Bob Sanders: Airwaves much better with Harvey

I don’t claim to be an expert on Paul Harvey, but I submit that I have probably heard him more than, say, 95 percent of the population.

As part of my job, I listened to him at least once every day for many decades. I knew every nuance. I could predict with almost certain accuracy his take on any political issue (conservative, usually, but not nutty; and he mellowed over the years), etc.

I go back to when Paul Harvey, Jr., was “Small Paul.”

I never met him in person, but I knew him. Yet, it took me a while to realize what a piece of Americana he was, like Grit, or the Old Farmer’s Almanac, or Yankee Magazine.

One of my (many) regrets is that I did a snotty little column about him, oh probably 35 years ago. I acknowledged that he was a great showman, but kind of sniffed about the many little Harveyisms, such as saying that, “I believe that such and such is going to happen this afternoon ...,” when that had been on AP all day. And he called his wife “Angel,” etc.

One thing he did that was an absolute no-no for most newsmen, was doing commercials for and identifying personally with his sponsors.

Regular news people didn’t do that, but it worked for Paul Harvey.

As I say, I never met him in person, but I talked to him on the phone one time.

Anybody who has been around here very long remembers Mrs. Thorpe. She lived very frugally, in a little house right where the memorial is today, on the corner of Glenn and Ross, up on a bank.

She baby-sat for practically everybody in town, including us. She was about to have a birthday, way up in her 80s.

I sent Mr. Harvey a note, saying it would make her day if he would mention her next morning.

Next morning, I got a call from the man himself, wanting more details. Hair white or gray? That noon, he did a five-minute profile on her. Make her day? It made her year.

I mentioned in that column about his money. It had been reported that with his radio programs and syndicated column and speaking, he was the money-makingest newsperson in the country.

He tried television for a while, but, somehow, he never seemed at home on TV. He was a radio man ... and what a man.

Listen. He died at 90. Just a year earlier, he had signed a 10-year contract with ABC.

By the way, somebody sent him that little column of mine, and he wrote me a gracious note saying he wished he made as much money as I thought ... and that he wished (a little gentle sarcasm) he could write like I did.

Alas. Now we are left with Hannity and Ingram and Limbaugh and O’Reilly and such.

Lord help us.

Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.