Over the years, I’ve been privileged to have either seen or met many celebrities. I was always happy to meet a celebrity, it never made me feel uncomfortable or at a loss for words; never that is until I saw the one man that had been “The Voice of Reason”, considered for a long time as “The Most Trusted Man in America.” Here he was standing right in front of my workplace. I walked right up and said are you…and then it hit, I had a brain freeze, but this bigger than life man, in his booming voice said “Yes, I am.” It was Walter Cronkite.

Yes, here was the man that made the news come to life, yet had to bear the burden of John Kennedy’s death to a nation; this was the man who shared his joy with this country when it came to the landing on the moon. It was funny to me that I should see him standing in front of my workplace on 52^nd street, because I had been a courier for my uncle, often delivering to CBS 60 Minutes. ‘60 Minutes’ was my uncle’s biggest client and  I always kept my eyes open for Walter at his own office building, but of course I never saw him there.

My uncle produced a map that was used by all three major TV stations. This map was put to use when Astronaut Alan Shepard made his flight around the earth. Mr. Cronkite was in Florida in 1961 for the launch of Alan Shepard and since my uncle was working with the reporters and hanging around for several months while that flight was delayed several times. My Uncle Ed got to spend some time with Mr. Cronkite, so I took the occasion to remind him of that time.

Our meeting was short, but a memorable one and I can still hear him say “Yes, I am.”