We all have quirks, routines and/or habits others find foolish, unreasonable and/or mysterious.
My Sunday morning reasons for arising are likely to raise some eyebrows. Many times my first thought on waking is to read the morning Freep or Detroit News. Of course, now they are one and the same . . . Free Press has control of Saturdays, The News on Sundays.
So I rise, pour a cup of coffee from a programmed urn, tune in radio station WJR, separate the newspaper sections and start reading, front to back, each one, starting with the ‘main? news.
Many Sunday mornings I finish the newspaper wondering what I’d read. That’s because Mike Whorf’s musical and oral selections on WJR, starting at 7 a.m., are so interesting and entertaining.
Now he’s gone from the airwaves. After four decades he’s gone into retirement. I heard his entire last broadcast the last Sunday of 2003, and while I didn’t weep, I certainly was disappointed in hearing his announcement. I’ve been a WJR junkie for a very long time. With personalities like Bud Guest, Bob Reynolds, JP McCarthy and Whorf I found entertainment, news, weather and sports to my liking.
I was drawn to Whorf so much that I asked him to bring his program to the Oxford Rotary Club in the early ?70s. I was going to pay for it, but he was getting $400 a speech and I really didn’t have $400.
His choices for the Kaleidoscope hour were educational, sometimes quirky, and almost always attention getting themes.
And, his ‘Patterns in Music? hour were mixtures of everything musical and ranging from Ray Stephens to Durante, Ella Fitzgerald, Boston Pops, Victor Borge, Elvis — a kaleidoscope of entertainers in organized patterns.
WJR has made a lot of program changes in the last dozen years, and with Whorf gone, so will I be. The weekday a.m. slot has me out of WJR and into Dick Purtan and Purtan’s People. I’ve only had one Sunday to search for a replacement to Whorf’s replacement and I didn’t find it on a.m. or f.m. and went to a cd following the 7 a.m. news.
Of course, WJR will survive without my receiving their signal, as will I. The void will be filled. But I hope I remember for a long time Mike Whorf’s final words Sunday morning, December 28.
He gave the greatest tribute to a wife that man could ever make. He and Barbara have been married 47 years and his words were very warming for all of us who had the love and support of a long-time friend and wife.
Good luck, Mike Whorf, and thanks so much for giving our Sunday mornings so much joy and fulfillment.
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You think you’ve heard all the bests and worsts of 2003? How about the worst pun?
Mahatma Gandhi, as everyone knows, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail, and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a — ready? -super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
A-a- ah, bad!
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Quickie closers: He says, ‘I’m going to make you the happiest woman in the world!? She says, ‘I’m going to miss you.?
You’re a good example of why some animals eat their young.
Men are like a pack of cards (maybe not all of us): You need a Heart to love them; a Diamond to marry them: a Club to batter them, and a spade to bury the buggers.