A Friend to be Silly With - The Monday Morning Memo

“And should you visit my skyscraper offices in Chicago, and you’re always welcome, your attention will focus first on a large portrait on the reception room wall. It’s a portrait of a young boy. His clothing dates itself to a generation past, the plus-fours are wretchedly wrinkled, the misshapen shoes are worn out. One of them is worn through. But the boy, leaning forward on one elbow, is listening enrapt to a 1930s-vintage cathedral-shaped, multi-dial radio. The boy does not resemble any person in particular, except to me. The artist is an Oklahoman named Jim Daly, whom I have never met, but with his painting he included this note. He said, ‘There is no way for me to express the pleasure I received from listening to the old radio programs. In my mind, those wonderful heroes were magnificent. No movie, no television program, not even real-life could have equated what my imagination could conjure up. Amazingly, all of those heroes’ he says, ‘looked a bit like me… And all of those heroes,’ he described, ‘looked a bit like me.'”

- Paul Harvey, March 8, 2003, in his final speech to broadcasters

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