W is for Walter Cronkite

Godspeed to legendary journalist Walter Cronkite, who passed away last Friday at the age of 92. Cronkite, who served as the anchorman for the CBS Evening News, was arguably one of America's most trusted men during his era and famously choked back tears when breaking the news of President Kennedy's assassination and made waves when he declared that the Vietnam War was unwinnable.

Walter Cronkite was the anchorman of my early childhood, and since the family tradition was to watch the evening news while eating dinner (I still think this was highly educational and developmental for me, regardless of what the "dinnertime for famiy conversation only" pundits say), it was Walter Cronkite that delivered the news to our family.

He obviously had quite an impression on me as a young tyke, because when I was in kindergarten, our teacher, Mrs. Weinthal asked us for words that started with the letter "W". After my classmates and I ran through words such as "walk", "wet", and "wind", I thought really hard and blurted out "Walter Cronkite".

Mrs. Weinthal was apparently so impressed that she told my parents about this episode. To game the system, I'm going to get Daniel to memorize "Katie Couric".