Art Bell's show was a bizarrely formative experience for me in my early teens. I lived in rural NC where we got very poor FM reception, but one AM station carri

Art Bell's show was a bizarrely formative experience for me in my early teens. I lived in rural NC where we got very poor FM reception, but one AM station carried Coast to Coast AM, rebroadcasting the previous night before moving on to the live one (due to the time zone difference). Some nights I would listen through until dawn. There was such a striking sense of place he invoked in the show, and I would fall asleep dreaming of those roads I'd never seen. I've still never been to the high desert, but one of my favorite things to do recently has been to play American Truck Simulator in Nevada or California while streaming his archives. I know Art left and returned to radio several times over his career, and I held out hope he might do so yet again. I'm not one to really mourn the loss of celebrities, but the world is a little less mysterious and interesting without Art Bell.