One thing (among many) that I love in Kansas is KPR—Kansas Public Radio. It goes all day long with talk and news, and it’s terrific. Out here in Osage County, the KPR signal is not dependable; it’s strong in one area, weaker in another (and weak anywhere near power lines). But somehow this intermittent, undependable quality renders the programming all the more alluring because often I must strain to listen through the crackling interference, afraid I'll miss some key word, the critical end of a sentence—or a Walt Bodine bon mot.
And yes, one of my favorite shows on KPR is The Walt Bodine Show. Now as a newcomer to Kansas and a novice but now devoted listener to the show, it is clear even to this newbie that Walt must be a legend. I can tell that from the novel, fascinating way the show is set up. The surface organizational principle of The Walt Bodine Show is a set topic for each day of the week (cooking and restaurants, technology, movies, etc.), with experts on hand to give information and then field callers’ questions. But the implicit, the meta-organizing concept is the sweet and hilarious interplay—and disconnect—between the elderly, legendary Walt and the rest of the program. Walt is the benign and distracted patron saint of the show, presiding like a revered potentate, making off-the-wall comments, and often losing track of the conversation. Walt has a sidekick who functions as shadow host—a smart young woman whose name I cannot remember, and she keeps things on track. Everyone loves Walt, though, and it is HIS show, no doubt about it.
The other day, I actually heard Walt say, in response to an expert on a tickler notification system for blogs (I think that’s what it was called—I’m a little short on the attention span spectrum myself) that it was “kicky.” There was a loooong silence ... “kicky”??? (Ummmmm, in what era, in what millennium did people use the word “kicky”? The ’40s? The ’50s? The ’60s?) And after that long, strange radio silence, the guests just picked up and went on, pretending politely that that arcane and strangely out-of-context word “kicky” had never been spoken. With a wit worthy of Yogi Berra (or Yoda), Walt will actually utter statements like, “Well, we had better take a break now, because if we don’t go, we can’t come back.”
