NYC Radio: After 50-Years, The I-Man Says Goodbye

Tearful, sentimental, wistful, a bit eccentric and served with a side-dish of defiance, Don Imus ended nearly 50 years on the air Thursday morning. But his valedictory came early in the last edition of “Imus in the Morning” on 77 WABC shortly after 7 a.m., when he thanked listeners -- or “you” -- for the long run, and he did not forget a nod to the “I-Man” himself either, according to Newsday.

As Imus, 77, steadied himself for what would be a final attempt to explain what these five decades meant — impossible for anyone under any circumstances, considering the tumult, controversy and color of those years — he said around 7:15 from his studio in Texas that “I thought I was going to have some more time” to puzzle out an answer. (He had planned to leave in December, but the bankruptcy of his syndicator moved up the timetable to Thursday.)

Then, after noting that he was not going to miss the program (“ . . . a lot of fun, but, man, hard to do”) he said “I know in my heart there’s been nobody ever better on the radio than me. I mean that. I’m telling you how it is. Nobody ever did this – nobody – but it wasn’t me who did this. I’m gonna miss you.”

“Because you were the one, and I don’t know who ‘you’ is. I always thought and still think I was always talking to one person. I didn’t know if you were male or female, I just knew there was one person that I talked to and that would listen to me.”