A salute to Scully

I wasn’t yet the ghost of cigarette smoke curling toward the ceiling in my granddad’s eye when Sinatra played the Sands in ’66. When Satchmo took over New York Town Hall May 17, 1947, my mother was in the womb. My folks hadn’t yet met when Elvis stalked the stage during his caped comeback of ’68. And when Judy Garland shouted the rooftop off Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961, my father was just entering puberty and probably had the same pitch as pill-popping Dorothy.

You could say I missed out on all the great performances of the 20th Century, and you would be right. You would be right that there is nothing to match those pipes in our contemporary voice vernacular as well.

You would be right, that is, until 3:40 p.m. Friday, April 4, 2014.

It is then I will tune the dial and hear, broadcast live, one…