Ghosts of Scranton Not All That Long Past...

It's really not so much that the place went out of business way too soon. It's not that so much optimism has once again been seemingly flushed down the toilet of failure. And it's not anything connected to a sense of personal loss, since I never set foot in the place. No, it's none of those things.

It's the plywood.

A window once aglow with life and prosperity is now boarded up with a sheet of inexpensive plywood. A sheet? We should call it a shroud of plywood. Shrouds of which Scranton has seen far too many of over the decades.

Don't kid yourself. While Scranton might be hiking along the comeback trail, it's barely learned to put one foot in front of the other in relation to completing any sort of journey. Me? Yeah, I believe in Scranton, although Wilkes-Barre has become the "I Believe..." city. The plywood shroud is not an unknown in Wilkes-Barre, either.

Particularly disturbing is the reappearance of plywood at damned near the exact moment when the rebirth of Scranton, the rebirth of all NE PA, is about to begin in earnest. Yes, I know, we've been re-birthing around here for likely thirty years. This time, though, it's genuine. The mid-wife, if you will, is TCMC, the new med school, the one whose first class made proud headlines over the weekend.

My voice is not alone crying in any wilderness. Heck, I'm not even a sole advocate wandering around by Mayor Doherty's tree house in Nay Aug. What I am is one of a minimum of tens and tens of thousands who know that TCMC's going from idea to reality in the relative blink of an eye is the messianic occurrence long awaited to bring us back. And it will.

Then, no sooner does TCMC's first class arrive than plywood returns.

The plywood shroud has made a comeback in downtown Scranton, where not all that long ago there was probably more plywood than glass. Its reappearance is a dark and grim reminder. More shameful than that, it's demoralizing.

The Scranton Parking Authority owns the building. The Scranton Parking Authority needs to get rid of that plywood immediately. Please, replace it today.

Whaddya Hear?

"If you close your eyes, you'd swear it really was Ben Franklin."

I got that one from my wife. No, she didn't make the claim, she heard someone else say it after they'd seen and apparently heard a Franklin impersonator - or maybe that's a Ben Franklin Tribute Performer.

"Hi, I'm Benny Franklin, and I am right here through the weekend! Try the mutton, it comes with a free trip to the Gruel Bar. Mention my name, get a farthing off."

Listen, if you've heard Ben Franklin's voice, or have a recording of same, you've got yourself a serious news story.

Then, just when you think that maybe you'd heard most everything, there's this.

"This isn't heat. I'm from down around Philly. We get real heat there."

I swear as I sit here, I not only heard this, I saw the guy who made the comment. I saw him on the teevee.

Let's try and give this some context, set it in the right place, time, situation.

Extreme heat, and conversely, extreme cold, demands news coverage. Regardless of whether or not these wide swings in the atmosphere deserve it or not, someone seemingly demands it. Often enough, and do please keep in mind that I was there and saw much of it firsthand, a lot of it is at very best superfluous.

No sense discussing the merits, the validity, of news coverage of our part of Pennsylvania being hot or cold, because the compulsion to attach some undeserved importance to its overwhelming status is apparent, although please indulge me in saying that this sort of weather is pretty much to be expected in these latitudes this time of the year. Now that that's out of the way...for the moment, how about we have a look at the statement itself.

I could just call it stupid, but there's an arrogance about it that extends to so many other things we hear up here in the sticks, the boondocks, this deprived part of the world we all call home, and by golly, some of us actually like. There, I said it. I like NE PA.

You know, some of us go a bit beyond and truly love it here. So some of us like, oh, me, get a little testy when visitors here love to stick our snouts in the fact that wherever they live, everything is better, bigger, more important, beyond what we have here.

Let's take another run at that statement.

"This isn't heat. I'm from down around Philly. We get real heat there."

So, what do we have here? We have some clod who wants the world to know that whatever exists here is certainly not even close to as good as what he has at home. Here's a revolutionary and earth-shattering thought - if you have better at home, stay home. You think I'm kidding, being a bit facetious? Not a chance.

If it's bigger, better, HOTTER, at home, why the hell do you waste your time driving a couple hours to where things are, well, I guess, to where things are just inadequate.

I'm pretty sure we could live without you.

While I'm good and snarly here, let me say that all of this reminds me of someone I years and years ago knew. More accurately, let's say I found myself in her company more often than I would have cared to.

She had this intolerable habit of inferring to all she met that she was from New York City. She was not. She was from New Jersey. Try and hope and stretch all you want, sister, New York City, pick any borough, and New Jersey are not the same place.

She would forever pepper her pointless ramblings about growing up with the term "...the city," with the clear implication being that it was, of course, New York City, and that it was home to herself. Herself was a Jersey Girl, complete with Jersey accent.

A couple times here and there and this nonsense was no big deal, it rolled off of me. She was relentless, and it got worse and worse and worse. I think she'd managed to convince herself that she was indeed from not only New York City, but that she was from Manhattan. If she went unchecked, she might have gone ahead and picked some plausible address on the Upper West Side and had some fake ID made to further this charade.

I could stand it no more. I became an army of one. I saw it as my duty to stop the lying.

Simply but unceasingly, whenever she began the blather about "the city" this, and "the city" that, I'd say, "She's from New Jersey." She'd stop, glare at me, I'd smile. She'd work her way back to where she thought she could hint at being from New York again, and I would again softly say, "She's from New Jersey." Surely she hated being exposed for the fraud she was hoping to be. Surely she wasn't fond of me. Surely my level of caring was minimal.

"You just can't get good kielbasi around here." Did I ever tell you about the guy who said that to me? I think I did. So stunning is the comment that any response seems empty and pointless.

It's Monday. I might be grouchy. I'll stop.

The Litter Box...

Every blogger, and real writers like nationally syndicated columnists, seem to have catch-all pieces they occasionally issue, pieces to get rid of a lot random thoughts, none of which on their own constitute a decent monograph, but collectively do fill some sort of void.

I've got plenty of random isolated thoughts. All I've needed for some time now is a name under which to place them.

I kind of like Floor Sweepings. All the other names, such as Bits and Pieces, This and That, Odds and Ends, and even Scrapple, are already taken.

Then, upon a second and third think, another name came along. Given my line of work, The Litter Box seemed like a nice fit. So, The Litter Box it will be.


Frozen pizza: Everyone likes pizza. I've been trying frozen pizzas recently, and for a couple reasons. One is that most supermarkets have vast choices when it comes to frozen pizza. It must be good, right? I also get too lazy to make my own, and my own is really good. So far, yuck on the frozen. Even a couple that promised me delivered pizza taste don't cut it. Typically, the crust sucks. I've been trying to reverse engineer their dough, at least in my head, and figure out how they can get it to taste as bad as it does. Haven't figured it out yet.

No Food or Drink Allowed: This sign sits in a retailer that has several soda machines within ten feet of the sign. By a soda, then get the hell out, that's pretty much what this business says to me. I did get out. I won't go back. I didn't buy a soda, or anything else for that matter.

No Personal Checks - No Exceptions: Great, your choice. Now, here's my choice, no business from me. I recently shopped where the clerk behind the counter nearly jumped out of their skin when we pulled out the checkbook. We left. We won't be back. All the big box stores take checks, you little Mom&Pop operators need to take them, too. You get burned on a check, sorry, but that really is the price of doing business in the here and now.

Commonwealth Medical College: The new med school under construction in Scranton will have an unimaginable impact on life in NE PA, most especially in Scranton. It's the first new med school in the country in over twenty years, and the first in Pennsylvania in over forty. I really don't believe any of us can grasp the enormity of its importance to future life here over the coming decades.

Summers Under The Tent: Carol and I often reminisce about Scranton Public Theater's time under the tent during June, July, August, and oftentimes, some of September. We both miss hot nights in the valley when a cool-down was a short drive away atop Montage Mountain. Where a play, always extraordinarily well-done, and cold drinks awaited and friendly faces welcomed your presence. They were good times. I imagine many miss them. SPT's alive and well, with the days beneath the tent gone.

Senator Al Franken: The snickering over Franken's winning of a senate seat wasn't as loud or as widespread as I'd expected. There was, though, a good deal of tittering prior to his formally being declared the winner, most of it because he's only a comedian. Standard practice in America seems to be that what you need be in order to catch any respect as candidate or winner is to be a successful businessman. Look at the economy. Look at the last two years. Look elsewhere for elected representatives. "Successful businessmen" have taken us to where we are today.


Hummingbirds and butterflies: I'm still a little concerned about the lack of both around the property this year. The same lack as last year, and the year before. We do see some hummers and we have hung a new finch feeder which has been pulling in the goldfinches, house finches, a few grosbeaks, and others. The butterflies are still largely a no show. Some blame Katrina, figuring that breeding habitat along the Gulf Coast was so decimated that the number of butterflies morphing there and coming north has been likewise decimated.

Traffic on "The Mountain": Is it just me? Could it be that I'm the only one who finds traffic on Montage Mountain (or is it now Sno Mountain?) enormously un-newsworthy? Seems that no matter what the act, no matter how big the act is, no matter that tens of thousands of people assemble on that mountain, all we hear about is traffic coming and going. Who the hell cares? The only people caught in the traffic are those who know all about the traffic and got into that traffic because they want to go see a performance. Good God, get off the traffic problems. Same goes for any NASCAR race at Pocono. Traffic is not news.

Montage Mountain: Who came up with that name? Why? What does a montage have to do with a gorgeous chunk of the Moosic Mountain range? Never cared for the name, never thought it had any relevance. Nobody asked me.

Bugs on Bridges: I have to concede that the mayflies hatching off of the Susquehanna don't demand headline news as they once did. Good. Here's the deal, plain, simple, and scientifically verifiable; mayflies in the river are an enormous indicator that the river is coming back. In fact, they just might indicate that it is back. The mayfly is the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to water, especially moving water. Mayflies, and there are thousands of species, do not live in polluted water. In short, the Susquehanna is in far better shape than most believe. It's all about image. The river needs more advocates. Count me in.

For now, I'm out of The Litter Box.

Those Sunday Blues...

The more people I talk to on Sundays, the more it's apparent that one heck of a lot of us share an almost weekly malady.

That would be The Sunday Blues.

The Sunday Blues is what I've long called them, although it's pretty clear others have different names, and more than a few likely don't call them/it anything at all. Named or not, it's still there, they're still there.

My experience with this oddity goes all the way back to high school, when I can honestly recall finding myself down in the dumps, down in the mouth, and just plain down, somewhere around mid-afternoon on each Sunday. It doesn't just sort of creep up on you either, nope. All of a sudden, it's just there.

You're reading the paper, watching TV, staring into the backyard, looking at the dog or cat and wondering what if anything goes through their minds, when zotto!. Like a bolt from that cloud over there, they're here, The Sunday Blues are again poking at you. From staring a the cat, you've now gone to staring at the wall, any wall will do. If there's not one nearby, you need to go and find one. Wall-staring can be an effective method of focusing. Wall-staring is crucial here.

Physical manifestations of this mental state may differ, while some may find no outward sign of the inner annoyance whatsoever. With me, and this has always been the case, it starts as a small knot in the gut, that place many of us refer to as the pit of the stomach, which really isn't your stomach at all, since your stomach is much higher up. Location aside, that knot may or may not grow as the hours pass.

Your demeanor may crumble, too, as those hours pass. You can go from feeling rather carefree and in love with life, to "What in hell have I done with my life, is it too late to fix things?"

Just what are we dealing with here?

Simply, it's all about going back to work on Monday morning. There is indeed one strong correlation between your attitude towards your present job and the intensity of The Sunday Blues, though even those who have a genuine love for their job seem to fall victim each week.

There's also the phenomena of residual effect. For example: If you hate your job, then get lucky and find a job you love, The Sunday Blues still come calling, or at least they do so for an extended period of time. Oh, sure, they may not be as strong, as pervasive, and sure, maybe you can chase them away with logic, reason, and a hearty, "Hey, I don't work in that nightmarish job anymore!" but they still come. The beginnings of The Sunday Blues, once within you, seem to stay, they never really completely go away.

You can be in the middle of two-week vacation, somewhere on the other side of the planet. You have a whole week ahead of you and your job, any job, is half a world away. Doesn't matter even a little. Come Sunday, here come The Sunday Blues.

Just like The Summertime Blues, there ain't no cure for The Sunday Blues either. Although I will confess that a good beer or two can take the edge off of things.

What's in the fridge right now? Well, let's take a look:

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - Simply one great beer. If you've never had it, don't let the sediment on the bottle bottom worry you. It's supposed to be there.

Red Hook Long Hammer IPA - A little more bitter than the above and a bit more body, too. Nice though.

Murphy's Stout - Not Guinness but likely indistinguishable. If buying in four-packs, it can cost 40% less than Guinness.

Miller Lite - It it was it is. It's light and OK for a light.

Leffe Blonde Belgian Ale - This may be one of only two beers I've ever encountered that I personally find close to undrinkable. Unless I got some of a bum batch, the heavy and overwhelming clove - yes, clove - taste of this abbey brewed ale is one which I find hard to imagine anyone liking. Cloves don't belong in beer. Even clove gum or mouthwash isn't as "clovey" as this ale.

Manny...

It might be cozy, folksy, to say we lost another one, but we all get lost over time. It's all about time, its passage, and inevitability.

Manny Gordon has died.

By now, all who knew the name must be aware that he's gone. At the same time, those who didn't know the name now have some sense of what a neat guy he was, what a genuine treasure he was. Although he lived until ninety-seven years of age, his passing takes a gentle poke at us all with that subtle touch of sadness over a friend we'll not see again.

There was a time for me when a Manny sighting was a near daily thing. It's been some time since.

Remembering when Manny was fast becoming a household name and face isn't all that tough for me. That's probably because I was working in the business that made the man famous when it happened.

Manny was a media darling.

Undeniably, irrefutably, no questions, no hesitation in saying so, Manny Gordon was one big old media darling. Manny's face could light up a television screen.

If in your car, his signature "...enjoy, ENJOY," which really came out as, "...an-JOY, ANNNN-joy," jumped right out of your radio and into your lap.

It was as genuine as the Declaration of Independence, as real as the earth beneath your feet, because Manny Gordon was the real deal. He lived the dream, he loved the dream. He was a delightful man, one whose company in which I found myself many times over the years. It was my pleasure each and every time. Bumping into Manny made your day, if your day needed making, and whose doesn't at times?

As with too many others who've died recently, what in the name of all that is good and holy can I say about Manny that hasn't already been said, will be said, then likely said again?

Well, here you go.

Surely what I'll say will fly smack into the eye of prevailing thought. A few toes might feel stepped upon, while a few others might feel the relief of small recognition long overdue.

See, while most attribute Manny's great "celebrity" to WNEP, I'm here to tell you that it was someone and something else that made Manny a star, or at the very least first spotted the star that WNEP fueled until it exploded and screamed across the sky of one full corner of Pennsylvania for likely thirty years.

Manny, and I honestly believe this, owed his incredible and surely deserved notoriety to that guy over there. That's a young - very young - Harry West. Harry looks like a junior at his hometown alma mater, Reading High.

The pipe is a prop. Harry never smoked, mostly because of his father's heavy smoking, a story for neither here nor now. The pipe almost looks Photo-Shopped, except for there being no Photo Shop at the time, no computers then, no such thing as digital photography, it wasn't even a wild dream at the time. The wheel, however, had been in regular use for some time.

Before Manny was "household" in Lock Haven, Athens, Minersville, before he'd found a place in the hearts of those in Bloomsburg, Centre Hall, Bastress, and Girardville, one Manny Gordon, District Forester, was already pretty darned well-known throughout that make-believe place where so many of us once lived, a place called WARMland.

The facts are these; Harry West and WARM had for years been involved in a beauty pageant of sorts, the winner of which became Miss Flaming Foliage, subsequent to which some lovely young local woman, along with her runners-up, would find her picture in the "brown section" of the old Scrantonian and become herself a minor local celebrity. That's where Manny first came to the attention of the media, print then broadcast, the connection between Fall's foliage and Pennsylvania District Forester being obvious. (My wife is a former Miss Flaming Foliage, affording me personal and inside knowledge of this once celebrated event.)

While "...an-JOY, ANNNN-joy" didn't exactly fire up the printed page, it was an immediate hit when heard delivered by the man himself, Manny Gordon. And it was Harry West who heard it, shared it, and launched what became a long, long run of being loved, idolized, and respected (the most important benefit of all), by several generations of people who do or did call northeastern and north central Pennsylvania home.

Once heard, our natural nosiness was to see the man behind these two words that had captivated the imagination of WARM's audience which, as we all full well know, was beyond sizable at the time. WNEP was right there, astute enough to know that we wanted see this guy. WARM and Harry let us hear Manny, WNEP showed us Manny.

And so it is that I say credit where credit is due, even if it is long overdue. Thanks, Harry. Thank you for so many things, one of which would be letting us all in on what a gem Manny Gordon was. Thanks.

WNEP gets abundant credit for ownership of the wonderful phenomena that was Manny Gordon, full credit for bringing us into the tent so we could see and fully experience Manny, but it was Harry and WARM that brought Manny to the dance, and what a long and memorable dance it was.

There shall be no other like it.

A Black and White of My Own...

I mentioned an old TV set in the previous post, one that was my very own by the time I was roughly thirteen, maybe more like twelve and a half.

It was the early 60s. Most kids didn't have their own televisions then. While you might have had some sort of record player to annoy your parents with by that age, a TV would literally be a luxury, since most families had one set and one set only.

And that one set sure as heck wasn't going in the bedroom of a kid, my firstborn status notwithstanding. How'd I land my own set? You'll see how simple it was a little further down.

So, I had me a set. (Did we ever get an answer to why it's called a "set?")

The closest image I could find to match that set of mine is the one you see here. As I recall, it was a Crosley, not exactly a widely beloved brand, not one you'd find in most homes in Anytown, USA. We also had a Crosley refrigerator, meaning that my folks found at least one Crosley dealer in NE PA. There's this vague memory of that dealer being in Taylor along Main Street. Or was that the back of a truck in an alley in Duryea? Nah, not my parents, never.

Looking at the set above, you can see that the tube itself was surrounded by a rectangular glass frame placed within the cabinetry, which was then a very important component of the American TV set. In fact, I grew up across the street from a mill which made, among other things, television cabinets. Today, the television cabinet has gone the way of the space-hogging console hi-fi, the eight-track, the casette, VHS and/or Beta, and analog anything.

Now, about that rectangular frame. It was illuminated, it lit up, surrounding that fuzzy b&w image with soft white light. It was, you'd have to imagine, no more than a gimmick to sell more Crosleys. Between the lighted frame, the wonderful image one got from rabbit ears, and the shortcomings of the Crosley itself, I wasn't exactly getting that quality viewing experience.

And so it was that the lack of a respectable image resulted in being handed my very own TV. It was a clunker, a junker, my parents didn't want it. It was Goodwill, Salvation Army, or me. Charity begins at home.

Snugged into bed earlier than usual, I'd lay there and watch the fuzzy images bounce around on that big cathode-ray tube and think myself pretty hot stuff.

What did I watch? Shows like...

• Dennis The Menace - The story of a pain in the ass kid who wore some sort of bib overalls that no kid I ever knew saw. Robert Hall didn't carry them. With a slingshot forever dangling from his backside pocket, this punk looked ready to bedevil someone on a second's notice. Dennis spends his time driving his retired neighbor nuts day and night. The neighbor, George Wilson, never figures out he can simply tell Dennis to beat it. Defiant trespass? Some charge certainly would have applied. Dennis also spent time making sure that signature cowlick of his was sticking up and out for best effect.
  

• Bonanza - The Cartwright men have managed to gain control of what appears to be several million acres of land across Nevada somewhere near Lake Tahoe, shortly before the days when Sinatra and Sammy played there. The three brothers are the sons of three different mothers, making Papa Ben Cartwright thrice-widowed. It also makes the boys half-brothers, a theme I never seem to recall them exploring. Drama, comedy, and romance ensue as the men righteously make sure no strangers, especially bad guys, touch their land or any of their other belongings. The Cartwrights were also pretty good at sticking their noses into the business of others, because of course, they were always right about everything.
  

• The Danny Thomas Show - Subtitled Make Room for Daddy, this show starred the very likable Danny Thomas as the TV Daddy who always called his TV wife "Irish." She was played by Marjorie Lord (mother of Ann Archer, for trivia buffs). Daddy Danny and Mommy Irish spent all their time suffering three kids and their dumb kid problems, magnified entirely out of any logical belief for the TV audience. Son Rusty, whose smart mouth was tough even for me to take, and I was kid roughly the same age with a smart mouth, needed some sort of stern guidance, which never seemed to come his way despite his really asking for it each week. Daddy Danny was an entertainer and went off to work in some generic night club during each episode before and after which he dealt with his charming family and their weekly crisis. Lots of my friends' fathers worked in night clubs, as did most other Americans. The irrelevance of TV in the 60s was stunning.
  

• Hazel - A show centered around a bumbling but bighearted live-in maid, something all of us in my blue collar neighborhood could so relate to with each and every passing episode. Employed by a couple of rich snobs, the Baxters (even the name was snobby), Hazel dresses just like a servant and cleans up, picks up, and puts up with these boors, although Mr. Baxter - Hazel always called him Mr. B. - was a kinder gentler, less country club sort than the rather contemptuous Mrs. Baxter, who has her nose shoved up in the air most of the time, to better look down on the help, one might presume. (Yet more trivia; Mrs. Baxter was played by Whitney Blake, mother of Meredith Baxter Birney.)
  

• Wagon Train - Most memorable was Ward Bond playing wagon-master/confessor/wiseman/hero/lovable big lug bachelor to what might have been hundreds of travelers who spend eight years trying to get from Saint Louis to somewhere in California. When the show's run was done in 1965, I guess that they just settled wherever they happened to be at the time and were happy with that.

• Sing Along With Mitch - An entire hour each week of a theretofore largely unknown musician with a goatee who never stopped smiling. It was a community sing-a-long, only it was on television, and in your living room, and occasionally in my bedroom, until I could get up and change the channel to something, anything, else. Miller conducted The Gang (yes, they were Mitch Miller and The Gang) with a rather odd style while the likewise ever-smiling male and female chorale members, always scrubbed fresh and looking like they had never so much as considered passing gas, sang some of those old sentimental favorites. Favorites if you'd been born prior to mass production of Ford's Model A. Oh, and there was a bouncing ball, that way all at home could, well, follow the bouncing ball and just Sing Along With Mitch. The words corny and smarmy come right to mind.
  

• My Three Sons - Another father with three boys and no mother in sight. They must have fallen off the turnip truck. Maybe mom ran off with Bub, then Bub changed his mind and came back under the weight of sheer guilt. The whole story of him being their grandfather was a cover. Papa and no mama was a familiar theme in 60s TV, what with The Andy Griffith Show, The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and to some extent, Family Affair. What precisely was network television trying to tell us? Steve Douglas had a big job in the aerospace industry, making enough money to keep a nice house for the boys and their housekeeper and surrogate mother, who was initially their gramps, then their uncle came home from the merchant marine and helped the fellas grow the hell up. I don't remember a lot of zany or madcap mayhem with this show, it was just a good show, especially the early black&white episodes.

Such was television and the sets on which we watched television in those good old days. Good memories. In many cases, bad TV. But I had my Crosley.

America's Anchor of Record...

It's been said of certain individuals that, if they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them.

To me, that's about the highest praise there is. It means they were or are THAT important to our way of life.

If Walter Cronkite doesn't fit the "...we'd have to invent them" paradigm, no one ever has. The man was the model which countless have followed. For those who didn't walk the trail of the Cronkite paradigm, they simply do not make the grade, nor will they ever. Too many likely do not know much more than the name Cronkite and precious little else about the man most of America welcomed into their homes nightly for generations.

I was a dorky kid.

I was also as nosy and newsy as I am today. Do you think it's why my life went where it went?

Ours was a CBS house, therefore ours was first a Douglas Edwards house then a Walter Cronkite house. If it wasn't Cronkite, it wasn't news, it didn't matter all that much, it wasn't THAT important to our way of life. If it wasn't Cronkite, we never saw it.

Growing up, the neighbors we were closest with were a Huntley/Brinkley family. Why? I have no idea whatsoever. What I do know is that on those few times when I happened to be in their house during evening news, Huntley and Brinkley looked so foreign to me that I was fascinated by who these "other guys" were. Over at my house, I tend to doubt Chet or David ever so much as flashed across our Philco screen for a second. Let's put it this way, I was deprived.

Frankly, and this is a minor whine left over from childhood, I felt a bit left out. Once I was old enough to watch what I wanted to watch and my very own television(an old B&W clunker with rabbit ears), and one was mine at about twelve or thirteen, I defaulted without much thought to Walter Cronkite.

I never got to see and hear their signature and, let's face it, rather famous "Good night, Chet - "Good night, David." It's my understanding that the order of the exchange did alternate from night to night, but I honestly don't remember.

The very first time I heard or read the word avuncular was as applied to Cronkite. I ran for a dictionary and learned what it meant, and of course, have never forgotten what it means. We always had dictionaries nearby growing up, mom and dad always encouraged to grab one when we came across a new word. It works. If you look it up, you'll never forget it.

Other people of greatness have died within the last month. I wrote nothing, for the very simple reason that, what could I possibly add that others haven't already.

It's the same with Walter Cronkite, except the loss, while surely anticipated, is worthy of everyone stopping, thinking, and noting it.

He was literally a giant. And there really was just one Walter Cronkite.