Early on, there was Wally Phillips on WGN. Both my parents listened to him, and my dad would often call in when there was a railroad question that needed answering. Wally had the Ellery Queen Minute Mystery, and as a kid I loved trying to solve it before school.
Even then, the radio was always on.
When I was a young boy, I remember hearing Orion Samuelson talk about agriculture and small-town living. He would quote the grain and meat markets from the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I had no idea then that his voice and those numbers would foreshadow my own career in the markets.
His passing on March 16th is the reason I am chalking about radio.
My dad gave me a love for jazz, and a big part of that was Dick Buckley. He had a Sunday jazz show that my dad listened to religiously. Either on his transistor radio on the front porch or on the one in the laundry room in the basement.
I met Buckley by accident in the mid-1990s at a CD shop in Oak Park. I heard his voice talking to the salesperson and recognized it immediately. I introduced myself and he took the time to talk with me about the history of jazz. For forty-five minutes we talked about everything from swing to Dixieland to bop. That is the kind of generosity radio people seem to have.
Then there was Al “Mr. A” Hudgins on WNIB during the 80s and 90s with his late-night blues program. After midnight until four in the morning, he was my guide through the Chicago blues.
Paul Harvey was another voice that seemed to be everywhere the radio was on around my dad. With that unmistakable delivery and his signature sign-off, “And now you know… the rest of the story.” He became one of the most trusted and recognizable voices on radio and another one of my Oldman’s favorites.
There was Dick Biondi, the King of the Oldies, spinning early rock and roll through my younger years. We had Bob Collins, who became my dad’s best friend on the radio after Wally Phillips. My dad was devastated when Collins died tragically in an airplane crash.
My dad had Wally Phillips and Bob Collins. My generation had Lin Brehmer on WXRT.
Lin used to say he was “your best friend in the whole world,” and the truth is he made everyone feel fabulous to be alive. When cancer took him, it hit Chicago hard. When Lin died, I finally understood how my dad must have felt when Bob Collins left the airwaves.
Radio voices do that. They comfort us. They give us a sense of security. Over time they become family, the big brother, the uncle, the grandpa, the music teacher.
All those memories came rushing back with the recent loss of Orion Samuelson, the Big O. With him gone, it feels like one of the last living pieces of my dad disappeared too.
I can still hear that deep voice telling stories and quoting the markets. It seemed like Orion was always on in our house. On the kitchen counter, in the basement laundry room, on the front porch, the back porch, the garage, and in the car. Wherever my dad went, the radio was playing.
Now I realize I do the same thing.
There is a radio in my kitchen that plays twenty-four hours a day. My kids hear jazz and blues from WDCB, my old-time radio show on Saturday afternoons, and classical music overnight on WFMT.
Orion hasn’t been giving the daily market reports for a few years, but he was still the American farmer’s best friend. He used to say: “If you eat, you are involved in agriculture.” He had a way of saying things that stuck with you. I remember him telling a clueless morning host not too long ago that almond milk has nothing to do with milk.
“You can milk a cow,” he said, “but you can’t milk a nut.”
He defended dairy farmers, and really all farmers, and he defended small-town America, from right here in Chicago.
Every Christmas I still listen to his voice on WGN reading “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” A tradition that is as important as George Bailey and Rudolph.
Back in the late 1970s, Orion brought a young broadcaster into the mix, Max Armstrong. Together they became two of agriculture’s strongest voices, telling the stories of farming to people who might otherwise never hear them.
Now Orion joins a remarkable lineup of Chicago voices who have skipped the ionosphere and moved on to the heavenly atmosphere to broadcast their shows.
…and if I’m being honest, I’d just like to hear him one more time. Just once more I would like to hear that deep voice say:
“May soybeans are trading eleven dollars and fifty-three cents… and in the corn pit, the May contract is four dollars and fifty-six.”
Because for a lot of us, that wasn’t just a market report. It was the sound of home.
