All over the nation, 24 million listeners enjoyed the famous commentator, Paul Harvey, for about 50 years. Two unbelievable ones follow:

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.

He is lying there in the grass, hiding and thinking. He has studied the little girl’s habits. He knew she would come outside her grandfather’s house soon to play. He hated himself for this.

In his whole miserable, messed-up life, he’d never considered anything so callous as kidnapping. Yet, here he was, lying in the grass, hidden by trees from the house, waiting for an innocent, red-haired, two-year-old girl to come within reach.

It was a long wait; there was time to think. Maybe all his life Harlan had been in too much of a hurry. He was 5 when his father, a farmer, had died. At 14, he dropped out of school and hit the road. He tried odd jobs as a farm hand and a streetcar conductor and hated it.

At 16, he lied about his age and joined the army— and hated that, too. When his one-year enlistment was up, he headed for Alabama and tried blacksmithing. He failed.

He became a railroad locomotive fireman and liked that. He figured he had found himself. At 18, he got married, and within months, his wife announced she was pregnant. Sadly, though, he had just been fired from his job.

One day while he was out job-hunting, she gave away all their possessions and went home to her parents. Then came the depression. He couldn’t win for losing. He really tried.

Once while working at a succession of railroad jobs, he tried studying law by correspondence. He dropped out of that, too.

He tried selling insurance, tires, running a ferryboat, running a filling station. No use. He was a loser.

And now, here he was hiding in the weeds outside Roanoke, Virginia, plotting a kidnapping. But this one day, she did not come out to play as usual, so his chain of failures remained unbroken.

Later in life he became chief cook and bottle washer at a restaurant. And, did all right until the new highway bypassed the restaurant. And then, his expected life span ran out.

He’s not the first man nor will he be the last to arrive at the twilight of life with nothing to show for it. He’d stayed honest—except for that one time when he had attempted kidnapping. In fairness to his name, it must be noted that it was his own daughter he’d meant to kidnap from his runaway wife. And, they both returned to him, the next day, anyway.

But now the years had slid by and a lifetime was gone, and he had nothing to show for it. He had not really felt old until the day the postman brought his first Social Security check. That day, something within Harlan resented, resisted, and exploded. The Government was feeling sorry for him, he thought.

You had all those hitless times at bat, the Government was saying, you’ve had it. It’s time to give up and retire. His restaurant customers said they’d miss him, but his Government said 65 candles on his birthday cake are enough. They sent him a pension check and told him he was “old.”

He said “Nuts,” and he got so angry, he took that $105 check and started a new business.

Today, that business is prospering, and so, at age 86, is he.

For that man who failed at everything, save one thing…the man who might have been a law-breaking kidnapper had he not failed at that…the man who never got started until it was time to stop…was Harlan Sanders. Colonel Harlan Sanders.

The new business he started with is first Social Security check…was Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Now you know THE REST OF THE STORY.

Paul Harvey also shared PEN PALS, about unbelievable facts concerning early researchers and writers of The Oxford English Dictionary (the OED), (which is now a 20-volume tome with over 21 thousand pages). It includes the definition, pronunciation, entomology, example sentences of uses, and quotations of sentences of the first and then the latest time each word was used.

Harvey says the time Dr. James Murray, president of England’s Philological Society, was working on editing it in the 1870s. He needed all the help he could get. His greatest helper was Dr. W.C. Minors, a pen pal he had never met.

It seems Minors had heard that the great dictionary was being compiled. The thought fascinated him. He wrote asking if he could be of any assistance.

At first, Murray was amused by the offer from the unknown scholar. He knew that good lexicographers are born, not made. It takes a particular kind of mind, and who was this Dr. Minors anyway? But Murray wrote a letter thanking Minors, saying, yes, he’d be interested in any suggestions. (He wasn’t, really.)

The next letter from Minors was a shocker— dozens of items, definitions, references…each expertly arranged and constructed in every detail…and more than that. Immediately, Murray was convinced that he was corresponding with a genius.

Quickly, Murray sent a letter expressing his extreme gratitude. He’d had no idea how unusually qualified Minors was…and, he’d be honored to accept any further guidance, or criticism, or aid whatsoever from this great mind. Minors complied.

Before long, the letters Murray received from Minors numbered in the thousands—all containing thousands of valuable items that eventually found their way into the great Oxford dictionary.

Finally, Murray couldn’t bear it any longer. He’d respected Minors’ privacy, all the while knowing no more about this mystery scholar than his address. But now it was time they should meet. So, Murray wrote Minors, inviting him to be the guest of Oxford University for a week.

Murray received a curious response. Minors said, for physical reasons, he had to decline. However, Murray was asked to visit him. Murray accepted. When he was arrived at Minors’ residence, it was the most remarkable revelation of Murray’s life.

For the great mind of Dr. Minors…the brilliant brain behind a major contribution to the great Oxford dictionary…was only “partly there.”

After that one unforgettable meeting between the two scholars, they never met again. For, you see, though this extraordinary man’s love of learning could not be constrained, he had to be. Dr. Minors was a convicted mad-dog murderer.

Dr. Murray’s pen pal… was in “the pen”—an inmate at the Broadmoore Asylum for the Criminally Insane! Now, you know THE REST OF THE STORY.