Annapolis Capital Punishment

As a youngster who enjoyed watching television news, there was really but one reporter--Walter Cronkite. Everybody knew him. When we pretended to be reporters, such as the time we made a history film for school, each of us wanted to play him, whom we called Walter Klondyke. All the other reporters were just second fiddle.

While traditional and normative journalism, that of simply reporting the news, is being pounded to death--or being pounded into something new every day, we recall Cronkite as really being the most trusted man in America. He alone, although perhaps supplanted later by Woodward and Bernstein, inspired many a young person to become reporters.

He was born in 1916, the same year my Mother was born, and while he was not quite as familiar as my Mom was to me, he sometimes seemed to be a member of the household. I'll bet that a lot of readers feel the same way. I was too young to remember when President Kennedy was killed, but every time I replay Cronkite reporting his death, and he removes his glasses, "almost losing it" as he later recalled, I almost lose it too. And Cronkite knew JFK as he knew everyone of them, I would presume, since Truman was in office.

I crossed paths with him on two occasions and since just about every journalist in America is probably putting in their two cents about the great CBS anchor, here is mine, although, honestly, these two cents don't amount to much and one is slightly embarrassing but here goes.

The first time was in Boston Harbor during one of those gala, Tall Ships celebrations. I think it was June, 1980. I was aboard the Brigantine "Young America" and we were approached by the Boston Pilot boat and there on the bow was the great Cronkite in a blue suit, smiling and waving. He came within hailing distance, and yours truly, ever making witty wordplay, blurted out "Hello Mr Cronkite. Where's your anchor....man?" which at the time I thought was terribly humorous. Yes, I did. At the time. For about a second or two. Cronkite ignored me and so did everybody else but I have a photo of him on the boat of the boat.

And yes, I did sit on the head of the revered newsman. It was on his boat Wyntje while she was tied up at City dock. I had spied him a few times around Annapolis when his boat arrived, but once, I walked by the boat and an acquaintance on board waved hello. We had known each other from teaching at the Annapolis Sailing School, which just about everybody in town seems to have done at one time or another, but this fellow had landed the job as Cronkite's live-aboard caretaker, and skipper. He invited me aboard. Wow. I was on Walter Cronkite's boat. I was nervous in case the great newsman returned. What if I had to introduce myself? What would I have said this time? And then I had to relieve myself and so I did--by going to the head. What if he came on while I was in that uncompromising position? Would I say something stupid about having seen his head up close so many times that it seemed almost natural? Not what you were thinking--but pardon me for ending this story the way every story about his life will end, but I sat on Walter Cronkite's head and that's the way it was. And I was there.



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