LIANE HANSEN, host:
You're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
Time now for your letters. And there were some reactions to Andy Borowitz's with his predictions for 2008.
Hubert Smith(ph) wrote, you must give us warning when Mr. Borowitz is about to produce his merry japes. I have scarcely enough time to get the ace bandages wrapped lightly around my ribs before he began his astonishingly transient yet hilarious piece today.
But Janet Ackenheil Thomas from Tucson, Arizona, was not so enraptured. Sunday's Column by Andy Borowitz, she wrote, was mostly beating dead horses, utterly tasteless. And Huckabee's choice of a running mate was plain insulting to people of all religions, even atheist.
Most of the year-end letters we received were reflective. Kay Slaughter of Charlottesville, Virginia wrote that she was moved by Adam Dorn's remembrance of his father, record producer, Joel Dorn. I listened to it twice, she wrote, one is riding in my car and one is seated at my computer, playing it for my daughter. It made me cry each time. What a beautiful portrait of a music lover who was able to produce incredible music and of a father who let his sons know how much he loved them.
Edward Sigmund(ph) sent this. I grew up and still live in Philadelphia. Whenever I had a day off from classes at Temple University, I would listen to Joel Dorn on Philadelphia's jazz station. I would always look forward to hearing the hard times theme by David "Fat-Head" Newman. Hearing it again brought back memories.
Finally, about the essay we broadcast by our recently retired senior supervisor and producer Bob Malesky.
Steve McIntyre(ph) of Beaver Dam, Arizona wrote this. I have been very consciously at the passage of time, not the days and weeks but the decades. And so hearing this morning that after 20 years at WESUN and 30 at NPR, Bob Malesky is moving on - I had to catch my breath. I started listening to NPR about the same time that Bob started working there. And well, I remember WESUN's with Susan Stamberg at the microphone and Steph Skagorry(ph) live at the piano.
And though I never before gave me much thought, I now realize that hearing Bob Malesky's name in the WESUN credits had become, over the years, a comforting familiarity. But not until this morning did I know that Bob was reading the letters and e-mails I've been sending over the years. I am pleased he was. I want him to know that always I regarded them as akin to letters to the editor and those which seemed critical were so in the way one feels one cam be with family and friends, those upon whom we rely and can trust.
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