R.I.P. Uncle Walter

I don't have much to say about the passing of Walter Cronkite earlier today, except to say that when I was a kid my family ate dessert in the living room and watched the CBS Evening News. Thinking about it now, I have to say that it was an ingenious way to get my sister and me to know and even care about the news and current events.

Now, I was too young (4 years old) to remember this particular footage, but it's a trim 59 seconds of TV gold...Dan Rather gets roughed up on the floor of the 1968 Democratic Convention, when all hell broke loose in Chicago, and at one point Cronkite utters one of my favorite quotes of all time - "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan."

YouTube has disabled embedding, so here's the link.

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

RIP, Mr. Cronkite...

Hotcha! Hank

[photo courtesy Life Magazine]