It’s not music, but as much as anything, it’s the soundtrack of my youth. So I’m compelled to mark its disappearance in this blog.

It’s a big, honking, very Mainah voice, bleating from my radio and television, as far back as I can remember. But friends, that voice is no more. Jolly John has left the building.

Even those of you not fortunate (well …) enough to grow up hearing his nasally Maine holler proclaiming the bargains (baaaaahg-inns) to be found at his car dealership can probably imagine Jolly John by conjuring memories of small town auto dealers in your own areas.

Jolly John was a huckster and carnival barker par excellence, with bad hair and bad clothes and a voice that might make you run screaming for the hills. His greeting was a hearty “Hi ho!”; his catchphrase was “I’m not jolly unless you’re happy!” And I’m probably wearing the rose-colored glasses again, but I kind of think he meant it.

At least one of Jolly John’s car lots was right near Funtown USA, and I remember being enchanted as a child not only by the approach to the amusement park itself, but by seeing — in real life! — the home of TV and radio’s Jolly John. It seemed special and rare — like being in the neighborhood of a celebrity, which he most certainly (in my small world) was.

So I was awfully sorry to learn that Maine had lost one of its biggest personalities, and that I would no longer hear his voice honking out of my car radio when I drove into my native state. Almost as much as crossing the Piscataqua River, it was a signal that I was home.

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