“The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be.”
~ Leonard Cohen, Anthem
Mick Jeffries, making his outhouse debut, is a super fun, funny, smart, engaged dude who loves music, musicians, and artists. He has a radio show called Trivial Thursdays every week on UK’s student radio station WRFL. In the 1980s, the station hit the airwaves spearheaded by Kakie Urch (also making her debut), and I, as drummer for Radio Cafe/Stealin Horses, played a few fundraisers for their startup efforts. That will be 45 years in 2025 – good Lord! Five years later, give or take, Reinette Jones started at UK Libraries, and 23 years ago, she and I met when I started at the libraries. That’s a lot of living, ya’ll. Fast forward to when Mick invited me to be on his show. After much wrangling of topics to talk about (music, art, photography, karate), we settled on newspaper preservation: enter Reinette and Kakie. As you know, Reinette and I work together a great deal, especially with our historic newspapers, and Kakie, who, in addition to being a seriously motivated college radio pioneer, is an associate professor of Journalism at UK’s College of Communication, teaching newspaper and radio journalism extensively. She and Reinette intimately understand the value and necessity of newspaper preservation to researchers and the historical record. As expected, we were the trifecta of newspaper knowledge, and as a bonus, we were fun and funny this morning. If you want to hear us (and see us) on the show, follow this link. Go to the one-hour and 23-minute mark, and you’ll catch us from the beginning. These three make me look good, and I am so incredibly honored to have been invited to talk about newspapers. To do so with friends and mentors Reinette and Kakie was icing on the cake. This year is starting off great, and I continue to be humbled by the embarrassment of riches I have in my circle of human beings.
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