"Here's to You---So Long": The Way It Was, 14 May

1976---An old-time radio mainstay, Lowell Thomas and the News, featuring the world-girdling broadcaster for forty-six years on radio, is delivered for the final time, fifteen months after the death of Thomas's first wife.

Perhaps characteristically, Thomas alters his trademark sign-off by removing just two words and saying, simply, "Here's to you---so long."

His memoir, Good Evening, Everybody, is also published in 1976. He will also have an impact on radio beyond his lifetime, when his 1954 investment (with business manager Frank Smith) in Albany, New York UHF television stations and radio stations grows into the giant that will buy ABC in 1986: Capital Cities.

Thomas will marry a second time in 1977 and die in 1981, the author of thousands of classic radio news reports and analyses and numerous books, including a second memoir, So Long Until Tomorrow, a year after he signs off for the final time.

AIRWAVES . . .

2006: FAREWELL, HONEY DREAMER---One-time old-time radio singer (with the Honey Dreamers), but known best as the third and final Clarabell on television's Howdy Doody, Lew Anderson dies at age 86 of complications from prostate cancer at his Hawthorne, New York home.

CHANNEL SURFING

1941: SAMMY FACES SYLVIA---And everyone's just a little bit apprehensive when the would-have been couple square off after Sammy (Alfred Ryder)'s return upon discovering Sylvia's (Zena Provendie) lies, on today's edition of The Goldbergs. (CBS.)

Molly: Gertrude Berg. Jake: John R. Waters. Rosalie: Roslyn Siber. Writer/director: Gertrude Berg.

14 MAY 1946: CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK---It isn't Amos 'n' Andy, kiddies---it's an apparent check-kiting scheme hitting the Sentinel itself, after Reid (Bob Hall) discovers forged checks written on the Sentinel payroll accounts, on today's edition of The Green Hornet. (ABC.)

Miss Case: Lee Allman. Axford: Gil Shea. Kato: Rollon Parker. Writer: Fran Striker.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1885---Otto Klemperer (conductor: The George Gershwin Memorial Program), Breslau, Germany.
1890---Carlton Brickert (actor: The Story of Mary Marlin; Thurston the Magician; announcer: Lum & Abner), Martinsville, Indiana.
1898---Zutty Singleton (drummer: Radio Almanac; Just Jazz; BBC Jazz Session), Bunkie, Louisiana.
1905---Herb Morrison (news reporter, and the man whose spot report of the Hindenburg disaster remains internationally famous; also: Call to Arms; The Good Ole Days of Radio), unknown.
1910---B.S. Pully (comedian: Command Performance; Mail Call), Newark, New Jersey; Paul Sutton (actor: Challenge of the Yukon), Albuquerque, New Mexico.
1919---Liberace (as Wladziu Valentino Liberace; pianist/vocalist: Stars for Defence), West Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1925---Patrice Munsel (singer: Prudential Family Hour; The Voice of Firestone; The Big Show), Spokane, Washington.
1926---Eric Morecambe (comedian, longtime partner of Ernie Wise: The Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Radio Show), Lancashire, U.K.