Good day.

Paul Harvey is dead. I have lost a friend.

I never met or even saw Paul Harvey, never shook his hand or wrote him a letter. But he was part of my day--six days a week--for years, since I was eleven. Over those years I came to feel he was one of the family.

I always thought he was talking right to me. He delivered the news with common sense in plain language; conservative and no nonsense but not confrontational. And not without humor or a personal touch. It was the delivery itself that set him apart, with staccato bursts of his sentences, dramatic pauses and vocal inflections. (HELLO Americans! This is Paul Harvey. Stand by for NEWS!) He was one of a kind. You heard each carefully chosen word clearly and distinctly. No one else could do it. No one else tried.

In the summer of 1962, KAKE radio in Wichita began to advertise on its sister TV station that they would be an ABC radio affiliate on August 1st. They extolled the benefits of ABC network news, a program with a lot of tradition called Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, and Paul Harvey news. My old 1958 Philco clock radio was set on KAKE (AM, of course, because in those days only universities operated low-powered FM stations with classical music and boring academic discussions on philosophy) so for the remainder of my summer I was waking up to "Paul Harvey News and Comment."

The bond was immediate. Mr. Harvey, a staple in Chicago since 1951, read news headlines but for the first time I heard commentary along with it. And I liked it. His crisp voice, with that remarkable delivery, captured my imagination. His first daily broadcast was at 7:55, just before the regular news at eight, Monday through Friday. He had an expanded fifteen-minute report at 12:05 which ran Saturdays as well. I listened to those broadcasts from then until just a few years ago when WDAF no longer aired Paul Harvey in Kansas City. My family never missed an opportunity to tease me about religiously trying to tune in, especially on vacation, but I noticed they listened too.

As I said, Paul Harvey took a conservative, common sense approach, much like my dad. Perhaps that was a contributing factor to the bond. I heard his displeasure when criminals were set free on technicalities or when politicians misbehaved. I heard him cheer and felt his happiness when the USA achieved a victory in the Cold War, in the Olympics, in Congress, in the world arena. There was never a doubt of his love of country in contrast with so many celebrities, news makers and even newsreaders of today who are often competing to be the first in line to find fault with the United States on any subject, as publicly as possible. I think he personally mourned each soldier who died in Viet Nam and each victim of a cold-blooded murder about which he reported.

Paul Harvey also had a little fun with us. He solicited the names of and identified couples all across the country as "champion lovers" who had been married the longest, occasionally finding people with 70-plus years "on their way to together forever." He would read a story in which some publicity-seeking scoundrel had behaved outrageously, often criminally, and then state: "Of course, he would want us to mention his name." There would be a pause, then he would move on to the next story with at least one news outlet denying a fool his reward. And he had special broadcasts for special days. Every year, on Saturdays before Easter, Father's Day and Independence Day, I made it a point to hear his radio essays on those subjects. They were simple but he so filled them with the essence of the day that each was very moving. I have missed them and will continue to do so. They should be heard by every American every year.

Being in Chicago, Paul often would begin a Saturday piece with "This is Chicago..." and paint a word picture of the state of Chicago urban politics, a city of rich heritage--if not tainted with incredible scandal and corruption. He would take Mayor Daley to task, or the council, or Chicagoans themselves. But he had a great love for his adopted hometown which I could feel six hundred miles away in his words. I shared it, because Chicago was the foremost rail hub in the nation, the city where my beloved Santa Fe trains began and ended their runs. And I shared it more because Chicago is the unofficial capital of the Midwest, my part of the country. It was as though Paul Harvey stood atop the Prudential Building on Michigan Avenue, with his booming voice heard all across Chicago, across Illinois and Iowa prairie farmland to the southwest, across the golden wheat, cattle and oil country where I lived and deep into Oklahoma and Texas.

But of course he spoke not just to us here in the Midwest but to all Americans. Paul Harvey always supported the efforts and sacrifices of the US military, and his reports aired on the overseas Armed Forces Radio network as well. Even after he came to oppose the Viet Nam war he never failed to praise the men and women who were in it, and he never failed to remember our veterans.

Paul Harvey wasn't perfect; he probably stayed on the air too long. His memory confounded him in later years. On one live broadcast I remember a painful pause as he struggled to remember the name of a product as he live-read one of his commercial endorsements. He was slightly of the opinion that women should be kept on pedestals; his notions of what was "lady-like" failed to keep pace with changing culture. He attempted to start a traditional children's broadcast on Christmas Eve, interviewing Santa at the North Pole as he prepared to start his annual trip delivering toys, but it never captured a wide audience or long run.

He always described himself as a "professional parade watcher," letting us know his passion for getting up at 3:30 AM at his home in River Forest and hurrying to the studio in downtown Chicago to get the news of the day together. I don't think he could have retired. How great it must be to enjoy one's work that much. His work was rivaled only by his love of his wife, "Angel," who died last May. Somehow I just knew after that, Paul wasn't far behind.

So good-bye for now, Paul Harvey. I hope we meet up again in the great beyond. I would like to tell you how I loved to hear you, and I want you to know how you helped me form opinions and see things for what they are. Until then, old friend, Good Day!