Perhaps The Feed Store is not nearly as popular as Jon Stewart, Justin Bieber or Abe Vigoda. But it's still a whole lot of fun to slap together each and every week. I hunker down in front of my trusty computer and proceed to broadcast to the nation, to Fairfield and to the world at large. I am a lucky lucky monkey. Feel free to listen in and join the f-u-n. 

Los Straitjackets are the foremost purveyors of instrumental guitar rock played by men wearing mexican wrestling masks. Trust me, it works. And it has worked for the last 17 years over numerous albums, thousands of shows, multiple appearances on "The Conan O'Brien Show" and a lot of great times. Two years ago founding member Danny Amis was diagnosed with some serious bone cancer. Retirement seemed the only option. Well the guitar wizard is back and making live sporadic appearances with his band. They recently performed in Chicago along with Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys to thunderous applause from an astounded audience. I know it must be difficult for Danny to travel. But real rock and roll fans everywhere are pulling for his continued good health. And look for their new album "Jet Set" right now!!!

This economy is tough. Tough tough tough. Lack of green can kill a dream. Hell, lack of dough can kill a man. So I can understand the closing(I hope temporarily) of the Co-Ed. Money makes the world go around. And if the money ain't coming in, the doors have got to close. But because the Co-Ed is what it is(a movie house), it deals in dreams and magic and smoke and mirrors. We pretend it doesn't take cash to make it fly. And we are sad when reality gets in the way of the magic trick. My earliest personal memory of that place is 1972, seeing "Snoopy Come Home" with my mother. And we were the only people in the theatre. I felt like Elvis. I felt like my mom was really special. And I still feel that way. My very best wishes are with the Co-Ed. I hope that it can return...somehow. 

Week after week I hunker down behind the KRUU microphone (actually I hunker down behind my computer in my house near Chicago) and bang together another installment of "The Feed Store." Where else on the radio will you get stories about the guy who ran the Shell station in Richland? What other program will warn you about the ice that forms first on the bridges in the wintertime? Who's gonna play all those Faron Young records with a straight face??? No other place but "The Feed Store." We're talking about demolition derbies, Fairfield manufacturing at the turn of the last century and who was the cutest cheerleader at FHS in 1979(fact of the matter, they were all the cutest---what do I look like...a giant dummy???). And that is why you listen to KRUU.

   If you happen to like unbearable heat, this summer has been a real treat for you. As far as the rest of us are concerned, fall and winter can't come fast enough.

Of course, then we'll be griping about gutters full of leaves and sidewalks packed with ice and snow...and won't that be just fabulous.

I do not bear up well in these high temps. That is why I do not live in Arizona or Death Valley. Foo on all that. If anyone needs me I'll be hunkered down in my basement with a hassock fan and a frosty gin and tonic.

It was an historically successful trip to Fairfield for yours truly in June. The wife and I just had a ball and a half, truly we did. We shopped on the Square. I bought new crispy blue jeans(of course). We spent a great evening with my whole family. And we crossed paths with a fistful of my classmates from FHS class of '79. Thanks to everyone(including Mr. James Moore at KRUU) for making it a great couple of days in the Promised Land. 

I am just moments--or days--away from landing in Fairfield.

You'll see me sitting on a bench in the square, swimming at the country club, dining at the Izaak Walton League, buying blue jeans at TSC and Orscheln's and just generally making a nuisance of myself the weekend of June 22.

Happy days are here again. I shall once again stand in the city of Lee Gobble and Bob Rasmussen. I am one lucky little boy. 

Spring is here and the time is right for...pulling weeds in the yard and nailing that loose board on the back fence.

And it's time to make the very best of it. Appreciate the friends that you have and the stuff that you already own. Enjoy your job because working is good for a person. Do what you have to do and find the fun in the smallest of things.

I love love love the fact that I get to be a small part of KRUU and the great city of Fairfield(and the world). It makes me no extra money. There is the occasional pat on the back from friends and family. And that's really quite enough at the end of the day.

America, we ain't out of the woods yet. But we're trying. Keep your shoulder to the wheel and a song in your heart. And think good thoughts about a pussycat.

I dearly love Fairfield. I wasn't born there(curse my luck to have been hatched at the hospital in Washington) but I was really raised there. These days my trips back to the great city are few and far between. But I have one on my schedule. The wife and I will be crusing into FF June 21 for a long weekend. Look for me crawling around the city, notebook in hand, collecting stories for the radio show. If you're a fan of the show and we've never met, drop me a line and we'll find a way to get together when I visit. 

The radio is a magic box full of music and crickets and big explosions and stories just waiting to be told. And then I come on the air and pretty much ruin everything. I remember Fairfield in the seventies(that's when I lived there). Some of the memories are crystal clear. And others are as dim as the bottom of a peanut butter jar. But it's all grist for the mill that is The Feed Store. Every week I batten down the hatches and tell a story or two about my misspent childhood in the coolest town I ever knew. And that would be Fairfield.