Small world marches to different beat with right CD
JERRY AULDS

The business line at KULP rang Thursday, the voice on the other end asked, "Do you know the name of that Czech Wedding March song?" The question touched off a bizarre, merry-go-round, "It's a small world" adventure.

I've been in a wedding or two, but I'm a little hazy on wedding music protocols so I turned the caller over to the morning deejay "Ole Clinto" and went back to planning for the East Bernard girls softball broadcast and promptly forgot about wedding music stuff.

Ring-a-ding-ding comes again, and this time the fellow says his cousin had called earlier inquiring about wedding music. I stop him right there figuring this is one of those radio recording setup scams and I'm not about to be the day's flim-flammed sucker.

"Hold on there," the whiskey-voiced caller commanded, identifying himself as Lawrence something-or-the-other. He went on to explain that his cousin had talked to the deejay and got info on the wedding song, but "I'm in Baytown. Can you maybe contact someone and they could e-mail me a CD? I need it real bad," he moaned.

I almost commenced to give him the brush-off, when I experienced a "Eureka!" moment.

I did know someone. Margaret Armatta, the El Campo business lady who I featured in a recent column about blowing into a big wedding down in Corpus as copilot on a Harley motorcycle.

That's the wedding where Margaret's brother-in-law Squeaky Socha pranced through the entire Grand March in a wheelchair and Margaret told me that the El Campo branch of the wedding party latched onto a copy of a Czech band's CD, "So we could give everybody a taste of a real Czech wedding," Margaret told me.

Unfortunately, while the CD they acquired played fine in the car, it went kaput in the wedding band's equipment, but the rock-and-roll band improvised their version of the Grand March and as reported in my column, Squeaky two-wheeled his way to glorious applause.

The point was: Margaret probably still had the CD and Ole Lawrencesomething or-other could call her and …

"Me? A perfect stranger call her? She's going to think I'm some kind of nut," he said.

"I think you're a nut for calling me," I retorted.

But after getting his phone number, I relented and called the ever-gracious Mrs. Armatta.

"We gave that CD to the family - I have no idea where it is," she said.

But she did know Mike Konvicka. The Wharton Journal-Spectator sports and polka music editor (now ain't that a cool combination) had located an old cassette and burned the family a CD.

And here came another Eureka! moment. Mike was covering the East Bernard playoff game for the Spectator and the East Bernard Express that night and the KULP broadcast team of Bob Nason and myself were to ride with him.

So Ole Lawrence-something-or-theother will soon be the proud owner of a Grand March CD and you know, I think whoever his cousin is here is some relation to some guy who was on one of those reality TV shows and …

And it is a small, eventful and wonderfully connected world.