UNFORGETTABLE I

Where HeCame From Tom Brokaw never forgot

BY

HEFIRST time I saw Tom Brokaw up close was in 1984 T when I was a young reporter working for WTTG, a local station in Washington, D.C. I was arriving at the Dem- ocratic National Convention in Brokaw and his "Nightly News" successor San Francisco, and as I got off Williams (left) rib each other off-camera. the plane I realized he was be- hind me on the jetway. That night I A few years later, I got another phoned my parents to tell them that glimpse of Tom. By then I'd risen to the anchor for NBC News had been a somewhat higher level-literally. on my flight. When you're toiling at It was 1989,jubilant crowds were the local level in television, the Big pouring over the , and Three anchors are like rock stars. I was standing in a cherry picker They've covered the stories you've above the Brandenburg Gate. All only dreamed of. You want three networks had hired cranes so to be one of them, but you wouldn't they could get the East and West admit that to your best friend; the German sides into one shot. I was prospect is just too unlikely. covering the upheaval for the CBS 55 RD I JUNE 2005

affiliates, trading places on the plat- up, I had two pressing needs: One form with ; Peter Jen- was a men's room, and the other nings of ABC was on the far cherry was to phone home and tell my wife picker, and Brokaw was in the mid- what had just transpired. I can't con- dle. Brokaw had arrived first, of vey to you what it was like to have course, and the whole world knew this icon not only promise to hire he'd beaten us to one of the biggest me as national correspondent, but stories of the century. I looked over hold out the possibility that I could at him with a mix of envy and awe. become his successor. I was dazed. But it wasn't until the winter of TV news is not a business known 1992that I actually met the man, the for mentoring and generosity. It's a same evening he offered me a job. business where you can get a knife I'd had a call from an NBC vice pres- stuck squarely in your back by ident, asking if I'd be willing to have someone you work with every day. a drink with Tom Brokaw, and I'd But with Tom, there was and is no had to suppress the impulse to be hidden agenda: What you see is funny and say, "No, I'm sorting my what you get-a solid product of sock drawer." We met in the bar rock-ribbed Middle America. In his of a hotel and sat sipping sparkling newscasts, he projected a rare com- water for hours. By the time we got bination of a been-there, done-that confidence and an earnestness that for his after-school job trimming translated to great credibility. Peo- the neighbors' lawns, his father built ple believe him. They want to hear him one out of an old washing ma- about major events through the fil- chine motor, toy wagon wheels and ter of Tom's experience. scrap metal. Off the air, he's exactly the same It was his mother who nourished way. He might tell stories of flyiilg his ambitions; she'd watch the local on Air Force One with Nixon and cut-ins on "The Today Show" and Kissinger, but he's just as likely to tell him, "You know, you can do bet- reminisce about his boyhood in ter than that anchor in Sioux City." Yankton, . Tom's father Yet if he asked her how he looked in was a heavy-equipment operator a sharp new outfit, she'd say, "What who dropped out of school at 10, makes you think anybody's going to and his mother took any job she be looking at you?" When people could to help pay the bills. The fam- marvel at his lack of pomposity, he ily boiled bathwater on the stove says, "My mother wouldn't allow it." and saved bent nails in a coffee can. Actually, our mothers sound His parents taught him solid val- pretty similar. And I could have ues-honesty, hard work, thrift. shared some of my own small-town When Tom wanted a power mower tales-I grew up in Elmira, New 57 RD I JUNE 2005

York, and spent my youth going to I've been out to visit him on the the state fairgrounds to watch auto ranch many times. The Brokaws live racing on Friday nights. But our first in a lovely but modest home, and conversations were awfully one- Tom has a pick-up truck. He is not sided; Tom is one of the great racon- a big toy guy. He doesn't need many teurs, and I just wanted to listen to accoutrements around him. His him. I also watched him: You could proudest possession is probably his learn more by sitting near him in 120head of bison. the newsroom than you could at any journalism school. I still find myself HE FIRST TIME I visited doing things the way Tom did- the ranch, Tom taught me writing the ending of the newscast how to hand-feed bison first, for example, and the lead item T with pellets he calls bison last, so that it will be fresh in my biscuits, about the size and shape mind when I start the broadcast. of marathon batons. Tom hurled a When I'm at the anchor desk, I hear 50-pound bag in the back of the Tom's voice in my head. pickup, and we drove out to the Tom has a ranch in Montana. grassland. He ripped open the bag When he'd return to New York, it and the bison surrounded us. was always as if he had a fresh re- You're looking up at the puffy port from the front. In our insulated white clouds, and you understand newsroom at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, why it's called Big Sky Country. You you can easily let yourself drift too realize that you're one very lucky far from the sensibilities that make man to be in the presence of this the nation go. But Tom has never guy and this wonderful wide-open lost touch with that side of America. space. And you realize something He's always at his happiest in a place else: If you never forget where you where sunup means fishing in the came from, it will serve you well creek or leaving for an all-day ride for the rest of your life. on a favorite horse. As told to KENNETH MILLER

SENIOR MOMENTS

My young children have a favorite book about dinosaurs, and we quote from it all the time. One day, as we entered an elevator on our way to a doctor's appointment, I said,"Boys, an elevator-just like in your book." Then I recited one of their favorite sections, "Dinosaurs early. Dinosaurs later. Dinosaurs crammed in an elevator." The three of us laughed giddily, and I glanced up to share the mo- ment with the other occupants-a sea of bewildered-looking senior citizens. WENDY IRVINE 58