The Green Thumb
This NPR tribute to “Doc” Abraham features excerpts from the Doc and Katie Abraham program, “The Green Thumb.” You can hear Walter Dixon’s voice as their WHAM “Green Thumb” host, a role he enjoyed for many years during the 1960s and 1970s.
This 4 minute excerpt of The Green Thumb, features Bill Givens as the host. He may have been standing in for a vacationing Walter Dixon or he may have assumed the role of host sometime after Walter Dixon.
Gardening gurus exit the airwaves
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 15, 2002
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Gardening gurus Doc and Katy Abraham wrapped up their final radio show with a trademark signoff they’ve been using for a half-century.
“Gotta grow now!” says Doc. “And don’t forget to be neighborly,” adds Katy.
The couple, now in their 80s, are throwing in the trowel.
The last edition of “The Green Thumb,” the longest-running gardening program on American radio with the same hosts, was taped earlier this month for broadcast Saturday morning.
The show first went on the air in 1952, offering practical advice on African violets, fruit bugs and lawn care mixed in with his down-home humor and her poetry recitations.
It was a jittery start – “Oh man, we had butterflies in our stomach, it was a new experience,” recalled George “Doc” Abraham – but their enthusiasm and country-twang likability drew a loyal following on Rochester’s WHAM radio station.
The chemistry – Katy’s sweet nature a foil to Doc’s gregariousness – sprung from years of togetherness.
Born in Wayland in rural western New York, the teenage sweethearts both studied horticulture and journalism at Cornell University and were married during his 36-hour Army leave in 1942. He saw action in North Africa while she worked at a munitions plant in Ithaca.
“She’s homegrown, corn-fed and sugar-cured. That’s why I married her,” he said.
After World War II, the Abrahams launched a greenhouse business and a syndicated gardening column that, during its heyday, reached more than 5 million readers in 130 newspapers around the country. It still runs in about three dozen small-town newspapers and gardening magazines.
Their relaxed, reassuring manner made gardening seem like the easiest and noblest of hobbies. Dispensing tips on roots and shoots also had a more serious purpose. “If we had no plants, we’d all be dead,” Mrs. Abraham said with her customary chuckle.
The half-hour call-in radio show had broad appeal.
“It was a lot more than a gardening show. It was a couple of friends on the other end of the radio,” said Jeff Howlett, station manager at WHAM, whose Saturday lineup is consistently rated No. 1 in Rochester’s radio market and is beamed as far away as Canada and northern Pennsylvania.
“If you’re doing what you love, that’s the bonus of life, and that’s what Doc and Katy do,” offered Ralph Snodsmith, 63, host of “The Garden Hotline” for 36 years on the WOR Radio Network in New York City.
Old-age ailments have persuaded the Abrahams to bow out. Their newspaper column will continue and their 16 gardening books, notably “The Green Thumb Garden Handbook,” remain in print.
The couple, whose two children are in their 50s, still aim to bring their expertise into schools in and around their home in Naples in the lush Finger Lakes region.