My cousin Micki

Alan and I are heading down to Florida in a few weeks for an extended stay down there. One of the people I want to visit is my cousin Micki. Micki Evans. She was a TV/Radio star in the 50s and 60s, both in South Jersey, and then in Orlando, FL. That's a picture of her back then. She looks much the same, now, except, she's 82, and her hair is no longer black. She still sings.

You can read about her career at http://www.hillbilly-music.com/artists/story/index.php?id=12557.

Micki had a radio program to which I listened religiously each Saturday morning. She basically sang songs (Dolly Partin-like) and talked about who wrote them. She closed her show with "Yodeling Cowgirl." Boy could Micki yodel. I loved to listen to her yodel. Nobody I have ever heard since comes even close to her yodeling. Whenever we had family get togethers, I would ask her to yodel unaccompanied. And she would do what this little girl cousin of hers asked.

She always closed her radio and TV program with a hymn. And each week, all the songs she sang were "by request from." Well, two things I have to add here -- first, I loved to hear her sing, second, I loved to hear her mention my name on the radio. So, each week I would try to get her to sing one of my favorite songs.

I remember requesting her to sing Gene Autry's "Back in the Saddle Again." If you watched "Sleepless in Seattle" you would be familiar with that song. And I always requested that she sing "Peace in the Valley" at the end of her program. Her rendition of that song was unlike any other recorded by that time and since, and I loved to hear her sing it.

Micki is alive and well and living in Florida. We spent a bit of time with her a couple of years ago, and she has a knack of telling us stories of growing up in Philly during the depression, and telling us tales of her life on the "road."

I can't wait to visit her again on our trip to Florida this year. God willing we'll be able to spend more time together than we did last time. She's got the aches and pains the body enjoys as it ages, but she still has vim and vigor that amazes me. She loves the Lord and that's the most important thing in her life.

Sorry, no recent pictures of her. Last time I saw her, I forgot my camera. How stupid was that? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sound like my mom, don't I?