Paul Harvey Has Died
by John Nolte
Years often passed between my catching his broadcast, but whenever I did the sound of Paul Harvey’s voice always took me back to the summers of ‘81 and ‘82 when I was around fourteen and living with my grandparents. They owned a small 16 cow dairy farm in rural Wisconsin, and to make a little money I lived and worked there over the 12 weeks of summer vacation. What we call “lunch” farmers call “dinner,” and at noontime my grandfather and I would come in from the fields and wash up for the big dinner that awaited in a Wisconsin farm kitchen that looks exactly like the one you’re picturing in your mind right now.
Grandma made sure the milk was cold, the meal hot and Paul Harvey was on the radio. And for fifteen minutes or so, over the sound of clinking silverware, summer bugs and a box fan in the corner, Harvey’s soothing voice, good humor, gentle pauses and uncanny common sense would effortlessly create a shared experience.
Harvey was many things, a news man, commentator, radio personality, conservative - but his real gift came from a unique ability to draw those characteristics together and tell America a story every afternoon, the story of what mattered that day in the world. His wise voice and natural decency cast a spell, and in my case both created and helped to keep alive cherished memories.
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43 Comments
I wonder how many generations knew him? One of the few broadcasters for which the term "agenda" could not be applied…
Driving across country a lot, he became a very familiar voice to me. I don't care for the way he made advertisements part of his stories, but I respect his story telling ability very much. R.I.P.
I will always remember that signature voice. Now for the rest of the story…
I used to listen to him in 1968 when I was a kid working in a warehouse. The older guys would make sure every day they didn't miss him with their lunch. I've listened ever since. He had that quality in his voice that resonated optimism, humor and character. He was one of a kind and I'll miss him very much.
I remember Paul Harvey from as far back as the mid-sixties, as my dad listened to him on Armed Forces Radio when we were stationed in Panama, and later in the 70's, Japan. I began tuning into him myself by the late 80's, and he always seemed like an uncle or something, since I had listened to him, essentially, since I was a little boy.
A very large part of cultural fly-over country has departed with this loss. RIP and Godspeed, Paul.
R.I.P. Mr. Harvey
Good day!
When I was a little girl back in the 60's, we used to come home from school for lunch. My Mom always had Paul Harvey on the radio while we ate. To this day, when I hear his voice it means Campbell's soup, sandwiches and Mom. A piece of Americana has passed.
[...] Jonesboro Real Estate Blog placed an observative post today on Paul Harvey Has DiedHere’s a quick excerpt…sound of clinking silverware, summer bugs and a box fan in the corner, Harvey’s soothing voice, good Bhumor/B, gentle pauses and uncanny common… [...]
What an amazing guy I always enjoyed him! Rest In Peace Paul you will be greatly missed! I remember the cambells soup as well.Our country was better then……
A flood of childhood memories rush back whenever I think of Paul Harvey. I always spent the summers at my grandparents farm in southern Indiana helping out, doing chores and such, and every day, a few minutes before noon, my grandmother would ring the dinner bell back at the house and we would head back from the fields for the noon meal. When we were all sitting down for the meal grandpa would turn on the little Philco radio (it always took a little time for the radio to warm up – it had tubes). During the broadcast we weren't allowed to talk – there was only the sound of the silverware on the china plates, the smell of coffee and my grandmother's cooking, and Paul Harvey's unmistakable voice on the Philco. God bless you and your family Paul Harvey and thanks for all those precious memories.
The tone and pace of his voice often calmed my hectic day. I'll miss him.
When I was first introduced to Mr. Harvey, he was an irritant. You see, I was a midday DJ at a station in the deep south. I would have to play Pauls program. which interrupted me from spinnin' the tunes and talking like I was in dire need of an enema. Down the years, I truly admired this man and his viewpoints, although of late he was a little hard to listen to, because he sounded like age was finallly creeping up on him – the inevitable. Broadcasting is dimmer today. He was one of a kind – RIP!
It was a real pleasure to listen all these years. It is sad to see that even the Best and most Loved things in life are really mere moments in time. I am thankful I was able to listen and enjoy the warm stories and a heart felt love of life and Country.
I will always remember listening to Mr Harvey on the radio in my grandfathers shop on the farm as a kid. His voice reminded me of home when I was stationed overseas, and my grandparents after they passed away. I tried not to miss a broadcast all of these years, because I not only enjoyed his wit and sensible take on IMPORTANT issues facing this country I enjoyed the mix of just the right amount of humor. The last broadcaster with any class is gone, for my entire life he has been an informative voice of reason, this is a very sad day.
Andrew, I think the ads in the story were pretty much how it was done when he was starting out. Radio and TV shows in their early days had part of the sponsor in the title of many shows.
My memories of him go back to the mid seventies. Growing up in West Virginia during the 60s, we couldn't pick up decent reception on any stations that carried him. I never remember hearing him until I joined the Army and was stationed in Oklahoma.
Thank you for your service to our country, Paul!
….and that's the rest of the story.
I'd read somewhere recently that he was the first to integrate the ads into the story? I could be wrong about that though. In any event, he was one heck of a story teller.
If the music died when Buddy Holly crashed, then honest radio news died yesterday.
My husband drives our three children to school and they've made a tradition of listening to Paul Harvey on the way. Lately Paul Harvey, Jr. has been doing most of the broadcasts, but the gentle and conservative summation of the news is the same. No foam-at-the-mouth BDS, no rabid Anti-Americanism, just stories and news that make our country look as good as it really is. RIP, Mr. Harvey. You will be missed.
There is a hole in my heart today. Some of the warmest memories of my youth were sitting at my grandparents' table at lunchtime during the Summer listening to Mr. Harvey. I continued listening to his morning and noon reports, as well as The Rest of the Story.
Unfortunately, it got more difficult to find him, so I was always excited to stumble upon him. He was one-of-a-kind.
God Bless and Good Day!
I always listened to Paul Harvey back when I was in college in the 70s. I liked him. He was basic, honest and interesting, and often funny in a way the oh so ironic hip comedians weren't.
I like interesting and unique voices, and his was certainly one.
I was 16, a Teamster, working at a grocery store. I scheduled my time so I could be in the back room sorting pop bottles during the few minutes that Paul came on the radio. Pop bottle sorting was mindless but Paul made it the most educational part of my day — including 6 hours of high school before work.
A few years ago I heard Mr. Harvey, while not promoting but just laying out the Libertarian argument, make the case for ending the war on and even legalizing drugs. Somewhat more recently after his second use of the phrase "This un-winnable war" referring to Iraq, I decided to spend my listening time elsewhere. That is one great American voice that will never fade away as long it echoes in our memories. Be they good ones or not.
Man I forgot about that – THE REST OF THE STORY was guaranteed to keep you interested and it always had an unexpected ending – like good radio was in the 1930s-1940s
The country has lost a treasure that shone brightly for centuries. RIP.
A Paul Harvey story. In 1960 my father, newly installed as president of ABC radio network (the youngest network president in broadcast history at the time), received a call from the the VP of News, who said he intended to fire Paul Harvey. The VP's reason, he explained to my father, was that Harvey was "an actor, not a newsman." My father insited on meeting Harvey, was invited to his home in Illinois, found him a gentleman and total professional whose reports were popular among audience and affiliates alike, wrested control of the news division and renewed Harvey's contract. He and Harvey remained friends over the years.
Paul Harvey was one of the first professional people in the multi-media business that I looked up to and I came across him when I was about 14 years old. I dare say that he was a major influence in my decision to get into the business. I went into the film industry, but I still compare anyone today to the professonal presentation of the news with that tinge of humanity that I was drawn to admire those many years ago.
I spent a year away from college working with my father and my job was to drive a truck around the countryside doing pickups and deliveries. I would always make it a point to be parked on the side of the road with my brown bag and Coca-Cola at 11:59, ready to take a 20 minute lunch break. The extra five minutes were for me to digest what I just ate and heard. Woe be to the person that held me up from that routine.
I agree that he had his moments of “alter-thinking” when his viewpoints didn’t exactly line up with mine, but that’s what taught me that we didn’t always have to agree on everything, just exhibit the ability to allow one to have their own mind, and still work togther to try to make things better.
My favorite moments in his broadcast were when you knew he was wrapping up the story. The joke was being developed, the moral was being stated, the twist was ready to pop, then it happened, the best toss off ever: Page TWO! And then you got the Gold Bond Medicated Powder commercial, or the garden implement of the season, or whatever.
I remember the saying went like this – And now you know … the rest of the story!
God Bless Paul Harvey. Watching what a Chicago pol set loose on the country and what he could do to it must have been tough on him these last few months.
My story about Paul Harvey are very similar. I grew up on an Iowa farm and my dad and I would take our dinners at my grandparent's house. There they had an old radio built into the kitchen wall, which helped contribute to the somewhat scratchy sound of the AM station. Always it was Paul Harvey on the radio. And then those days when I was out in the tractor or combine with my grandfather and Paul Harvey would always be on the radio. When I was young I fell asleep so many times to his stories, lulled into slumber by the warm sun shining in through the dusty window and hypnotic effect of the bouncing tractor as my Grandfather drove through the fields.
I would come in the house for lunch at noon and first they'd play the local Catholic bishop saying the prayer of Saint Francis, then they'd have John Wayne doing the pledge of alliegence and then before the 1980 elections President Reagan's famed radio addresses. He would talk about anything and everything. Then Paul Harvey's news and comments. In the morning we would hear Howard Cosell Speaking of Sports (which was all kinds of awesome) and Paul Harvey's the Rest of the Story. My dad loved listening to him. I will miss him to. Valhalla got another one.
For me it means Grandma and Grandpa's house on the farm in Minnesota. We lived in Colorado and would come "home" every summer in the 60's & 70's for two week vacations. I can picture my German-born Grandpa sitting in his kitchen chair rolling some Prince Albert tobacco into a cigarette while the voice of Paul Harvey was on the radio on top of the fridge. I loved Paul Harvey's voice because it reminded me of the heaven that was grandma and grandpa's farm! As an adult, I appreciated his decency, honesty and American values.
At different points of my life since the age of 14, I have found myself in different occupational positions where somebody (always more senior than myself) felt that everybody in the work area should have to listen to Paul Harvey
in the morning and at lunch. I resented that deeply, as far as I was concerned Paul was the "Voice of Middle American Ignorance" Rest in peace Paul, this force fed listener will not miss you!
[...] More on Paul Harvey, RIP March 1, 2009 Posted by Jehuda in Uncategorized. Tags: Entertainment, News trackback John Nolte remembers Paul Harvey. [...]
AJ,
DJ-Deep South-Where and when?
A great man, who truly deserved the Medal of Freedom award that Pres. Bush bestowed on him in 2006. Paul's wife was a great part of producing his shows, and his son has been writing them for years. Lovely people.
RIP, Mr, Harvey, now you can join your bride.
That's a great story. I applaud your fathers insight and judgement. My father told me about the night his son Paul Jr. was born, before he went national he was on WENR in Chicago, it got out that Mr. Harveys wife was in hospital. She had had a difficult pregnancy previously, and so much interest was generated so suddenly, so many people were anxious to express their well wishes to Mrs. Harvey (Angel to Mr. Harvey) that it crashed the Chicago phone system. Everybody loved Paul Harvey, always will.
Notice how we were all initiated to Paul Harvey by our elders. Mine was in a lunch room for plumbers, carpenters and electricians in the mid 70's. I'll never forget the day Paul Harvey announced that Gerald Ford's running mate would be Bob Dole. "Bob Dole? Bob Dole! Who in the hell is Bob Dole?" Fred Earnst, a hard-of hearing painter who had lived through a mortar shelling of an Itallian village in WWII said "Huh, Bob Dole? Did you say Bob Dole? I know Bob Dole." He pulled a tattered picture of his old unit–the 10 Mountain Core–out of his wallet and showed me a guy standing next to a jeep with his arm draped around the neck of a much younger Fred. "That's Bob Dole." Paul Harvey connected carptnters to janitors, the 40's to the 70's and a smart-ass kid working his way through of the summer of 1976 to Bob Dole. Paul Harvey made sense out of the 20th century. That is the rest of his story.
I'm sorry that you did not and do not 'get it.' That voice that you dub, "the Voice of Middle American Ignorance" reflected most of what made this country great throughout the 20th century.
Isn't there some show on MTV for you to get back to?
Paul Harvey was a constant 'companion' throughout my life. I listened to Paul Harvey since the late sixties, accidentally at first. By the time I was 22, his radio broadcasts were my first exposure to Radio-news/opinion. I'd watched years of TV 'meet the press' type shows since my Dad was heavy into politics. But Harvey was a different experience. I listened in my car as a young adult, years before the advent of Today's talk-radio
He could make me think about any news item with just an inflection of his voice. On occasion he would offer up his personal opinion. But he could do that without a harangue or vindictiveness that some associate with today's radio-biz.
Paul Harvey was old enough and wise enough to have "seen it all before". There was something reassuring in that for me throughout the years as I listened to his perspective. When things seemed to get dire in the world{a never-ending story}, his steady balanced take recognized the dangers, but was always rooted in his natural optimism and belief in this country and its people.
This loss is not that of a celebrity, but of my adopted Grandad. He was all-American, and more eloquent than a roomful of Limbaughs, Hannities, Frankens, or Schultzs. An American treasure and self-made institution.
Hey Butler – 1972-1975, in Macon, Augusta and Atlanta respectively. All fed from the ABC Radio Networks.
You know, Tom, you must have some kind of dark heart that you could say something like that. Step away from the video games and come into the sunshine.
I am 47 years old and I cannot remember not hearing Paul Harvey radio commentaries. And the The Rest of the Story began when I was a teenager. His common sense reflections were very much like listening to a conversation with my parents or grandparents.
What a treasure! RIP Mr. Harvey.
Also, as a very young fellow in the 1960s I recall Mr. Harvey doing an evening television news commentary. And also a weekend biblical television commentary. Are my memories correct?
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