Over my shoulder

 Over My Shoulder...



     Sometimes Greg loved parts of his life that were polar opposites to his own personal beliefs. A perfect example was the delightful habit of listening to the complete horses ass named  Paul Harvey on radio. While the guy was an egg's egg he had a style and delivery that were part of being an American. The show on our KABC was called "news and comment" that was aired at noon without fail. It was a tradition that when possible we would tune in to hear "hello fellow Americans...this is Paul Harvey...Stand By for News" in his stilted but unique voice. Harvey was a knee-jerk conservative who loved Ronald Reagan and other Republican icons like Bing Crosby or Johh Wayne. Later in the afternoons he would perform "the rest of the story" that was somewhat interesting albeit totally skewed in favor of American exceptionalism. Plain folks across the nation ate up the Paul Harvey broadcasts and if it was corny and full of worn out cliches the words were like ice water to a bunch of rubes  thirsting for some kind of meaning in their pointless lives. Sometimes he performed a piece like "If I were the devil" or "Warning to America" or"So god made a dog." The kind of jingoistic stuff that was passed around VFW halls, beauty shops and break rooms all over the United States. Paul Autrand aka Paul Harvey went all the way back to 1951 so he and Greg began their lives together so to speak.  This radio wave cornpone managed to get Harvey the Presidential Medal of Freedom and membership in the Broadcasters Hall of Fame. His voice though was addicting and the outlandish exaggeration of a Norman Rockwell America made his noon show a must hear for wise punks who wanted to heap abuse on their country. Little did these guys know what was ahead. Paul Harvey was listened to and imitated by many around the Greg solar system but his mimicking of the guy was pretty close to the orginal. It was one thing to spout "and...now...you   know...the...rest...of the story!" but Greg remembered characters names like Joyce McKinney or Norman Gieseking or Admiral McRaven. The one I would urge him to begin was the tale of Paul's friendship with Bing Crosby that caused the old broadcaster to choke up mid-sentence or the rare but existant naughty bits where words were never actually said. There are thousands of Boomers and even Gen-Xers who know Paul Harvey's voice from sitting with their folks with the radio tuned in to "news and comments. As much as we made jest of the old fool there was something comforting in hearing his voice, even if he was full of hooey.

Golf is a game in which you yell 'fore,' shoot six, and write down five.

“I've never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.”

I'm not nearly so anxious about the lousy Communists as I am about lazy Americans

“In times like these it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.”



Comments

  1. KentJanuary 29, 2025 at 1:37 PM

    On our cross country trips in ‘75 and ‘77 Greg and I were never without the Harvey habit wherever we were in this great land.

    ReplyDelete

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