And Speaking of Radio...

...I had a coincidence of the most fortuitous kind today.

I found myself coming home today from a TheCompanyIWorkFor meeting that was so boring, so useless, so infuriating, well, it's hard to explain. I'd gone to bed last night still wondering how I could get out of it (oversleeping was the only valid excuse I could come up with), but decided to go, only because of the first session of the day, as it was an explanation of a major change in office procedure coming up. The second part of the meeting, a sales borextravaganza, I planned to duck out of when the meeting took a break.

So I got there bright and early and on time. Only to find that those TheCompanyIWorkFor fuckers changed the order! The office procedure meeting, they stuck at the fucking end of the day, forcing me to stay the entire rotten day. Geez, I hate it when someone heads me off at the pass.

And I got in my car and headed home. And I got to thinking. "Hey, it's Thursday, it's 3pm. Could I possibly be so lucky?" And I turned on my old favorite radio station WMMT, and yes, there they were, just a-waitin' for me. Catfish John and Catfish Jean.

Now, if you don't know about The Catfishes, may I refer you back to my blog of July 18, 2002. I have to say this may be my favorite blog I've ever written, and I can't believe it's actually been two years since I wrote it. It was about the first time I heard The Catfishes, and the afternoon of utter bliss I had listening to them.

On that day, Catfishes John and Jean were playing gospel music, reading out commercials, doing dedications, and basically loving people. Loving lots of people. They especially loved Aunt Sally, whose son (they couldn't remember his name) had been to visit her but he left and now Aunt Sally was home alone. And they loved her.

Today, it was heavy on music - well, of a fashion - and love. They played a song for a man (whose name I don't remember) who was about to lose his house to a state highway. I was half-expecting that country classic "There's An Interstate Running Through My Outhouse," but then I realized that's not a Catfishes kind of song (and I was right).

They also played a song called "Drinking and Driving," which was something else, let me tell you. Something about drinking and driving and you'll be remembered by a wooden cross. It was a cautionary tale, all right. Made me put my bottle right back in the glove compartment. (No, I wasn't drinking. Geez.)

After that Catfish John asked us to pray for someone for them. A little child who'd been in a car accident. "It" was in the hospital, and "it" wasn't doing too good and had an injury to "its" head and "it" really needed us to pray for "it." He couldn't remember "its" name, though (or sex, apparently). But he said The Lord remembered "its" name, and so if we prayed, the prayers would go to the right place. And you know, I tend to believe him on that one.

They also played a true tear-jerker called "Mama, Don't Cry." It was about a boy whose daddy died when he was just little, and Mama cried, so the boy and his brother would tell her, "Mama, don't cry, things'll be better in the by and by." Then the brother got real sick, but he kept right on working, telling Mama not to cry, cause things would be better in the by and by. And then Brother went and died on them too, and the singer tells Mama once more not to cry, things would be better in the by and by. I have a feeling by this time Mama was thinking, "You friggin' liar!" Or maybe not.

And then, after many missed cues and wrong tracks lined up, and first lines of them played before being yanked back off the air and other songs started, it happened. Catfish John and Catfish Jean played a song - and dedicated it to Aunt Sally! They didn't say anything about her son, so he apparently hadn't been in to visit her and left, but she got a song dedicated right to her.

Now, I don't know. They may dedicate a song to her every single week. But it blew my mind that one month shy of two years after first hearing about poor Aunt Sally, whose son came to visit her but then he went back home, I should hear her sweet name again.

The Catfishes didn't say today that they loved her, either. But I'm sure they do. I know I do.