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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