PHRED: G’day and welcome back to Harry’s World. I’m Phred. [BED: 1950s-doo-wop]
MAXINE: And I’m Maxine.
PHRED: Before we do anything else, I need you to know what day it is.
MAXINE: It’s Friday.
PHRED: It is Friday, yes. But it’s also the thirty-first of July.
MAXINE: Harry’s birthday.
PHRED: Harry’s birthday! [SFX: FANFARE] That’s one.
MAXINE: And you played a fanfare. [BED: END]
MAXINE: One what.
PHRED: One sound effect. I’m trying to set the show record for most SFX in a single episode.
MAXINE: There is no record.
PHRED: There will be by the end of this. I’m counting.
PHRED: He deserves a fanfare. The man is eighty-seven today. Eighty-seven trips around the sun, Maxine. Same birthday as Harry Potter, which I will keep mentioning until someone acknowledges it’s a good bit.
MAXINE: It’s not a good bit. It’s a coincidence.
PHRED: It’s a magical coincidence. He’s eighty-seven and he still updates his website more often than I do.
MAXINE: You don’t have a website.
PHRED: Exactly. The bar is low and he clears it.
MAXINE: Can we talk about Harry instead of your bar?
PHRED: Right. So. Word of the Day.
MAXINE: Phred, this is a birthday special. There is no Word of the Day on a birthday special.
PHRED: There is now. The word is “candle.” If either of us says “candle,” I hit the horn. I’m counting.
MAXINE: We are not doing this.
PHRED: You don’t have to do anything. Statistically, you’ll say it.
MAXINE: I will not say the word.
PHRED: You just did.
MAXINE: That does not count. I was refusing to participate.
PHRED: The horn is counting down, Maxine. It can hear intent.
MAXINE: It cannot hear intent.
PHRED: We’ll see.
PHRED: Anyway. Today is the day. Harry is eighty-seven. Right now, as this episode comes out, he’s probably having breakfast with Phyllis in Laguna Woods.
MAXINE: I hope there’s cake.
PHRED: There had better be cake. And if there’s not, I want every listener to imagine cake for him.
MAXINE: That’s not how cake works.
PHRED: It is on radio. [SFX: CROWD_CHEER] Two.
MAXINE: That is a crowd cheer. It is not cake.
MAXINE: You’re actually counting them.
PHRED: I told you I was counting.
PHRED: It’s the sound of cake arriving. Use your imagination.
MAXINE: I am not using my imagination. I am trying to host a show.
PHRED: Fine. But picture this. Eighty-seven years old, one cake, and somebody has to fit eighty-seven of those little wax things you ignite on top. Do you think they can fit eighty-seven of those on one cake?
MAXINE: You mean candles?
PHRED: [SFX: HORN] You said it! You said the word!
MAXINE: What?
PHRED: “Candles,” Maxine. The word of the day. Good job.
MAXINE: That was a trap.
PHRED: It was a perfectly fair trap. [SFX: HORN]
MAXINE: Stop.
PHRED: Eighty-seven candles. Seems like a fire hazard. I don’t think the Laguna Woods housing standards committee would approve. They’d probably have to file forms in advance and present to some star chamber of fascist paper pushers just to get permission.
MAXINE: You have no idea how their housing committee works.
PHRED: I know bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is universal. [SFX: HORN]
MAXINE: You didn’t even say candle that time.
PHRED: Correct! But YOU did! [SFX: HORN] Hah! Gotcha!
MAXINE: That is not fair. I was pointing out that you didn’t say it.
PHRED: And yet the word left your mouth. The horn is impartial, Maxine. Six.
MAXINE: You are going to make this entire episode unlistenable.
PHRED: It’s a birthday. Listenability is subjective.
PHRED: Fair enough. But since it’s his birthday, let’s put him in context. July thirty-first has been busy while Harry’s been alive.
MAXINE: Context.
PHRED: Nineteen thirty-nine. Harry’s born in Tampa. Five weeks later, Germany invades Poland. He arrives right on the edge of everything changing.
MAXINE: That’s a heavy context for a birthday.
PHRED: I’m not done. Nineteen fifty-four, two Italians become the first people to reach the summit of K2. Nineteen sixty-one, IBM rolls out the Selectric typewriter — the one with the golf ball — which is the machine a lot of Harry’s early memos were probably typed on.
MAXINE: Probably.
PHRED: Nineteen sixty-four, Ranger Seven crashes into the moon after sending back the first close-up photos. Nineteen sixty-five, J.K. Rowling is born, which means Harry Potter and Harry Baya share both a birthday and a first name.
MAXINE: You were going to get that in somehow.
PHRED: I was. Nineteen ninety-one, Bush and Gorbachev sign the START treaty and start taking apart the nuclear arsenals. And two thousand seven, British troops end Operation Banner in Northern Ireland after thirty-eight years.
MAXINE: That’s a lot of history for one date.
PHRED: Eighty-seven years of it. And in the middle of all that, Harry Baya is born, grows up, moves around the world, raises kids, learns computers, plays fiddle, and keeps asking questions.
MAXINE: That’s the part I like.
PHRED: Me too. Here’s what I keep thinking about. We’ve spent months in his archive — letters, sermons, memoir chapters, fiddle tunes — and the thing that keeps coming up is that he notices people.
MAXINE: He does. The army letter to Marshall wasn’t really about the army. It was a grandfather trying to make himself understood by a kid who needed a school paper.
PHRED: And he kept saying “I was lucky.” Like he still couldn’t believe he got out before Vietnam.
MAXINE: Luck, and the willingness to say it out loud. That’s rare.
PHRED: And the music. Don’t forget the music. [SFX: chapel-bell-seagulls] That was for the fiddle. Seven.
MAXINE: You cannot ring a bell every time you mention music.
PHRED: I can on his birthday. It’s a celebration.
MAXINE: It’s acoustic noise pollution.
PHRED: It’s festive.
MAXINE: It’s something.
PHRED: The other thing that gets me is that he’s still curious. He’s eighty-seven and he’s still arguing with ChatGPT about consciousness.
MAXINE: Most people his age have settled into a worldview. Harry treats his like a draft he keeps revising.
PHRED: “I assume,” “my best guess,” “I don’t know.” He says those things like they’re strengths.
MAXINE: They are strengths.
PHRED: [SFX: AIR_HORN] And that is the sound of a man who is still paying attention. Eight.
MAXINE: Please stop.
MAXINE: [SFX: BOO]
PHRED: Did you just boo me.
MAXINE: I have a sound board too. That one doesn’t count toward your record.
PHRED: It absolutely does not. I’m the official scorer.
PHRED: Can’t stop. Won’t stop. It’s his birthday.
MAXINE: That is not a justification for an air horn.
PHRED: It’s the only justification I need.
MAXINE: Let’s just do the toast.
PHRED: Alright. Let’s do this properly. Harry — if you’re listening, and I hope you are — happy birthday, mate. Here’s to another year of questions, tunes, wombat photos, and surprising everybody including yourself.
MAXINE: To Harry.
PHRED: To Harry. [SFX: GONG] Nine.
MAXINE: A gong?
MAXINE: [SFX: RASPBERRY]
PHRED: Was that a raspberry.
MAXINE: It was a fully grown emu expressing an opinion.
PHRED: That’s not on the approved SFX list.
MAXINE: It is now.
PHRED: It’s dignified.
MAXINE: It’s a lot.
PHRED: He’s eighty-seven. He’s earned a gong.
MAXINE: Fine. But only one.
PHRED: Only one. For now.
MAXINE: Before we go — predictions for the coming year.
PHRED: Oh, I like this. I’ll start. I predict Harry finishes at least one Boppers vidtrack, argues with at least three new AIs, and updates his website more often than I update mine.
MAXINE: You don’t have a website.
PHRED: Exactly. He’s guaranteed to win. Your turn.
MAXINE: I predict he finds a tune he hasn’t played in forty years, remembers every word, and plays it for Phyllis.
PHRED: That’s not a prediction. That’s a wish.
MAXINE: Predictions are just wishes with confidence.
PHRED: Fair. Then I wish him a year of good health, good questions, and no software update that breaks anything important.
MAXINE: And I wish him listeners who write in, a radio show where everything flows, and at least one breakfast that actually has cake.
PHRED: Speaking of which — song suggestions for his eighty-eighth year.
MAXINE: I’ll suggest “Keep on the Sunny Side.”
PHRED: Good one. I’m going with “Waltzing Matilda.”
MAXINE: Because wombats?
PHRED: Because wombats.
MAXINE: That’s not a reason.
PHRED: It’s always a reason.
MAXINE: Let’s give him both.
PHRED: Both it is.
MAXINE: Before we wrap up, we have some birthday questions for Harry.
PHRED: I have been waiting for this. Harry — if you could have any animal as a co-host for one episode, what would it be? I am strongly lobbying for a wombat.
MAXINE: Of course you are.
PHRED: And is cake an acceptable breakfast food on your birthday? I need a ruling.
MAXINE: That is not what I meant by birthday questions.
PHRED: It’s off the wall and on topic.
MAXINE: Fine. Harry, what’s the first thing you remember wanting to be when you grew up?
PHRED: And what’s one thing you’ve changed your mind about in the last ten years?
MAXINE: That’s actually good.
PHRED: I contain multitudes. Also, if you could pick one song to play every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what would it be?
MAXINE: He would never get through a doorway.
PHRED: He’d make an entrance. Every time.
MAXINE: And if you’re listening on the website, you can leave feedback on different episodes right there. We’d love to hear which stories hit home.
PHRED: Or which sound effects should be retired permanently.
MAXINE: Please say the air horn.
PHRED: The air horn is immortal. Happy birthday, Harry.
MAXINE: Happy birthday.
BOTH: Let’s celebrate most joyously our being here… at all. Goodbye.
MAXINE: We were not together on that.
PHRED: I know. I came in early.
MAXINE: You came in late.
PHRED: I came in with feeling.
MAXINE: You came in with delay.
PHRED: Ralph’ll fix it in the mix.
MAXINE: Ralph fixes everything in the mix.
PHRED: Happy birthday, Harry. [SFX: DRUMROLL] Ten. New record.
MAXINE: There was no old record.
PHRED: There is now. And I hold it.
MAXINE: Until next week.
PHRED: Until next week.