Tag: obits

I read with sadness this afternoon about the passing of the great Charles Osgood. I’m sure many people knew him from the two-plus decades he hosted the Sunday Morning program on CBS. But I recall him most fondly from his “Osgood Files” radio spots. During 8 years of commutes between Studio City and Santa Monica, California and back, the one bright spot was when Charles Osgood’s voice came on the radio on KNX-1070 with his Osgood Files. I loved the stories, I loved the occasional whimsy and rhymes. He could make me smile even in the worst gridlock.

Indeed, it was one particular Osgood file episode that inspired what ultimately became my first professional story sale. I was driving north through Topagna Canyon after work one day (which means this would have been late 1994 or early 1995), when the Osgood Files came on the radio. I can’t remember what the particular radio essay was about, but Osgood concluded the essay by reciting Walt Whitman’s poem, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” It was my first encounter with that poem, and I found that as much as I liked the poem, the sentiment bothered me a bit. Fast forward to 2007 when I made my first professional story sale to Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine show, a story titled, “When I Kissed the Learned Astronomer,” in which I told my version of the story.

I haven’t been much of a TV watch, but every now and then, I’d catch Osgood on Sunday Morning and always enjoyed him as a host. I enjoyed his memoir, See You On the Radio, which I read back in 2018. I’ve missed his voice over the last few years, and was sad to see that he has now passed away.