Good Day, Paul

Paul Harvey died today at the age of 90. Pual Harvey had a true gift of storytelling and could breath life into even the most mundane subject. As is the case with many TV and radio personalities Mr. Harvey's best work was, in my opinion, his social commentary rather than his political.

The story I most remember Paul spinning was that of an anonymous young man who died in the Alaskan wilderness. That person was later identified as Chris McCandless and the story of his short life would later be written into a best seller by Jon Krakauer titled Into The Wild that would later be made into an excellent movie of the same name directed by Sean Penn.

What the book and Krakauer's original article, Death of an Innocent, mentions that the movie did not was the fact that Paul Harvey's excellent on-air piece about the nameless man in Alaska had a direct impact in the investigation and idententification of Chris McCandless. During Harvey's boardcase Wayne Westerberg, a grain silo owner in South Daktota, happened to hear the broadcast and phoned the Alasakan authorities that the on-air description sounded a lot like his former employee (McCandless) and, as it turns out, it was.

That was the beauty of Paul Harvey's stories: he could so accuretly write and speak about a topic that it would paint an incrediably accurate mental picture. Not many people have such an ability. Paul Harvey did. So accurate and rich in detail where his stories at times that it made possible to place a name and face with a deceased person found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan brush.

Goodnight, Paul. We'll miss your unique brand of story telling.