Paul Harvey, Good Night

By Christopher Orlet
3.2.09

I don't know about the rest of the nation, but here in Central time we could get Paul Harvey's News and Comment in the morning and again at noon, most likely on some crackly AM country music station. If I were out of town or on the road, I would surf the AM dial hoping to find a hint of that unmistakable voice: The Voice. Like a true news junkie, I needed my Paul Harvey fix.

Paul Harvey, born Paul Harvey Aurandt in Tulsa on Sept. 4, 1918, had a voice like a cannon at Gettysburg, like Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill or General Anthony Clement McAuliffe answering the German surrender ultimatum with the expletive "Nuts!" His distinctive baritone was soothing and comforting, the optimistic, can-do voice of Middle America, the voice of hope decades before Barack Obama knew the meaning of the word. the rest