Sunday, March 01, 2009

Paul Harvey....

I was saddened to note in Sunday's paper, the passing of Paul Harvey. He seemed like a gentleman and a gentle man too. He was also a link to my dim past.

When I was in the 6th grade at Bowie Elementary in Midland, our legendary teacher, Lucia Pearl Penney, had us listen to the Paul Harvey news each day before we went to eat at the school cafeteria. We weren't dismissed for lunch until Paul was through. This was back in the days when talking or whispering among the students was not tolerated, and so we listened with rapt attention to the radio. At any other time of the day we would have thought listening to the radio in class was a cool deal, but the length of Paul's news affected our lunch period so I think we were all anxious for Paul to wrap things up as quickly as possible.

Paul's newscast was full of pregnant pauses, so when he would come to what we percieved as the end, Paul would pause and utter those unwelcomed words......"and now.....page 2". Damn. But Paul usually had a personal interest story about some common citizen doing something uncommon at the end of the news and I think that made it all worthwhile to the sixth grade class. Something must have made a great impression on me, to remember this all so clearly all these many years later. I was in the sixth grade, many.....many years ago and Paul Harvey just quite broadcasting last year. Amazing.

And now....you know the rest of the story.