Page 133 - Been There… Done That!

Been There... Done That!
by my unhappy wife and it was not pretty. We got our ride to the Austin Opry House and believe it or not, we were on time, but I was still struggling. I ran into Poodie Locke, Willie’s stage manager for years and years, who greeted me with, “hard to keep up with him, isn’t it?” I told Poodie I bet Willie’s not really hitting on all eights, his response was, “Shit, Gary, he was on the golf course at 7:30.” Oh, my God, how can he do that? I asked Willie when he came in how we were going to explain the Cats Meow being on the TV show even though they didn’t win. He said we can do it, not to worry, but start thinking and we finally came up with the fact of how great they were, even though they didn’t make it, to show the caliber of the talent we encountered traveling to 10 major cities. Willie made me a family member and I still have that ID to this day, plus I have a picture with Rip Torn, Jeff Bridges and Mickey Jones, who has since passed away in February 2018.
Looking forward to the next year and trying to close out the talent contest with a TV show from Austin, everything was great, but then we received the news that Wrangler had just sold to Vanity Fair and all deals were canceled. Back to the security blanket of the Missouri State Fair, but there went the blanket. Marion Lucas was leaving to become director of the Iowa State Fair. It was a little scary wondering who was going to be his replacement. I soon found out it was a hayseed from a county fair that had more oil in his hair than I had in my Lincoln. Oh well, I tried to get along, but having broken all records for attendance, I took it personally when the hayseed started telling me who to book and who not to book. To top it off he was having an affair with a publicity woman who probably knew
131