Walter Cronkite’s Heroic Life Stories
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Walker Cronkite died yesterday at the age of 92.
I am one of the millions of people who used to watch Walter Cronkite on the the CBS Evening News every night. I heard him announce the news of some of the biggest events of my lifetime, including the landing on the moon, the assassination of Martin Luther King, and the futility of the war in Vietnam. Walter Cronkite was a constant presence in my life for years.
With all of the accolades and memories and film clips of his broadcasts, there is one particular characteristic of Walter Cronkite that I would like to emphasize.
Walter Cronkite lived a heroic authentic life story. Actually, his life is a series of heroic stories.
The essence of a hero’s story is that something happens to upset the typical order of things, and the hero chooses to act to resolve what is wrong. Heroic actions always benefit others, and often come at high cost to the hero. In the process, the hero becomes a different person, and the world becomes a better place.
This is the essence of the life of Walter Cronkite, played out again and again.
An obvious example is his heroism during World War II, when he risked his life to get the story from the front lines.
But rather than emphasize these obviously heroic exploits, such as when he parachuted into France to cover D-Day, I would like to emphasize his heroic approach to his position as anchor of the CBS News.
As a measure of a heroic life, consider the most commonly repeated words about him. “Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America.”
At one time, his audience was so large, and his image so credible, that a 1972 poll determined he was “the most trusted man in America” – surpassing even the president, vice president, members of Congress and all other journalists. In a time of turmoil and mistrust, after Vietnam and Watergate, the title was a rare feat – and the label stuck. Most Trusted Man In America
Walter Cronkite was trusted because he was authentic.
Why is this heroic? Because he saw clearly that whatever he said, and how he said it, had the power to affect other people, and he took that responsibility seriously.
Cronkite set the tone at the beginning of television news. He set the standards for television reporting, with his commitment to excellence and objectivity.
The story that is being told once again is that Walter Cronkite stepped away from that determined objectivity only once. He reported that the war in Vietnam was not winnable.
In 1968, Cronkite returned from visiting Vietnam and declared on television: “It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate.” President Lyndon Johnson, on hearing that, reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” Not long after, Johnson declared his intention not to run for re-election. Vietnam Is A Stalemate
This was a heroic moment, when Cronkite “spoke truth to power.”
This is the essence of heroism. He risked his reputation, to speak the truth as he saw it, and in the process, triggered the beginning of the end of the misbegotten tragedy called the War in Vietnam.
Most of us will never have the kind of persuasive impact that Walter Cronkite had, as he reported the news during a tumultuous time in history. But his life is a reminder of the heroic effect of being authentic—true to your beliefs, your values, and your word, and willing to do what is hard, because it is the right thing to do. Walter Cronkite, heroic newsman, made the world a better place because he was heroically authentic.
Kalinda Rose Stevenson
The Story ReTeller
Observing The Extraordinary In The Ordinary
Most of us remember the high points of our life stories with pride and happiness, and we remember the low points with regret and grief, but that is not where most of us live our lives. For most of us, most of the time, life is lived in the middle—the place of the ordinary experiences of life.
For a year, my husband and I have lived in the desert, at the very southern tip of Nevada, where California, Arizona and Nevada meet along the meandering route of the Colorado River.
Six days a week, we get up very early and walk to Mountain View Park. The park is beautifully maintained, with green grass and flowering shrubs that bloom in the desert only because of copious amounts of water poured onto the land every morning. It is also a park in the desert, and so, much of the vegetation are desert plants.
So, we walk exactly one mile up a rather steep road, down a short access road, and then walk around a path that is two-thirds of a mile long, and then we go back down the long hill to go home for breakfast.
It is an ordinary routine. The same route and the same path around the park. Usually, we see the same people, and often stop for conversations. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we use the exercise equipment along the path.
Every day is the same, and yet, every day is also different. The big difference is not the location, but the images captured by the camera I carry with me almost everywhere I go. My life story becomes a story told in pictures.
Every day I take pictures of the same things, the same mountain peaks, the same plants. I take a “daily shot” in the same location every morning of the view from the lower end of the park, looking back across the ball fields, toward the mountain peaks in the background.
There is nothing remarkable about this scene and it will never be featured on the cover of National Geographic. And as a photographer, I would love to get rid of the light poles and bright blue trash cans that are almost impossible to hide. But I take the daily shot because it is what it is—a scene I see six days a week. I take the same shot every day, and yet, every day something is different about it.
"Daily Shot" In Mountain View Park
Most of the people who walk in the park are there to accomplish some purpose. They are there to walk their dogs—the dogs that chase rabbits. The dog owners laugh as each terrified bunny runs for cover under the nearest brittlebush.
Or daily park vistors run or stride several laps around the path. Most exchange greetings. Some don’t. They stare straight ahead, as if they are on an urgent mission, and cannot stop for anything or speak to anyone.
Or they walk with friends, and talk intently, telling stories about something that happened the day before. The basketball playoff they watched. The complaining customer who sent back the plate of food. What Barack Obama said about the economy. They tell life stories, because this is what people love to do.
Once, a woman I see almost every day as she walks her dog asked me: “Why are you taking pictures?” She said she had wondered and decided to ask. I told her I take pictures of whatever catches my eye that day, that I always see something that interests me. I don’t know what she thought about my answer, but I suspect it made little sense to her.
We still greet each other every morning, as she walks her dog and Jim and I make the circuit around the park. We often overhear a brief snippet of her latest installment in her daily life story of unfairness, which she tells at high volume to anyone who walks with her.
Meanwhile, I still see something that interests me every morning, although there are days when I have to look hard to find it. A baby bunny, nibbling on tiny leaves, on a spiny desert shrub. The small Anna’s hummingbird perched on its favorite bush among the chaparral in the far northeast corner of the park. The few days last month when the prickly pear cactus opened up a new magenta bloom each day. The pink orchid-like blossoms of the desert willows, which are now in full bloom.
Desert Willow Blossoms
The light is different each morning, depending on the time of the sunrise, the season of the year, and the weather. Sometimes the sky is brilliant blue, sometimes overcast with gray, and sometimes, wispy high clouds float through the sky. Every day is different in the sameness of a small park in the desert.
I once read about a writer who visited the same small plot of land every day, for decades, because he claimed it made him more aware. He was a famous author, whose name I had seen, but I am quite sure I had never read anything he wrote. I also have a vague notion that he was a nineteenth-century French writer, but I don’t know for sure. I do know that the idea struck me and has stayed with me.
Most of us are looking for new ideas, new experiences, and new places, when we don’t even pay attention to the small wonders of life in the ordinary world around us. It’s the small stuff that really shapes our lives and shapes our stories.
Richard Carlson wrote best-selling books based on the advice, “Don’t sweat the small stuff…and it’s all small stuff.” He was making a different point than I am.
My point is that the small stuff is where we live most of our lives. Our life stories are made up of ordinary events in familiar places. When we look—really look at the ordinary things of life—the small stuff is actually full of wonder.
How many people actually see the non-descript yellow and white desert plant filled with tiny lady bugs? How many stop long enough to listen to the humming tree, and look at the branches long enough to see that the tree is alive with bees that are only visible if you stop long enough to look for them? How many are watching in those fleeting seconds when the hummingbird’s dark head turns iridescent red in morning sunlight?
I see those little glimpses of wonder in the midst of the ordinary because of the camera. Most of my pictures of ordinary things are ordinary. Many are very good. I think that some are actually spectacular. I delete the ones that aren’t worth keeping. [And even my best shots lose quality when they are shrunk down to size to fit on these pages. The originals are much sharper than the ones you see on this page.]
And yes, I love to take my camera on picture-taking excursions to new places. There are days when I would love to see something new, something more dramatic than desert plants in a desert landscape. But even on the grayest days, I always see something wonderful—full of wonder—if I look for it.
For most of us, our life stories are remembered by the high points and the low points. Our photo albums are full of pictures of the big moments. The birthdays, the weddings, the anniversaries, the holidays, the vacation trips. We don’t usually keep photo albums of the low points and most of us don’t take pictures of the ordinary moments. And yet the ordinary is where we spend most of our time, and these are the moments that truly determine who we are.
As a way to be present in the world, taking pictures with a small digital camera is a way to be present and to be observant of the ordinary things of daily life. In those moments of focusing intentionally on the familiar landscape of daily life, even the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
“The Story ReTeller”
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Kalinda Rose Stevenson
“The Story ReTeller”
