I will not go into a story unprepared. I will do my homework, and that’s something I learned at an early age.
You know, I think I still have a sense that no matter what you do, no matter what you achieve, no matter how much success you have, no matter how much money you have, relationships are important.
As a child, I loved to read books. The library was a window to the world, a pathway to worlds and people far from my neighborhood in Philadelphia.
I taught sixth grade for three and a half years.
You can work hard to sharpen your talent, to get better at whatever it is that you do, and I think that’s what it comes back to.
There was no one around me who didn’t work hard.
I’d watch my father get up at 5 o’clock and go down to the Eastern Market in Detroit to do the shopping for his restaurant, and get that business going and then go out on his vending machine business.
I had no experience with broadcasting basketball games, so I took a tape recorder and went to a playground where there was a summer league, and I stood up in the top of the stands and I called the game.
And I always found that the harder I worked, the better my luck was, because I was prepared for that.
I always felt more emotionally attached to Cambodia than I did to Vietnam.
I knew that God put me on this earth to be on the radio.
I stayed three weeks in Paris, fell in love with the city, and decided that I was born to live in Paris.
The only thing I’d ever done with news was to read copy sitting at the microphone in the studio.
My uncle was a hero, Lewis Roundtree. He was not even related to me really, but he was always called my uncle. He was like a father to me. I was closer to him than I was my father.
That’s when I hit the ground. So in the instant that that round landed and blew me in the air, I had those separate and distinct thoughts. The guy who was standing right next to where I had been standing had a hole in his back I could put my fist into.
Professionally, I remember Cronkite as a kid growing up, and more so for me, the importance of Cronkite was not him sitting there at the anchor desk, but him out there doing things.
The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.
I had never been out covering a story, but boy, was that fun.
I think, in some ways, Michael Jackson is out of touch with reality, and I don’t think he has people around him who can say, Michael, can’t do this. Michael, you can’t do that. Michael, you can’t say this. You know, I think he has been so big for so long that he can do whatever he wants to do.
The people in your life are important. Meaningful relationships with those people are very important.