When I worked at ABC News, I was surprised to discover that one of my favorite duties was to write an obituary when someone famous died. Favorite, because it gave me an opportunity to remember the dearly departed’s life and to revisit what it was about them that made all our lives better. I often [...]

Captain Kangaroo, aka Bob Keeshan, 1927-2004 As the easy-going Captain with his big pockets and his bushy mustache, Keeshan lured children into close engagement with literature, science, and especially music, adopting an approach which mixed pleasure and pedagogy. Children learned most easily, he argued, when information and knowledge became a source of delight. Keeshan’s approach [...]

Eulogy for Eudora: “I looked over my shoulder to see twenty yards away, moving steadily toward the front door leaning on one of Jitney’s orange and red shopping carts, a living legend: the greatest American author yet alive, the last of a generation, an accidental, effortless survivor, Eudora Welty.” [thanks, saranwarp]

“I think it’s in our nature to talk, to tell stories, appreciate stories.”-Author Eudora Welty, dead at 92 Oops – I thought she died 20 years ago. If I’d known she was alive, I would have made a pilgrimage to Mississippi to see her. She was one of the great American writers of the 20th [...]