It was a typically understated farewell from Bob Edwards this morning, with grace and class… but a twinge of annoyance in his voice when he mentioned several times that he’d been with Morning Edition 24 years and 6 months — tacitly pointing out the timing of his ouster when they could just as easily have let him finish 25 years. As a consolation of sorts, NPR has created a special Bob Edwards: 30 Years section on their website.
I’ll miss Bob every morning. I’m sure that I, like most people, will get used to a new “team” of anchors in the morning, but it won’t be relaxing, and it won’t be soothing.
I hope that we’ll hear from Bob often.
Here’s what Baxter Black has to say about Bob.
Born in a log cabin, Bob served as a joke writer for presidents Lincoln, Wilson and Coolidge. He served honorably in the army as Gen. Westmoreland’s personal trainer. Later he was appointed ambassador to Labrador, served as a spelling consultant at the Dan Quayle/Lloyd Bentsen debate, and as special prosecutor at the Lisa Marie Presley/Michael Jackson merger.
The cast of this thrilling epic includes “the one previously known as Prince” in the starring role as Bob. His three sidekicks Walter Cronkite, Regis Philbin and Sandra Day O’Connor are played respectively by Donald Rumsfeld, Whoopi Goldberg and Milton Berle.
The movie, originally titled Into Thin Air, and later, The Perfect Storm, has been compared to Gone With The Wind. It climaxes with the carving of Bob’s face on Mt. Rushmore between Tip O’Neill and Ted Turner, the erection of his statue in the rotunda astride his faithful horse Sonny, sword upright, riding in to the Final Four to rescue Louisville. And his inclusion on Consumer Guide’s best-dressed list.
The touching epilogue shows Bob wearing a burka and a hardhat on location with Sylvia Poggioli (somewhere dangerous), recording a public radio solicitation spot for Pledge Drive Week.
Among the retrospective is a recording of the broadcast on the morning of September 11, 2001. It’s a full hour and a half, bringing back memories of the confusion that reigned that morning. Usually, at that time of morning I would have been listening, but on September 11 I was at a staff retreat early, in the National 4H Center in suburban Maryland where we saw the events on television. Frankly, now that I hear Bob Edwards broadcasting the story, I realize that he managed to bring an element of calm to the morning by not giving in to hysteria and keeping himself in check… unlike the television broadcasts.
