The Most Trusted Man in America

by Pa Rock
Baby Boomer

Walter Cronkite, the anchor of the CBS Evening News throughout the 1960's and 1970's passed away this evening. The 92-year-old former television journalist was known to be near death for the past few days, so the cable networks were ready. MSNBC has been airing a Walter Fest all evening.

The recognition is good, and it is well deserved. They are running old clips of his announcement that JFK had been shot, and minutes later somberly telling America of the President's death in Dallas. There has been footage aired of him tonight with every President from Eisenhower through Clinton, and we have heard his famous on-air editorial in which he concluded that the Vietnam war was not winnable.

I remember all of that stuff because I was in high school and college during those years, and was already a budding news junkie. There were only three television networks at that time, and much of America got their daily dose of national news from Walter Cronkite. I think that my most vivid memory was of the color footage of the Vietnam combat and the daily body counts that Cronkite gave - bringing the war right into our living rooms.

Walter Cronkite was a part of everyone's family. He was giving us the news while we kicked our shoes off after a hard day at work or at school. Through his steady baritone voice we learned what was going on in the world as we set the table for dinner (families used to eat dinner around a table), and settled in for our evening meal. Shortly after retiring from CBS in the early 1980's, Cronkite was voted as the most trusted man in America by a national poll. - and the results of that poll were accepted as an obvious fact by a broad spectrum of the American public.

Even this old news hound learned something new about Cronkite from tonight's television coverage. Dan Rather, his replacement at CBS, told Rachel Maddow that Cronkite had flown into France on a glider shortly after D-Day. Hugh Downs, another news ancient, was interviewed over the phone and quoted Cronkite as saying that a person had to be a liberal in order to be a good journalist. (Need proof? Think of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh. There's not an ounce of credibility or journalistic integrity in the lot!)

Walter Cronkite was a native of St. Joseph, Missouri, and still had family ties in the Show Me State. I know that because several years ago I was spending the evening with my friend Millie Crossland, a social worker and political maven in Kansas City. Millie was working in the office of Kay Barnes, the mayor of Kansas City, and her desk was located just outside of the mayor's inner-sanctum. We were in the office that night when Millie took me in to see where Mayor Barnes did her work. There, in the middle of the mayor's desk, was a small framed photo of Walter Cronkite. When I asked about it, Millie told me that he and Mayor Barnes were cousins.

Not surprisingly, no one anticipated the passing of Walter Cronkite in the 2009 Pa Rock's Dead Pool. In fact, most of the entrants were too young to have any clue as to who he was. That is too bad, because the craggy old journalist was, for a very long time, the face of American television news - and perhaps the face of America itself. He will be missed by the Boomers and the hearty few left of the World War II generation. An era is slipping away.

Happy Birthday, Tim!

by Pa Rock
Proud Father

My youngest, Tim, turns twenty-nine today, and he knows how very proud I am of him. But I would like to say so publicly, in this forum, and take the opportunity to brag on his achievements.

Tim dropped out of high school while living in the wilds of Montana. I was several states away and unable to interfere in his life to the extent that I would have liked. But despite his disillusion with Montana's cowboy culture and schools, he assured me that he had not given up on education. He eventually completed his GED and went on to receive a bachelor's degree and a master's degree at the University of Kansas.

Tim was in several plays while growing up and could have easily become an actor. His stage presence was amazing! He was in two college productions and some of our local little theatre doings while still in elementary school. He was able to slip into a character as easily as most of us slip into comfortable clothing.

Instead of acting, though, he pursued his interest in theatre through writing. Tim became active in playwriting while working on his Master's in Fine Arts at the University of Kansas. I was proud beyond belief to be able to go to Lawrence during three separate Octobers to see a Tim Macy play.

The last play that Tim had produced at the University of Kansas was a real life drama about a local teen who left his home one night years before to attend a pre-graduation party - and was never heard from again. Tim's account of the tragedy stirred emotions and articles about the disappearance in a host of local newspapers as well as The Kansas City Star. The young man, Randy Wayne Leach, remains missing twenty years later. His parents were very appreciative of Tim's work in reviving interest in their son's case, and I was very proud of the strong bond that he formed with them while doing research for the play.

On another occasion Millie Crossland (until recently the Clerk of Kansas City, MO, and a very special friend) and I went to Washington, DC, to see one of Tim's plays presented in a competition at the Kennedy Center. I overheard Millie tell Tim at the play about Randy Leach that she has seen more of his plays than those of any other playwright. And that's saying something because Millie gets around!

Tim has had several short stories published in literature journals. Two have his short stories have been made into short films. He is clearly a writer with a lot of promise.

Tim has substituted in the public schools, taught at the college level, and currently does outreach work with disadvantaged youth for the University of Kansas. He works very hard and writes every day!

Being Tim's dad hasn't always been easy, but it has usually been fun!

A Good Day in Arizona!

A friend from Ft. Campbell, KY, sent me an email this afternoon. She lamented that it was snowing there for the second day in a row, and that all of the area roads were icy. I immediately wrote back and told her how badly I felt for her and all of my old friends at Ft. Campbell. Then I went on to add that it was eighty degrees in Arizona and I put the top down on my little convertible when I went to lunch today. She never wrote back after that!

I miss winter - just a little - but I am going to Washington, DC, in a couple of weeks and will probably get a dose of it there. I hope that it is nice, though, because I want to get over to Baltimore and have seafood at one of their beautiful restaurants on the harbor.

The last time that I was in our nation's capital was in 2003 when my friend Millie Crossland and I went to see one of my son Tim's plays that was being presented in a competition at the Kennedy Center. Millie and I managed to get over to Baltimore where we had a great seafood dinner and a boat ride with Michael Hyman, my roommate from the Russia trip.

I was also there in 1999 with my social work classmates from the University of Missouri. We developed positions on a set of issues and proceded to lobby Missouri's Congressional delegation. During that trip I also went to the outdoor inauguration of the new Teamster's President, James Hoffa, Jr. It was being held next door to our hotel and I just admitted myself to the boisterous gathering. I met a lot of very interesting people there! One member of our social work group had a cousin who flew Al Gore's plane, and he got us night time passes to tour the White House. We saw it all, from the kitchen to the Oval Office. Later our Navy tour guides joined us downtown at the bars! One other highlight of that trip occurred when we got off of the tram from the airport and were dragging our baggage to the hotel - looking somewhat like the Beverly Hillbillies. As we were crossing a street, one of our group saw Vice-President Gore walking out of a building where he had been attending a fundraiser. He jogged to his limo and then made a point of waving to our group and smiling as he was chauffered by us. Big Al was almost skinny in those days!

But, back to the topic of Arizona. It is what it is - a beautiful place to spend the winter!