When I grow to old to dream I’ll still have Bill to remember

The April edition of the “AARP Bulletin” featured the journalist Bill Moyers. He and I are contemporaries but it always seems to me that I’ve been following his career since I was in diapers. He’s a fixture in the landscape of America.  When he retired a year ago from his weekly television show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” I felt abandoned, just as I did the when Walter Cronkite said, “And that’s the way it is,” for the last time on the CBS news.

 

(Bill Moyers. courtesy: Wikipedia)

No journalist working today holds my regard the way Cronkite and Moyers did. Woodward and Bernstein are crack reporters, yes, and I hold Christiane Amanpour in high regard. But there was thoughtfulness in the reporting of these two older men that went beyond accuracy and rested comfortably in trust. They strove to give us facts without bias and helped us see the world with clearer eyes. In sum, both men showed a reverence for the truth and a respect for their audience.

Happily, Moyers has returned from retirement. His new program, Moyers & Company, is one I rarely miss, and I’m happy to see that his absence from the field has not diminished his insights. He explores painful subjects with the probing hands of a gentle doctor and helps us understand how the body politic works. 

In his essay, “On Not Growing Old,” (“AARP Bulletin,” 4/2012), he talks of retiring again when he is 80. But retirement isn’t the word, really. He’s already thinking about the future: 

          “Maybe we’ll get to the one series Judith and I keep talking about but have never gotten around to producing; a series on aging.” (pg. 36)  

If he follows through with his plans, I hope I’ll be around to watch. If I could choose anyone to grow old gracefully with, it would be Bill.