Three years ago today, Walter Cronkite died from cerebrovascular disease, which is a ‘’ group of brain dysfunctions related to disease of the blood vessels supplying the brain.”

He was 92.

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I remember when he retired in 1980.

It was rather a traumatic event for a nerdy character like me, who had very few father figures in his life, apart from his biological father George, then 58 and showing the first signs of dementia  , hard to disambiguate from his alcoholic  alter ego . As Dad faded away, Uncle Walt was my last inlet to a certain sensibility I was accustomed to, due to the promise of a truly great Father...

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Uncle Walter tried to soften the blow of his departure with this gentle lie: “For almost two decades, after all, we've been meeting like this in the evenings, and I'll miss that.

But those who have made anything of this departure,

 I'm afraid have made too much.

This is but a transition, a passing of the baton.

A great broadcaster and gentleman,

 Doug Edwards, preceded me in this job, and another, Dan Rather, will follow.”

…………………………………………………

A  boy must learn to take leave of his father. This was my first experience of it. I was beginning to take leave of George after 13 glorious years of utmost trust and admiration.  He was getting awfully strange , I intuited, but was unwilling to accept, yet.

Until the family apocalypse, which  weirdly yet appropriately dovetailed with Uncle Walt’s departure, and also the death of my grandfather.

Another George Emmerling! A German immigrant , who went peacefully from pneumonia at age 90. In that awful year, 1980. Wherein i entered junior high school,  a hell .

13 was a bad age to deal with all these losses.

……………………………………………………………….

Cronkite was Dad Amplified for me. Dad didn’t talk a lot. But if he did, he would sound like Uncle Walt.

One of the deepest aural/visual memories I have is of Uncle Walter’s voice/face/mustache/eyes  telling me “that’s the way it is”.

…………………………………………..

Up to 1980, Uncle Walt held me in his protection every night.

Then he was gone, and I was too.

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13 to 45  for me is rather a damn fool time. I was fatherless, and uncle-less too!

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• For how many thousands of years now have we humans been

what we insist on calling "civilized?"

And yet, in total contradiction,

 we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally,

 at least, settle our arguments by killing one another.

While we spend much of our time and a great deal of our treasure in preparing for war, we see no comparable effort to establish a lasting peace.

Meanwhile, emphasizing the sloth in this regard,

those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government

are called impractical dreamers.

Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics

 what is so practical about war.

Uncle’s address to the UN, 1999