| By Bob Weaver 2004
Bob "All-American" Hope has died at 100.
My dad would go out to the road and get a fresh battery off our old model-T Ford so
the radio would not fade during the Bob Hope Show.
Bob Hope brought laughs during the dread of World War II to our living room at
Hur.
We sat quietly listening to the box radio on a three cornered stand, our faces barely
lit by the glow of gas lights and the flickering flames from an open burner stove,
munching on popcorn.
Sometimes we would walk down the hill to grandpa and grandma McCoys to listen
to the Tuesday night show, a little comedy relief while we worried about our family
members "over there." I was about six years old.
I knew then he was a special man, bigger than life, who came in person to West
Virginia more than once.
Young folk will not likely appreciate Hope, nor will they understand his enormous
contribution to life in America.
All the good guy clichés belong to him, a decent, ego-deflated and amiable man,
who walked the streets of America without bodyguards because he wanted to be
close to his fans.
He was a comedian and performer who lunched with most of the presidents of the
20th century, and took his Christmas holidays to travel around the world
entertaining our soldiers in war and peace.
Who will replace him, his long, long run and message of hope that this too shall pass.
There surely will never be another like him.
Those of us who "knew" him like a friend, still thank him for the for those Christmas shows on radio and TV entertaining our troops in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
His voice is fading now, like the batteries powering our old radio.
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