Feb 28 2009
Talk Radio Icon Paul Harvey
Today, Saturday February 28, 2008, national talk radio host and news commentator Paul Harvey passed away in Arizona. There’s a good article here at The Hollywood Reporter that lists all of his credits and achievements. Paul Harvey worked out of an office here in Chicago, and had a Midwestern conservative slant to his reporting. His distinctive voice and style were instantly recognizable and commanded attention. Whether you agreed with his political views or not, he was always interesting to listen to and presented information and stories you didn’t always get from other traditional news venues.
Back in 1990, my first car caught fire and burned up–after one semester of college. I needed an inexpensive car fast to get to classes and work, and ended up with a 1980 AMC Concord. Much to a college girl’s dismay, my ten year old car not only didn’t have a cassette player, it only had AM radio. The horror. AM radio didn’t pick up much–forget about modern music. Mostly it was news reports and ball games.
I didn’t have much choice, so I listened to what was available. I started catching Paul Harvey’s shows, and got sucked in by the old school style news show. Harvey was more like a really interesting current events professor, telling you stories about the day’s news, historical events, and the people that make the news.
When I mentioned listening to Paul Harvey to my grandfather, he was thrilled. My grandfather loved listening to news programs and talk radio–he used to even carry a little portable radio around the house with him from room to room so he wouldn’t miss a moment. He’d always listened to Paul Harvey’s program, and therefore, growing up, my mom had too. Paul Harvey crossed the generational gap, and gave my grandfather, mother, and I a common interest to talk about. Suddenly that AM radio didn’t seem like such a bad thing anymore.
So I’d just like to say thank you to Paul Harvey, who rose at 3:30am every morning to start his day and gather all of the news and human interest stories to share with so many of us–stories that gave us something to share with each other, too.
