I have “Western Swing & Other Things” to thank for this 1948 song. The show is a Saturday morning staple in rural Kansas, an anachronism of radio that shouldn’t exist anymore. Allen Bailey (Dodge City’s Marshall Allen Bailey, if you want to get technical) and Cowgirl Janey play the best cowboy music for three solid hours, along with a touch of Big Band and classic crooners. It’s probably not for everyone, but if I can convince a girl in Scotland to listen to it, then isn’t that endorsement enough?

This particular song by Carson Robison reminds me of Ken Burns’ Dust Bowl series, of David Carradine as Woody Guthrie in “Bound for Glory“, of every Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton miracle, of wind so strong you can only inch forward. Robison is Kansas through and through, resigned pessimism and all.

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This is probably the equivalent of showing how hot dogs are made to most of you, but here’s a portion of the reporting/editing staff at the Journal Star on election night. It’s a High Holy Day of newspapers, a rare instance of free dinner (pizza) and daysiders struggling to make it to midnight.

But 180 degrees isn’t enough to cover everyone. The hard-working copy deskers are just out of frame, as is the sports department.

And though we can easily moan about election nights of yore, where not a desk was empty and the noise was twice as loud, it remains a remarkable machine unequaled by our TV brethren.

Kathryn Marie Wiens was born at 11:28 a.m. on April 8, 2013. She’s a lovely girl by all counts – 7 lbs., 12 oz. – and both mom and baby are doing great.

They will call her Kate.

That’s a good thing, too, since I had actually picked out The Who’s “It’s a Boy” on YouTube. A song from a crummy musical concept album is no way to begin your life.

Several new titles come bundled with this cute baby girl. Mom. Dad. Grandpa. Grandma. And uncle. I’ll be sharing that last honor with my brother Nick.

Finally, with my newsroom-addled mind on autopilot, I mistakenly scooped the competition (the new parents) by posting an early write-thru of this congratulations. You may have seen it disappear from this blog, Facebook and Twitter just before noon – but it was just a tardy attempt to swallow my excitement and let the subjects of this story make an announcement that comes by so rarely in a lifetime.