In my earliest years, the evening didn’t end until Vanna White said good night.

I was in one of the parts of America where “Wheel of Fortune” comes on after “Jeopardy!”. And I’d insist on staying up past the last ad break to hear the chat between White and “Wheel” host Pat Sajak for 45 seconds or so, wrapping on a sincere-sounding sendoff that gave me the all-clear to trundle up the stairs.

Why did I have to wait for the last moments with Vanna? Well, part of it was a child’s literalism: she hadn’t said good night, so it wasn’t yet that time. But part, too, was an attempt to wring out every last moment of White’s particular charm from “Wheel’s” half-hour. White — perhaps even more than Sajak, a consummate emcee of the old school — seemed to represent in one person what “Wheel” was all about.