It’ll Be Emotional Tuesday Morning

"I Drive Your Truck" by Lee Brice was the CMA Song of the Year this year.  After that honor, the full story behind the song came out and it has a connection to New England.Turns out the inspiration for the song was Paul Monti of Raynham, Mass.  His son Jared was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2006.  We called Mr. Monti intent on doing an interview with him about his brave son and the now-famous truck.  Mr. Monti is a proud, sweet, wonderful guy.  The interview turned to junk because Mr. Monti, Karen and myself all wound up crying like babies.  We really couldn't edit around the emotion so the idea of airing the interview was scrapped.  Instead, we took some of Mr. Monti's comments about his son, and the truck, and mixed them into the song.  We call it "I Drive Your Truck (Dad's Mix)".  We aired it a few times and got lots of reaction on the phones, e-mail and social media.  We also heard from a 5th grade class at the Auburn Village School in Auburn, NH.  They wanted to send thank-you cards to Mr. Monti.  We contacted him and got his permission to give the students his address.  They sent their cards and we thought it would end there.  It didn't.  Mr. Monti and the truck made a drive to New Hampshire to surprise the students and we''ll have that story Tuesday morning.