Sleeping late for me means staying in bed until around 8:00am, unlike when I was younger when it usually meant getting up around the crack of noon. And that’s okay, especially on Sundays, because 9:00am is when my local NPR affiliate broadcasts Says You!
If you’ve never heard it Says You! is a word game where two teams of three panelists have to “define and divine” various words or phrases and work out other wordy puzzles. They also face off against each other in the bluffing rounds, where one team gives two fake and one real definitions for an obscure word and the other team has to guess the right one.
My favorite moment from the show was when one of the bluffing round words was “bream”. I was yelling at my radio “IT’S A FISH! HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT?”
At the center of it all was the host Richard Sher. Sometimes it’s startling to see someone you’ve only heard on the radio. You have an image that goes with the voice, but which turns out to be very different in reality. Sher, for me, was not one of those cases. He looked exactly like he sounded. He sounded like that favorite uncle who’s easy smile and kind eyes hide an eccentric sense of humor. He died February 9th, 2015 after a fight with colon cancer and leptomeningitis. The show will go on, but I’ll miss that voice.
Regular listeners know he ended most shows by saying it was best “when we get your comments, when we get your suggestions, but most of all when you show up.”
Hail and farewell Mr. Sher. Thank you for showing up.
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