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As the old song says: regrets, I’ve had a few.

Home runs I never hit. Millions I never earned. Not doing enough to make the world a better place.

But at 3 a.m. (when I often do my best thinking), my mind regularly returns to The Radio That Almost Was.

Way back when, before it was overwhelmed by partisan politics, I worked as a radio talk show host. One of my best gigs was on weekends in Baltimore.

One Sunday — can’t recall exact details — I was rhapsodizing on the air about the floor-model radio that used to sit in my grandparents’ living room.

It squawked and screeched, but it was a member of the family. Big maroon knobs. AM only. A relic, for sure. But a teaching tool.

It taught me this: Radio is intimate in a way that TV never has been or will be. Big Bertha (the relic’s nickname) never failed to prove that, across decades of Arthur Godfrey and the Don McNeill Breakfast Club.

So, on that long-ago afternoon, talk show shift done, I was packing up to go home when the producer said I had a phone call.

It was from a man named Mike. He had just heard my show. He lived a mile from the station. He owned his own Big Bertha and wanted to sell it. Would I be interested?

This is how ax murders take place, but I didn’t hesitate. I was ringing his doorbell 10 minutes later.

There it was, in a corner of the living room. A huge floor model set, inside a polished mahogany cabinet. Yes, the knobs were maroon. Yes, it squawked and screeched. Yes, it got AM only.

It was love at first sight.

We agreed on a price. He helped me carry it to my car. We tried to fit it into the trunk — nope, too big.

We tried the back seat. Nope again. At which point, Rational Bob took over.

What would my wife say (other than the usual “You’re crazy”)? How long would it take for our kids to break it (the odds in Las Vegas were set at two days)? Where in our house would we put it? Who would help me struggle it up our front steps?

So I told Mike thanks-but-no-thanks. It was the only sane decision.

Had I passed on a gem that I could have resold years later for zillions? Possibly.

But Rational Bob knew — and knows — that the darn thing would probably have broken in five minutes. And who would have helped me struggle it back down the front steps, en route to the junkyard?

Sorry, Big Bertha II. Whenever I hear a squawking, screeching clip of Gene Autry or The War of the Worlds, I think of you. But you live in the land of what-if, forever.

Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist.