When I saw him the day after the plane and helicopter crash at Reagan I knew exactly why he was in town.
"Lester Holt?"
He turned, looked down at me and smiled, "Yes."
"I'm a big fan," I said.
He thanked me, I smiled, and left him. I have never been able to ask a celebrity for an autograph or picture.
I immediately regretted it, but I also knew he was lost in his own thoughts at that moment. He was standing outside the bodega at DC Union Station. Days later he made news with the announcement of his departure from NBC Nightly News. Suddenly, his quiet introspection, gazing outside an open store, made sense. I believe in that moment his quasi-retirement flooded his thoughts.
There is no way this was his choice. TV lore is ripe with stories of the old dog favored for the younger model (Tom Llamas, in this case). But Lester is a musician at heart, so when the bosses came to him and said numbers were down, he knew just how to play this. A classy exit.
In his decade on the show many of us have experienced significant life shifts. For me this was the double whammy of 2018 - losing my mother unexpectedly but earning a long-sought master's at a British university. Seeing Holt each night was an anchor, only interspersed by my 15 months abroad, when Katty Kaye and Christian Frasier took his place.
I had been crazy about his predecessor, Brian Wiliams, but disappointed by his lapse in journalistic integrity. Holt was the ideal antidote. He interviewed a churlish, infuriating Trump, his successorfrom Scranton, and a host of other leaders, always remaining unflappable. It was fitting we met in DC.
Calm, steady, kind, and in his presence rather sequoia-esque. If Williams seemed schmoozy, Holt was genuine, the grown up boy-next-door.
I'm glad we met, Lester. And I don't need a picture. My memory is seared into my subconscious, much like your tag line, "Take care of yourself and each other." ***Photo: Gage Skidmore, Nov 4, 2019; Lester speaks with attendees at the Annual Cronkite Award Luncheon at the Sheraton Grand Phoenix in Phoenix.
I was tired, cranky, sweating in line at a Stop 'n Shop in a poor part of New Haven to cash in my returned-bottle receipts. Somehow, the talk turned to the recent debate and the impending election. The woman ahead of me, a fiery Black lady of middle age, shot back that she was staying with Joe. "People are afraid of a little age. 81. So what! Look at all the good things he's done. He's not perfect, but who is? I am staying with him. He's a good man." And someone brought up Obama's name. I said you could be sure he'll be more in his ear than ever if he continues. She: "That's just fine. I won't let people try to replace JOE!" I have to say, this Democrat was moved. Her love for him shook me to the core. Until I realized what was really happening. The Black community was so thrilled to finally have a person of color in office that they naturally loved his "this is a big effing deal" sidekick, Uncle Joe. The Barack Obama legacy...
Watching the second of the presidential debates the other night, I winced when I watched Biden speak, react, squirm, half-raise his pointer finger. He does not look well. It is not just his age; he looks frail. I thought he was older than Bernie, but the latter is more than a year older. Everyone knew that beside Mayor Pete, Biden would look about a hundred; but what no one had reckoned was how that young whippersnapper Kamala Harris would eclipse the vice-president like a bull at a meat parade. She took her bites laced in pink, but with a venom that stung into the morning and will resonate for years to come. Biden not only looked weak, but out-of-touch, old in the way my late mother (who died at 79) never did. His ideas were old, his approach was arrogant, and his self-importance wreaked. Bernie was better, and his youthful following will always love him. I am impressed by his vigor and vim, and like him more this time round than I did last time. But that may be because compared to...
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