Growing up I remember a great features and radio news broadcaster named Paul Harvey. Harvey had a daily morning and noontime news and comment program that ran from 1951 to 2009. In 1946 he added a feature to his regular news radio program entitled The Rest of the Story. In 1976, that add-on became a stand alone radio feature program which was produced by his son.
Paul Harvey was a master story teller and whenever his program would come on the radio I would be enamored by his golden voice and masterful use of words to create a story anyone could clearly imagine in their mind as he spoke of the news or on any topic. Since 2009, his golden voice no longer speaks a live broadcast to those who listened. But, there are recordings.
The exact author of the following story is unknown, but, Paul Harvey made it memorable that year, and in other years too. Paul Harvey originally broadcast this Christmas story on Christmas Eve day in 1965… And as he used to conclude each program, “that, is the rest of the story.”
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The man I’m going to tell you about was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family and upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe in all of that incarnation stuff that the churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn’t make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just could not swallow the Jesus story, about God coming to Earth as a man.
He told his wife I’m truly sorry to distress you, but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve. He said he would feel like a hypocrite and that he would much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. So he stayed and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, and then he went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper.
Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another… and then yet another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against the living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled outside miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter they had tried to fly through his large landscape window. That is what had been making the sound.
Paul Harvey 1965 broadcast of The Man and the birds.
Birds
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures just lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter. All he would have to do is to direct the birds into the shelter.
Quickly, he put on a coat and galoshes and he tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and inside the barn he turned on a light, so the birds would know the way in. But the birds did not come in.
So, he figured that food would entice them. He hurried back to the house and fetched some bread crumbs. He sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail of bread crumbs to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs.
The birds continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them, but he could not. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction… every direction except into the warm lighted barn.
And that’s when he realized that they were afraid of him… they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Any move he made tended to frighten them and confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed, because they feared him.
He thought to himself, if only I could be a bird myself and mingle with them, and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe, warm… to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them, wouldn’t I, so they could see… and hear… and understand.
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears, above the sounds of the wind.
And he stood there listening to the bells, Adeste Fidelis. Listening to the bells, pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.
And he sank to his knees in the snow…
…I hope for you and those you love, that this will be a wonderfully Merry Christmas!
Michael Reed is Publisher of The Standard newspaper, print and online. TheStandardSC video media channel is being censored by dominant social media groups like YouTube. YouTube, owed by Alphabet (Google), removed and destroyed all of our video work without permission or remuneration. That has stopped all potential donations from our many supporters on that venue. If you want to continue to see independent thought and reports please “like”, comment, share with a friend, and donate to support The Standard on this page to assure the continued availability of news that is ignored too often by the dominant media.
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