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Originally Posted by Dozer523
Uncle Walter is dead?
He told me about all those happy things like the Men on the moon. He made me feel proud.
He taught me about history with the "You are There" Saturday TV show. He made me feel smarter.
He told me about bad things like when President Kennedy was murdered. He made me feel like everything was still going to be okay.
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Funny how the obit did not mention his love of sailing and how he and JFK helped to bring and start the Tall Ships regatta to NYC.
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Walter Cronkite and Sailing
Sunday July 19, 2009
At age 80, still sailing, Walter Cronkite in an interview summarized his voyages this way:
They're kind of the middle-area sailing trips. I don't go transoceanic. But we do a lot of offshore sailing. Sailing the boat down to the Caribbean in the winter and back in the spring. In the summertime we sail off of our home in Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts and around the northeastern part of the United States, which is very challenging sailing. I have a group of friends with whom I sail—mostly pirates out of Annapolis.
In his 1996 autobiography A Reporter's Life, he wrote eloquently about the sailor’s inner life:
Sailing for me has satisfied many urges. For one thing, it feeds the Walter Mitty in me, that inner heroism with which James Thurber endowed his unforgettable character. I never sail from harbor without either having a load of tea for Southampton or orders from the admiral to purse that villain Long John Silver and his rapacious crew. I love the challenge of the open sea, the business of confronting Mother Nature and learning to live compatibly with her, avoiding if possible her excesses but always being prepared to weather them.
There is nothing more satisfying than dropping anchor in an otherwise deserted cove just before sunset, of pouring that evening libation and, with a freshly roasted bowl of popcorn, lying back as the geese and ducks and loons make your acquaintance and the darkness slowly descends to complement the silence
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I had the pleasure of sailing with... or rather crewing on a boat he was driving a few yrs back. He is/was as much a gentleman aboard as he was when reading the news and tell me how it was/is..
This is what I get for being offline for a week... I shall miss you Walt. You inspired me to continue sailing when I was about to walk away and being come a permanent landlubber three yrs ago.. I was blessed for that chance meeting and that chance sail.
AM