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Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
In those days, if you wanted to listen to music on the radio you had to look in the newspaper and find out when it was going to be played. Now, today there are all-music stations, I mean, all over your dial, just as there are all-news stations. But there was a strict category of broadcasts, lots of soap operas, and other features. And at four o'clock in the afternoon, there would be music, something called, "Sam's Show" - - me! And I remember the theme. Bing Crosby and his son, Gary, sang it on a record: "Here's a happy tune, they love to croon, they call it Sam's song." And I'd come in and say, "Hello, this is Sam Donaldson," and on we'd go. And I'd play music for an hour and just had a ball.
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Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
All my early years in the '60s, whether working for a local station in Washington, or beginning at ABC, I didn't think of myself as successful in terms of, "I'm a big star, I'm a big Pooh-Bah, I'm a number one reporter." I did think of myself as successful in being able to compete and get the job done. Some days the competition would beat me and I'd go home thinking awful thoughts, want to hide under the bed, depressed. But of course, in the news business, when you're working a daily news broadcast, you get your victories and defeats every day. If you get a defeat today, go back tomorrow morning and you may beat the competition. And you go home thinking you're on top of the world. "Boy did I whip them! Did I get the story!" And so, I thought of myself as successful in those terms. I could compete, I could get my share of the stories, I could get a television report on the air that told you something, that was accurate, that was right on, and that was enough for me. I didn't think in terms of, "And some day I'll be way up here," or "I'll make all of this." it was simply that I was doing well, enjoying what I was doing.
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Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
He was walking down the red carpet, down to Air Force One with President Sadat. Now, I sang out and I said, "Mr. President," I said, "is it peace? Is it peace?" He said, "Well, I don't think we better go beyond what President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin and I agreed to say at this point." And I said, "But you said something to the effect that if the Knesset agrees that -- are you saying that it's peace?" And he looked at me and he said, "Yes." Well, everyone ran and filed. And of course, all the smart guys told me later, "Well, we knew that all the time." And I said, "Well then why did you wait to file 'til he said that at the rope line?" Now, you say, "Sam," you're going to say, "that's a great interview?" No. I mean, is that one of those wonderful interviews that lives in history? No. But I got a piece of information that, at that precise moment, told the world something that was quite important. And as a reporter, I thought that was a great interview.
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Rita Dove
Former Poet Laureate of the United States
Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking really for permission. And what was wonderful about that was the fact that they let us choose what we wanted to read for extra reading material. So it was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely, not because someone assigned it to me, but because I chose to read it. There was an anthology up there. One anthology of poetry. It was a purple with gold cover, I'll never forget. It's really thick. It went from Roman times all the way up to the 1950's at that point. And I began to browse. I mean, I really was like browsing. I read in it a little bit. If I liked a poem by one person, I would read the rest of them by that person. I was about eleven or twelve at this point. I had no idea who these people were. I had heard of Shakespeare, sure, but I didn't know the relative value of Shakespeare, of Emily Dickinson, or all these people that I was reading. So I really began to read what I wanted to read, and without anyone telling me that this was too hard. You know, "You're only eleven, how can you possibly understand Sara Teasdale, or something like that?" And that's how my love affair, I think, with poetry began. This was entirely my world and I felt as if they were whispering directly to me.
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Sylvia Earle
Undersea Explorer
Early on, there was an opportunity, because of the neighboring woods, to explore quite a lot on my own, and I did. I would just spend a lot of time out in the nearby woods, and feel such sympathy, such I feel so sorry for those who don't have an opportunity in their early years to go out on their own. Sometimes with others, but really by yourself, to go out and just see what's going on. Find out what's under that bush, or what is around the other side of that tree. And not feel afraid. Quite the contrary. I almost can't stand not knowing.
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