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14 november 2000

i'm in touch with my inner winnebago owner

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be Charles Kuralt. Not his assistant, and not his driver. I wanted his job, his Winnebago, and that mondo cool job as a CBS Sunday Morning correspondent. He was way better than church. All hail the holy order of Charles Kuralt, on the road to Heaven's greatest diners where all the fun, wacky angels hang out.

For those of you who are a little younger than me (no smart remarks, whippersnappers,), or live outside of the United States, Charles Kuralt was a native North Carolinian who moved up to New York as a young man, and went to work for CBS television, writing wire stories for less than $150.00 a week. At the age of twenty-four, he became the youngest network newscaster in American History. With his special features at the end of CBS's nighly newscast, which were called "On the Road;" Kuralt became, in my opinion, the greatest human-interest journalist America has ever seen. He would travel America in a big, comfy RV, meet eccentric people, eat great food, and tell us about life off the beaten path. Everytime I watched On the Road, it was like watching a live-action Robert Frost poem. Always gentle and never judgemental, Charles Kuralt is at least partly to blame for my early, incurable wanderlust.

On 1979, Kuralt started airing a show called Sunday Morning. It was a simple, elegant show, featuring poets (such as Marianne Moore, who was the cute little old lady I want to be), photographers, and musicians. He and his kindly correspondents gave us precisely the kind of news we could use on a Sunday morning: beautiful, thought-provoking, and timeless. Like the art and artists he often featured, this was television that will find itself in museums someday. The sort of stuff you talk with your kids about at dinner. The thoughts that cross your mind on long walks through falling leaves. He broadcast the best that America's eyes, ears, and souls could offer.

Sunday Morning is still on the air, and sometimes I get to catch it. Charles Osgood hosts it now, keeping with the quiet elegance of Kuralt's original. Watching it reminds me that life is a good place to be, that the world is still full of good people and high ideals, and Sunday mornings are meant for walks and ice cream. Or whatever your fancy happens to be.

Charles Kuralt died on July 4 of 1997. I don't normally get too upset when famous people die, but his passing left me feeling kind of lonely for awhile. The only people touring America in a Winnebago now are those insufferable MTV Road Rules twerps, and they're not quietly enjoying elderly people's company, home-cooked meals, or forgotten highways. They just yell, bungee jump, and flip off other drivers. No one travels as unobtrusively as he did, which is a shame in our fast-paced world.

When I was a kid, people would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And invariably, I told plenty of people that I wanted to get a big RV and drive around meeting cool people like Charles Kuralt did. I haven't purchased the RV yet, but I am getting plenty of practice in local diners, city festivals, and on my occasional road trips to nowhere in particular.

I can't say that I've ever overcome the wanderlust, though much of it has subsided. I've travelled for periods of time for a living, and the truth is that it's grueling unless you're getting paid whopping gobs of money and going where you want to go. I'm sure Charles Kuralt had his moments of boredom and frustration as he took us on the road with him, but I'm sure glad he did it.

He was a good teacher. There's serenity around many corners. Today, that was the only lesson I needed to remember.