THE BEST TIME TO HAVE LIVED IS RIGHT NOW
Original article in
the Internet Archive
Broadcast Legend
Paul Harvey Offers an Optimistic Outlook
By Robert Reed
May 8, 2005
There he was on
C-SPAN recently, giving a speech and taking questions from the
audience. I was flipping around the dial from station to station
and immediately recognized his brilliant smile. I stopped my
incessant channel flipping. He was talking about the world as he
saw it from a historic perspective. The man was Paul Harvey, the
venerable broadcast news personality who has been part of my life since
I was a small child.
The image of
this fellow who looked so young in some respects was all encompassing
because he was so eloquent, and still is. His command of the
English language is supreme. It is a quality of his that
sometimes doesn't come through during his radio broadcasts.
Following his speech, the question and answer session dealt with a few
newsworthy issues of the time. The best question was saved for
last though. The questioner, fully aware and respectful of Mr.
Harvey's huge expanse of wisdom and perspective gained over a long
career in his profession stepped forward and asked "Sir, what time do
you remember as being the best time to have lived in?"
Paul Harvey did
not hesitate, and immediately smiled. He also immediately began
the answer to the question. Expecting to hear something
predictable such as a story about the golden days of broadcasting or
something to that effect, I just about fell over when he gave his
answer.
"The best time
to have lived, or to live, is right now, today. Right now is the
most wonderful time of my life." He spelled out so many positives
to contemplate. He talked about the information explosion, the diseases
being cured, the problems that are being solved, and he said all these
things in a way that pulled me right out of my perspective of the world
and put me into a much better one. It was a slap across the face,
the "thanks I needed that" kind of a slap. It is one thing to
hear positive, uplifting and optimistic outlooks coming from just any
person. But these wonderful things were being said by a guy who
started his broadcasting career over 70 years ago. This is a news
correspondent and journalist who doesn't have a negative gloom and doom
story to tell. The span of time he has covered as a journalist
could make any average person have a negative outlook. But
negative outlooks and seeing the negative side of everyday happenings
are easy things to do. It's easier to be grumpy and grouchy and
have bad things to say. Looking for positives takes more
effort. Paul Harvey puts in a lot of effort. He gets up
early and works hard at what he does, and he still does it day in and
day out.
Still heard
daily over the radio waves from coast to coast, he started his
broadcasting career in 1933 at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, radio station while
he was still in high school. His career progressed through the
thirties and forties. Then Pearl Harbor happened and he enlisted
in the Army Air Corps where he served his country until 1944. In
June of 1944 he began working in Chicago, where he still works to this
day. In Chicago he became the most listened-to newscaster, and in
1951 his "News and Comment" show went national, airing from coast to
coast on ABC Radio.
The News and
Comment show is the one I remember as a child. In the mid to late
1950's and early sixties our little Southern California country beach
house was filled with Paul Harvey's voice at around noon time. It
was an every day thing. My mom would make sure she was tuned in to the
right radio station and she would listen as she did whatever she was
doing in the house. He did the show pretty much as he does
today. He is a timeless kind of a guy.
Mr. Harvey, I
have to agree with you all the way. Right now IS the best time to
be alive. It is a time when anyone who has the desire can do almost
anything they like. Paul Harvey's optimism should be a shot of
encouragement to all you twenty-somethings. There is so much hope
for you out there. Just go and find it.
