shame we don't hear more about all the good stuff happening too.

Last week between the cold that was hanging on and my computer problems I found myself not listening to a whole lot of music. Sometimes when I am really stressed out about something going wrong with a computer I find I need silence to concentrate. Yet when the crisis passes and I start listening to more music again, music meaning Country 99.9% of the time, I think dang man this is good stuff. I always enjoy getting requests from you the Midnight Country Family. I think you can learn a lot about a person just from the songs they request. You see a side of people you might not normally see, from a request in memory of a parent who passed away years ago or in memory of a friend who has just passed. It all shows how sensitive and caring fans of real Country Music are. If the world could just tap into that a bit perhaps there would be less bloodshed in our homes, our schools and in our streets. Life is too short already without people just giving up in despair and taking the lives of those they love and then their own lives. As always keep those requests and dedications coming, as you do you will be doing your part in making the world a more sensitive, caring and loving place.

Speaking of requests, I have had a special request from a faithful listener to Midnight Country. He has a very close friend getting married this Sunday and he has requested I play something for his friend and his friend's bride. So at some point early in the show we are going to play something special just for them. As I told him, I am the one you decided to do the Easter Special so I can also decide to play something different on the special. Isn't Community Radio great!

The Midnight Country Family is growing, another first time caller this week, now let's get those pictures on the Midnight Country Family page on the web site! If you have any questions as to how you can be a part of this page don't hesitate to ask. As always send me an e-mail to receive WWW's as an e-mail: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com

Have a good week, enjoy this special time of the year and rest up for our Easter Special on Monday,
Woody

March 14, 2005

Well I think the last time I had as much trouble talking as I did this week was back when I did the Waylon Tribute in February. On a side note who ever designed Microsoft Word must not have been a Country Music fan because my spell checker on my new computer didn't recognize the name "Waylon", sad I tell ya. Anyway when I did the Waylon Tribute and knew I was going to have trouble talking, I hesitated to postpone it and play a prerecorded show. I knew you were expecting the Waylon Tribute and so I hate to change things at the last minute. Now as to this past week, I actually don't have a prerecorded 5 ½ hour show ready to play in case of an emergency, besides I really don't like to do that unless it is an absolute emergency. As I recall in the 4 ½ years I have done the show I have only missed or played a prerecorded show three times. One time I was really, really sick and so I replayed an old show and lay on the couch at the station. Another time a gal ran a red light and hit me as I was going to the station to do the show. I wasn't seriously hurt, but it did mess with my neck and so I thought it might be wise to go to the ER and get it checked out. Stan, a programmer at the time, came in and did the show. Then the only time I actually played a prerecorded show was in January of last year when my step mom Virginia passed away. I wanted to do a Tribute to her, but just wasn't up to it on the Monday after her funeral on Saturday. So what is my point in all of this? I was talking to someone prior to this past week's show and I said "I should probably have someone as backup for when I am sick." She said "But you don't trust anyone else to do your show, right?" I said, "Yeah, you're probably right." The bottom line is I want you to know what to expect when you tune into Midnight Country on a Monday morning. I want the music to be predictable even if my voice isn't. I guess I would prefer to play a prerecorded show over asking someone to cover for me, but the downside of a prerecorded show is that I can't very well play requests. So now you're thinking "Dang is he so conceited as to think no one else can do the show?" Well that isn't true, I know some people who could do the kind of show I try to do much, much better than I do it, but expecting them to come in from Midnight to 5:30 AM on such a short notice is too much to ask. I do admit though that I think there are a limited number of people who would have the taste in Country that you the listeners have come to expect on Midnight Country. I'd rather be predictable and have people not like the show, than to try and cater to everyone's taste in music. Somebody has to keep real Country on the radio.

Boy it is a big week for birthdays in my life. Today, Monday is my ex's Grandma's birthday, Grandma South is the big 5-8, oops I mean 8-5! My ex's oldest daughter LeQuita is turning 19 today. Happy Birthday you two! Then get this, my Mom's mom, Grandma Diehl would have been 117 years old tomorrow the 15th. She passed away back in 1966 when I was only three. I sometimes don't know if I really remember her or if the memories are just from pictures I have seen. The youngest person and yes I said "person" having a birthday this week is King B aka Bronco. My Golden Retriever will be the big 7 on Wednesday. I guess in doggie years he may actually be older than his Dad. Happy Birthday Bronco, thanks for being such a good and faithful friend!

Don't forget coming up on the 28th it will be the first ever Midnight Country Easter Special. Tell everyone you know about this special show. It will be all Country Gospel for the entire show! I've not heard otherwise, so I assume we will still be going until 5:30 then. This week's spotlight artist will be the Patsy Cline. We've never spotlight Patsy on the show even though we do play her a lot. It was 42 years ago on the 5th of March that she was killed in a plane crash. She'd still only be 72 if she were still alive, dang what a loss. If you have a Patsy request be sure and let me know ahead of time or early in the show.

Receive WWW's by e-mail, just send me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject to: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com Don't forget you need to be a part of the Midnight Country Family page

Have a good week, hopefully my cold will be gone by Monday and I won't fall to pieces,
Woody

March 7, 2005

Well "Oh Lonesome Me" wasn't too lonesome this week. There was a steady flow of calls and e-mails throughout the show, which made the extra time seem to fly right on by. I hope you enjoyed the extra Don Gibson. I think this spotlight artist thing is working out pretty well. I appreciate the suggestions so far for artists to spotlight on the show, keep 'um coming!

I thought spring was just about here, but it has turned off cool again. I will be glad when it warms up for good. I must be getting old because I find myself preferring the heat of summer to the cold of winter. Of course last summer wasn't your every year summer though. I felt bad that Bronco and I didn't do much on Sunday when it was so nice. Even though I was trying to get the show ready, I doubt that he sees that as a good excuse. I tried to make up for that today by taking him on a couple of errand runs with me. He loves to ride in the pickup. I sometimes wonder when dogs were created. My thought is it may have been after the original six days of creation. Perhaps God saw how hard of a time Adam was having keeping Eve happy and decided Adam needed someone who would love him unconditionally. Now I know that ain't true, but it did make for a good story and will probably ruffle a few feathers. So many times Bronco looks so sad and disappointed when I don't play with him, but when he goes for a ride in the pickup it seems that all is forgiven and forgotten. If we humans (both males and females) would do the same there would be a whole lot more peace in the world. Yet there would be a lot less stuff for Country songwriters to write about and thus fewer songs for me to choose from to play on the show.

When I get home from doing the show it is hard to immediately wind down and get to sleep. I'm still a little high from all the neat conversations I've had with listeners and I still have a bit of a Diet Mountain Dew buzz going. At 5:30 AM a lot of the morning news shows are starting up, but dang the news is so depressing, even worse than the sad Country songs I've just played on the show. Being the professional channel surfer I am, I often find myself stopping for a bit to watch the faith healers who have their shows on at that time of the morning. I find it interesting that the same channels that carry such raunchy music videos during the day are the same ones who carry these guys in the middle of the night. Perhaps they are trying to make up for what they do during the day. Anyway now that I am getting home a little later than usual this week I ran across some guy I had never seen before. He seemed to have a bit of a different twist. He was wanting people to call to get a free prophecy. I thought about calling him to see what he had to say about my life since I have a lot of questions about my future. There are some many things I would like to know, such as will Midnight Country continue all night, will Midnight Country ever get an evening slot so more people will be able to listen to the show, will I ever be in love again and be able to play love songs without being so sad, will I ever have a second Golden Retriever, will I ever do an error free show? I could go on and on with things I wonder about and would like the answers to. Somehow I doubt that this guy's prophecy was really free, there had to be some strings of some sort attached. I know I am cynical, but as Ricky Van Shelton's song says "Life Turned Her That Way." There is some much about the world's religions, including my own faith Christianity, that I don't understand, but I find the words of songs can cut through all the hype of what people say. I find a lot of comfort and some peace of mind in the Country Gospel songs I play on Midnight Country. I hope they do the same for you. I am looking forward to the Easter Special on the 28th. Be sure and tell people you know who like both Country and Gospel music. They should really enjoy the show.

Thanks to June's suggestion Marty Robbins will be this week's spotlight artist. I've also had a suggestion that I spotlight Cowboy Copas, but I need to run down some more of his music because I spotlight him, but it WILL happen thanks to Kevin's suggestion. I've run out of space, you know my routine about getting WWWs by e-mail and my wanting everyone to be on the Family page.

Have a good week and hopefully a man with a big iron on his hip won't hang me before this week's show,
Woody

February 28, 2005

Well we made it through the night with Sammi Smith and the help of several listeners who called. I wasn't sure how it would go since prior to last week it had been a while since we have gone all night with Midnight Country. Sometimes I do feel a little cramped with only having three hours to try and squeeze in all the music I want to play. As I am writing this I still don't know what will happen with the 3:00-5:30 AM slot, but as soon as I know I will let you know. I am not as tired as I thought I might be, but I think I may have a bit of a buzz going due the Diet Mountain Dew I am drinking. J I just had to share that since while I am writing this I am listening to the recording of the Rooster Creek Show from this past Saturday and they just played "Mountain Dew." It was good to hear from Ron early this morning just after 5:00 AM. Of course Ron is the host of the Rooster Creek Show every Saturday on KFAL 900 AM in Fulton at 11:25 AM. If you like Midnight Country and you've not checked out the Rooster Creek Show you really should now. So between Ron and the Ol' Clark Outlaw I made it all night just fine. Earlier in the show I had a first time caller and a first e-mail from a long time listener. It always makes my night to hear from new listeners or long time listeners who call or e-mail me for the first time.

As I write this both Mear and Goldie are both sleeping in their respective boxes. Now I could have gone to the pet store and spent a bunch of money on fancy cat beds, but I bet they would not have enjoyed them any more than they do these plain old towel lined boxes. It seems my cats are not too hard to please. I was thinking about this last week when I was buying groceries, how that we humans need so much variety in what we eat, but Mear and Goldie seem content with their treats and regular food. It is funny when Mear and Goldie run out of their plain old cat food they will knock their bowl onto the floor so I will see it, at least I assume that is their reasoning. They have, however, both gotten into the habit of wanting to check out what I am eating, but they seem rather picky about human food and usually just prefer to get their treats after I am done. Now Bronco…that's another story.

Speaking of being content with keeping things pretty simple…I sometimes worry that Midnight Country is too simple. We don't have a bunch of highly produced stuff we play between songs like the commercial Country stations do. Yet the older I get the less I am impressed by a bunch of fancy bells and whistles. I would like to have some cool things to play someday and someday I may get around to producing them, but in the meantime I think I'll keep it just above the grass as my buddy Ron would say, nice and simple.

As you know if you listen to Midnight Country on a regular basis I don't really get into anything controversial. There are a lot of worthy causes and issues I could talk about on the show and I know that there is a time and a place for such, but I just don't do it on Midnight Country. I did find myself getting off on bit of a tangent this week though when I talked about Big and Rich's comment "If we say it's Country, then it's Country." Well you and I both know that is a bunch of bologna. Yet in spite of that I do think that there is a place for most music being recorded, just don't try and tell me it is something that it isn't. Call it Country Rock or Pop, or whatever, but don't call it plain old "Country" without some sort of adjective.

Don Gibson will be this week's spotlight artist. A faithful listener suggested Don and yes we are open to your suggestions and your suggestions are often implemented on the show. So don't be shy now, let me know what you think about Midnight Country and ways you think Midnight Country could be even better. Now if your suggestion is to start playing more of this Pop stuff they are trying to pass off as Country, well try and think a little harder, cause ya know that ain't happening.

Wanna get this by e-mail? Then send me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject to: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com Check out the two new members on the Family page and get your pixs and info to me so you can be a part of the on-line Midnight Country Family!

Have a good week and be sure and hang with Don Gibson and Oh Lonesome Me on Monday,
Woody

February 21, 2005

I was listening to Rootin' Tootin' Radio on Sunday and I thought the Radio Ranger sounded different. I heard him say someone had passed away, but I missed the name. I later heard him say it was Jerome Wheeler. I know now why the Ranger didn't sound like himself. The Mid Missouri area has certainly lost a great singer/songwriter who influenced so many musicians over the years. I would like to send my heartfelt sympathy to Jerome's huge circle of friends. My thoughts and prayers will be with you. Carry on with each of your musical dreams that Jerome has helped to inspire. There would be no better way I can think of to honor him.

It was nice to have my sister Colene back on the show. I think she enjoyed herself. I remember sitting in with my cousin Marvin McClanahan who is a DJ at a Country station in Kirksville before I started volunteering at KOPN. It was still just a dream then and I was in awe of someone doing what I just knew I would enjoy doing. I hope Colene will be able to return soon, perhaps for the Easter Special. I doubt that my sister Gelene will have that Monday off too, but I bet it will work out for them to both be on together again sometime. Maybe I can talk them into singing on the show. I remember them and Mom singing in the car when I was a boy. I bet it will be harder to talk them into singing on the show though, huh?!

I always enjoy listening to Charley Pride. I hope you enjoyed Charley as this week's spotlight artist. I am thinking that next year I would defiantly like to do an entire show in honor of Black History Month. I, as you heard, ran across some artists who I was not familiar with as I prepared for this week's show. I look forward to hearing more from them. Artists such as O.B. McClinton, Stoney Edwards should be a regular part of Midnight Country and not just during a special show. Good stuff I tell ya. I think that even if another Country record was never recorded there would be enough Country Music that most of us have never heard before to keep shows like Midnight Country interesting indefinitely. I enjoyed Joey Pogue's songs "This Old Guitar" and "Jessie." The song Jessie has been running through my mind all week. I look forward to playing more from Joey this week.

Well I don't know about you, but I have been running about 2 ½ hours behind all day. If you were still listening to the show at about 2:40 AM you know that we continued with Midnight Country until 5:30 AM. It caught me off guard and so I don't think the extended portion of Midnight Country was as good as it should have been, but if you take out the human factor all you have left is an impersonal jukebox. I hated to receive the news that due to health reasons Sheryl will no longer be able to continue doing Cool Creations. As I said on the show I don't know yet what will replace her show, but I do know I will defiantly miss, as I am sure you will too, Sheryl coming in at 3:00 AM. She always had a smile on her face and always did a great job of segueing out of Midnight Country into Cool Creations. Sheryl can still be heard though on Monday night from 11:00 PM-2:00 AM. Be sure and check it out and let her know you will miss her following Midnight Country. I don't know how soon they will have a replacement show in place. It could be I will do another extended edition of Midnight Country this week. If I do, don't be shy and hold off on calling in. I've already heard from one listener who heard the very last song just before 5:30 AM. He thought I didn't sound as enthused after 3:00 as I should have, but considering I had no calls, including none from him…well ya get the hint now ya ol' Outlaw, you!

As you heard, I already gave away the spotlight artist for this week's show. It will, of course, be Sammi Smith. Dang it I get tired of hearing that about another Country Legend who I play on the show every week has passed on. What can ya do?

Be sure and sign up to receive an e-mail version of WWWs. You can do so by sending me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject to: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com I am anxiously waiting to add new members to the Midnight Country Family page, so get those cameras clicking and those pencils writing!

Have a good week, stay away from the flu bug & help Sammi and me make it through the night on Monday,
Woody

February 14, 2005

Boy am I glad to have this year's Waylon Tribute behind me. I am almost afraid to listen to the recording. I know the music will be great, but me…well that is another story. I don't know why it is but it seems the time I am most likely to get sick is just before an important show. I had it happen at least once with a Johnny Cash Tribute. I never feel quite sick enough to justify playing a prerecorded show and delaying the special, but I know I am not 100% either. Could it be that enemies of real Country Music know when I am about to do a special and they come to my house and pipe germs into my ductwork? Now there's a conspiracy theory for ya! The calls throughout the show made it all worthwhile though. Don and Ron both called early in the show. Just knowing they were listening bumped up my "feel good" meter at least 50%. Then Anna Rose called; she of course is the lady who kept checking up on me the night I found out Waylon had died while doing the show. I also had a couple of first time callers this week. I'm not sure how I made it through the nights in the early days when a single call was all I might get. Thanks to everyone for being there for me.

Well it looks like the Easter Special is going to happen. I had a caller this week say that it took a lot of "guts" to do a Waylon Tribute. He, of course, was impressed and blown away by it from what I gathered. I guess I will just have to call upon those same "guts" to do the Easter Special. I'm still not sure how an entire show of Gospel Music will go over. There is a quote that I ran across in a book a few years ago. The book was "Feeling Good" by David Burns, M.D. The quote is "Sooner or later, you're going to have to decide to believe in yourself and to stop giving in to the disabling terror that someone might or might not agree with something you do." I would say this statement is probably responsible more than anything else for me finally picking up the phone and calling KOPN. I know I don't normally do this, but I think I will share with you a personal journal entry from 6/20/2000 9:54 am "You're never going to believe what I just did. I just called KOPN and asked about volunteering. I'm still in shock and afraid to put an (!) for fear of looking back and thinking how stupid it was that I was excited. I'm going to go in around noon today and fill out a volunteer application. I told the guy, John that the board stuff didn't scare me, but it was the on-air stuff that did. He said that he had felt the same way x number of years ago, but that his desire to be in radio was greater than his fear of being on the air. Talk about the greatest risk taking of my life to this point, this may be it!" So I think doing an entire show of Country Gospel will be a piece of cake compared to the risks I've already taken. It will just be further proof that Midnight Country is NOT your everyday Country show!

I am really looking forward to this week's spotlight artist. As you may know this is black history month. We've not really done anything before on Midnight Country in recognition of this important event. This week though I am going to spotlight the music of none other than Charley Pride. He has a couple of songs that almost always bring tears to my eyes. You'll have to listen to find out what they are. If you have any Charley Pride tunes you want to make sure I include in 8-10 songs we play then just shoot me an e-mail or call early in the show.

Congratulations to Ray Charles for the 8 Grammy's. The legend lives on that is for sure. I'm not sure how soon I will spotlight Ray again since we did a mini Tribute when he died, but it should be sooner than later I know. Also congratulations to Loretta Lynn on her Best Country Album Grammy, you go girl!

You can receive and an e-mail version of WWWs by sending me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject to: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com Now you know you want to be a part of the on-line Midnight Country Family so remember to get me your info and I will get you on the Family page!

Have a good week, stay healthy & don't catch whatever it is I've got,
Woody

February 7, 2005

I hope everyone enjoyed Tom T. Hall the spotlight artist this past week. I suppose this week's spotlight artist goes without saying. Time sure seems to fly the older you get. It is hard to believe Waylon has already been gone for three years. As you know I named Bronco my Golden Retriever after my favorite football team. I've wondered sometimes what I will name the next male Golden I hope to have someday. I sometimes think Waylon would be a cool name and like the name Bronco, Waylon would reflect something that is important to me, that being Country Music and one of the artists who I grew up listening to. Okay so I'm a little strange, but wouldn't it stand to reason that a show, that is not your everyday Country show, would have a host that is not your everyday host? I had another caller this week say she liked hearing about my family on the show (meaning, I think, Bronco, Mear and Goldie).

I mentioned on the show that I would like to have some feedback on a couple of things. The first thing is my idea to do a Country Gospel Special the Monday after Easter. The feedback so far is positive. I would like to hear from other members of the MC Family though before deciding to go ahead with it. I can't think of a more appropriate time of the year to do a special like this. The second thing is I would like to have suggestions of artists you would like spotlighted on the show from week to week. There are two requirements they would need to meet. First it needs to be someone who fits the category of a Classic or Traditional Country artist and second it needs to be someone who I have in my collection. I figure I have enough music that fits both requirements to not run out of spotlight artists for a long long time. I would just like to move one of your favorites closer to the top of the list.

Last week I talked about the first of two ways you can support the show without spending a dime. This week I want to share the second way. As you know KOPN is a nonprofit, noncommercial community radio station. About half of the money it takes to keep KOPN on the air comes from you the listeners and the other half from grants, etc. Something you will notice that is missing on KOPN are advertisements. Being a noncommercial station we do not run advertisements at all. We do, however, have underwriting from local businesses. KOPN has made the commitment to not run underwriting from national businesses on our local programming and even then no more than two spots an hour. Of course most of the local underwriting is run on shows closer to the daylight hours than Midnight County happens to be. Here's how you can help, is there a business, which you frequent on a regular basis? If so, perhaps you could share with the owners how much you enjoy Midnight Country. You could then suggest that they might like to support your favorite show by purchasing underwriting. It would be a way they could give their business exposure, support a great Country show and keep you their customer very happy. Underwriting spots are extremely inexpensive, particularly at the time Midnight Country is on. If you run across a business like this who is interested in underwriting Midnight Country just let me know and I will have Julie Baka the KOPN Development Director contact them. Julie can explain to them the difference between advertisements and underwriting. I'm running out of space, help!

Want to receive and an e-mail version of WWWs? Just send me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject to: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com Remember to get me your info so you can be on the Midnight Country Family page! Don't forget the two things I need feedback on. Also if you have a favorite Waylon Jennings' song you want to make sure is planned into this week's Tribute then shoot me an e-mail!

Have a good week, keep dry/warm & get ready for the original outlaw himself on Monday good ol' Waylon,
Woody

January 31, 2005

The theme for the KOPN winter membership drive was "We Couldn't Do It Without You". Thanks to you, the Midnight Country family, we will be able to continue doing what we do every week on Midnight Country. I want to say a great BIG Thank You to Cindy, Grandma South, Carl, the Clark Outlaw aka Bobby Burns, Steve and Kara for doing your part to keep Classic and Traditional Country on the air by supporting Midnight Country during the membership drive! Thanks to each of you for helping us to reach our show goal of $200. It is nice to know that I am not the only one with great taste in music. I look forward to dedicating a part of future shows to each of you as our way of saying thank you for what you have done.

I know that money is often tight and it is not always possible for everyone who believes in Midnight Country to call and support the show during the membership drive. There are two ways though that everyone can support the show that won't cost a single penny. Well perhaps a penny or two, but not much more than that. I believe the best advertisement for any enterprise or product is a satisfied customer. If you have taken the time out of your busy life to read WWWs you no doubt believe in what we are trying to do on Midnight Country. So I would like to hire each of you as official Midnight Country representatives. Here again there will be few (actually no) pennies involved, but the reward of knowing you have turned someone else onto a Country show you yourself love to listen to will, I hope, be payment enough. Personally I was never very comfortable doing cold call selling, whether it was inviting people to church by going door to door when I was younger or calling on businesses when I sold printing for a while in Kansas City. As you can no doubt tell from listening to the show I am a pretty laid back kind of guy. I've never been one who likes to pressure people into doing something they don't enjoy doing. So I am not asking you to do something I myself am uncomfortable doing. All I ask is that you keep your eyes and ears open to opportunities to spread the word about Midnight Country. I even have Midnight Country business cards and flyers I will be more than happy to mail to you. So then when you are talking to your Aunt Susie or someone you just met and you get the feeling they like real Country Music you will be able to hand them a card or a flyer which will tell them everything they need to know about the show. The Clark Outlaw has already been doing this for some time now. Soon I will have .pdf files of the flyers on the Support page here on the web site. Next week I'll share the second way you can support the show without spending a dime.

I really enjoyed the Ernest Tubb music we played on this week's show. I am glad I have decided to officially spotlight a different artist every week. ET is a good example of someone who I do not play enough of on Midnight Country. I have so many artists to pick from and so some times I find myself just scratching the surface and only playing an artists' top 3-4 songs and not really giving their music the attention it deserves. Another artist who I think falls in this category is Tom T. Hall. After listening to the Rooster Creek Boy's Memorial show as they remembered Sparko I got to wondering when the last time was that I played some of Tom's classic's like "The Year That Clayton Delaney Died." So you've got it, Tom T. Hall will be this week's spotlight artist.

Don't forget the Midnight Country e-mail list. You can receive an e-mail version of WWWs. Just send me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject to: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com Don't be shy about being on the Family page. Any questions, just ask! Thanks again to everyone who called and supported the show during the membership drive. We really couldn't do it without you. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Have a good week, enjoy this weird weather & I'll be seein' ya all on the airwaves again on Monday,
Woody

January 24, 2005

Is Missouri weather strange or what? One day you're freezing to death, the next day you don't even need a jacket. I hope you feel that Midnight Country is a tad bit more predictable than Missouri weather. We do our best to make sure that the music we play every week is real Country Music. Not being a musician I am not usually focused on whether or not a song does or doesn't have a particular instrument, such as drums, a fiddle, steel guitar, etc. What I do listen for though is the overall sound and of course what the song is actually saying. The nice part about real Country Music is that nine times out ten you don't have to refer to the lyrics to figure out what they are saying. Real Country Music doesn't usually beat around the bush too much and usually it is not hard to figure out what writer was trying to convey in the song. I suppose if they were a little more vague perhaps real Country Music wouldn't have the reputation in some circles of being too sad and depressing. I know there are times on Midnight Country the songs I select are sadder than at other times. I suppose it just reflects what I am going through personally at the time. The cool thing about Midnight Country is that you as the listener have an important role in deciding what is played and often your input will set the mood for a particular part of the show. A good example was this week's show and the requests that came in by e-mail and phone. At least four members of the Midnight Country family have experienced a loss in the past week or so. Kevin's grandmother, June's cousin, Ron's buddy Sparko and Don's dad have all gone on to a better place. I want to thank these members of the Midnight Country family for allowing us to be there for them via the airwaves. As I've said in the past when dreaming of being a DJ I never really imagine how close I would come to feel to the listeners. It is an experience that makes all the work we put into finding and playing real Country Music worthwhile.

Mear says "Hi", she just jumped up onto my lap for a minute, then jumped onto my shoulder then onto the desk behind me. Goldie has a new favorite spot to sleep. I had an empty box I was going to throw out sitting on a chair in the living room and she scoped it out. So now I've moved it into the office, put a towel in it for her. Bronco's been sleeping in his chair more lately. I guess he's tired of the cold tile kitchen floor. He's a cutie lying there all curled up.

This week's show we will be smack dab in the middle of the "We Couldn't Do It Without You" Membership Drive. I hate to take advantage of this space to do this, but I really do hope you will consider supporting Midnight Country by becoming a member of KOPN. If you've joined in the past, perhaps it is time to renew your membership. We will have several ways of saying thanks, but I hope you will see that a $40 membership is a small price to pay to keep real Country Music on the airwaves. I know that you have choices, from satellite radio to shows on the web, but I also hope you see the value of a local, personalized show like Midnight Country.

This week's unofficial spotlight artist will be the Texas Troubadour himself, Ernest Tubb. I bet you thought I was going to forget to tell ya. I'm getting close to making this an official part of Midnight Country every week. I found myself getting confused while doing the show as to whether I had just called George Strait the spotlight artist without putting unofficial in front of it.

You know my weekly routine of reminding you about the Midnight Country Family page, so don't forget to check it out and become a part of it. Also you can receive Woody's Weekly Wondering by e-mail, just send a request to : MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com I hear Bronco whining, usually a sign he needs to go out or he wants to play fetch really, really bad.

Have a good week, enjoy the warmer weather & I'll be talkin' to ya Monday,
Woody

January 17, 2005

Is it cold or what? Dang! This weather reminds me of Joe Diffie's song "Is It Cold in Here?" As you recall it goes like this "Is it cold in here or is it just you?" Fortunately that song does not apply at my house when it comes to my pets. When I went to bed last night Mear was lying on the foot of my bed keeping it warm and this morning when I went into the office she was keeping my office chair warm. Aren't cats thoughtful? I wonder what I would do without them. I do think I need to play Joe's song on this week's show, but hopefully it will warm up a bit between now and then. I'll have to get it cleared with my program director first though since it IS an older Country song. Oh wait a second I am at Community radio station and I have no program director breathing down my neck telling me what I can and cannot play. Cool, way cool! Speaking of a Community radio station the "We Couldn't Do It Without You" Membership Drive is coming up on the January 31st Edition of Midnight Country. We will only be doing it during one show this time so if you're not a member of KOPN or your membership has run out then don't forget to call during that week's show to support Midnight Country!

I hope you enjoyed the extra Merle on this past week's show. There aren't a lot of artists who I can pull up their file on my computer and listen to indefinitely without getting tired of it, but the Hag is definitely one I can. You just can't top Merle Haggard I tell ya. As you recall we kicked off the show with "The Roots of My Raising". The following verse reminds me of Dad after Mom died. "I pulled into the driveway, Lord, it sure was good to be there and through the open door I could see that, Dad was asleep in his favorite chair. In his hand was a picture of Mom, and I remembered how close they were. So I just turned away, I didn't want to wake him, spoil his dreams of her." Dad had a lazy boy where he slept part of every night due to his hiatal hernia. It was there in that chair that I found he had passed away in September of '97. It is hard to believe that it has been over twenty years since Mom passed away, over seven since Dad died and now a year since my step mom Virginia has been gone. Leave it to a Country song to bring back memories.

So who will be this week's unofficial feature artist? G S is all I will say. I'm just kidding George Strait is who I have in mind. As I mentioned I just picked up George's "50 Number Ones" and then realized I already had all of the songs on other CD's. Oh well, what can ya do? I kind of like this unofficial artist spotlight thing we're doing, think we should make it "Official?"

Don't forget to sign up for the Midnight Country e-mail list. Just send me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject. The Midnight Country e-mail address is: MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com If you sign up you can receive an e-mail version of Woody's Weekly Wonderings.

If you're not on the Midnight Country Family page you need to be on there. Be sure and check it out. If you have any questions about how to be added don't hesitate to ask.

Have a good week, stay warm anyway ya can & I'll be talkin' to ya all again on Monday,
Woody

January 10, 2005

Another edition of Midnight Country is in the bag. This week's show was a lot of fun to do because there were several calls and requests. Your calls are what make the show in my book. If no one called there would be no way of knowing if anyone was actually listening. So it always makes my night when people call, the more the better. Your calls are proof that there are still a lot of you out there who appreciate Real Country Music.

Don't forget the Dale Watson concert was cancelled. I'm worried that some of the people I told about the concert after the Charlie Robinson concert at the Blue Note will not have heard it was cancelled. I'm sure a wasted trip from out of town will not leave a good taste in people's mouths for Midnight Country. What can ya do? It never entered my mind to tell the guy from the lake that took several fliers to call and confirm. You live and learn I guess. Several people that night were really excited about the concert…ok so this is the last time I am going to harp on this subject.

I hope you enjoyed the Zona Jones tracks we played this week from his CD "Harleys and Horses." The more I listen to the CD the more I like it. Some good stuff I tell ya.

As you can probably tell from listening to Midnight Country Merle Haggard is one of my favorite artists. So on this week's show I am going to play more Merle than normal. We are toying with the idea of having a "feature artist" each week. Until I decide that for sure I going to continue to unofficially spotlight some artists like we did with Zona Jones this past week and like we plan to do with Merle this week.

Don't forget to sign up for the Midnight Country e-mail list. Just send me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject. The Midnight Country e-mail address is:
MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com
If you sign up you will receive an e-mail version of Woody's Weekly Wonderings and last minute concert information, etc.

Be sure and check out the Midnight Country Family page. There are a lot of neat people in our Midnight Country Family and you will want to get to know them. More are being added so keep checking back! I would love to have all of the regular listeners on the Family page, so if you would like to be on there find out how on the bottom of the Family page.

Speaking of the Midnight Country Family, one of our regular listeners Don called and said he was heading home to Mississippi to be with his Dad who is not doing very good. So please keep Don and his family in your prayers this week.

Have a good week, stay dry & I'll be hangin' out with ya all again on Monday,
Woody

January 3, 2005

Well here goes nothing. I hope you enjoy this new feature on the web site. Find out more about what this is all about by reading below. I really enjoyed doing the Hank Sr. Tribute this past week. Fifty-two years later it is hard to find Country any better than Hank did. It made my night when about 2:30AM I got a call from a guy who said he had been listening to Midnight Country for 2-3 years, always looked forward to the show, but had never called until then. It makes ya wonder how many people are listening who never call. Don't be shy now!

I'm still disappointed that the Dale Watson concert fell through, but what can you do? Just hope that it happens someday soon I guess. There is a new artist, Zona Jones, whose song "Whiskey Kind of Way" I have played several times on Midnight Country. Sunday night I discovered we have his CD "Harleys and Horses" at the station. I've been listening to it this week and am looking forward to playing some cuts from it on this week's show. Good stuff, the title of the CD catches your attention and the song itself is pretty cool.

A new thing we are going to try is Midnight Country e-mail updates. The Dale Watson concert being cancelled made me think that perhaps we need a way of letting listeners know about stuff between shows. If you would like to be on this list just send me an e-mail with "E-mail List" in the subject. The Midnight Country e-mail address is:
MidnightCountry895@hotmail.com
I will NOT share your address with anyone else and I promise not to flood your Inbox with unnecessary clutter. What I have in mind at this point is to send out a weekly e-mail with "Woody's Weekly Wonderings" which should keep you up-to-date on the Midnight Country happenings. Then in a pinch and only in a pinch. I will let you know about last minute news you need to know about, like a concert being cancelled, etc.

Don't forget to check out the Midnight Country Family page. If you're a regular listener you need to be on this page! See the bottom of Family page to see how!

Have a good week & I'll be talking to ya on Monday,
Woody