Week of July 24: Cronkite's Adventures

In paying tribute to Walter Cronkite, who died last Friday, most news accounts mentioned the CBS anchor's top news stories, including his coverage of the early years of the space program.

The apogee, to use a space term, of that coverage, of course, came on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11's lunar module, Eagle, landed on the moon. At one point, an emotional Cronkite said to astronaut Wally Schirra, who was covering the landing with him, "Say something, Wally. I'm speechless." Cronkite semi-lamented, in later years, that he wasn't more eloquent at that moment, but no regrets were needed. It was an honest moment in a career full of them.

After Cronkite stepped down from the CBS Evening News anchor chair in 1981, he did anything but retire. Cronkite immediately began hosting a science program, called "Universe," for the network. It lasted a couple of years.

Lasting a lot longer were two significant hosting duties - until 2005 at the Kennedy Center Honors, which have aired on CBS since their beginning in 1978, and on PBS' annual New Year's celebration with the Vienna Philharmonic, which Cronkite hosted until last year. Here's a link to a video in which Cronkite has some after-dinner entertainment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhKXpe4w8GY

This Sunday, the Discovery Channel will rebroadcast "Cronkite Remembers," an eight-part series that originally aired when Cronkite released his autobiography, "A Reporter's Life." It covers Cronkite's journalism career.

But his career was about much more. Thank you, Walter.

See you next week.