April 30th was Bob Edwards last day on NPR's Morning Edition. 24 years and six months ago, our daughter Shelby was a newborn. We lived at 919 Maryland Street in Lansing, Michigan and I was a mid-day schlub on WVIC radio. Money was tight and whenever possible, I walked to work. In those days portable radios were a lot bigger and they still made those uncomfortable hard plastic earphones that crammed into your ear like a hearing aid. Bob Edwards had just made the move from All Things Considered and he was my regular companion on the long walks to Mount Hope Road.

For those of us who were used to the compression of the overnight news into five minute capsules, Morning Edition was in iconoclast. Then, as now, there was something special about Bob's mellow, measured delivery, his thoughtful interview questions and the way he explained the world that churned around us. I likened it to the recordings I heard of Edward R. Murrow describing the quiet courage of Londoners during World War II. It was too good for the ever more mind-numbing radio I heard in the 70s and I never thought it would last.

But last it did for almost a quarter century. If the back story is to be believed, the current leadership at NPR thought Bob didn't have the right connection with the next generation of potential public radio donors. So they are shunting him into the role of Special Correspondent, a place with a microphone where yesterday's stars are put to pasture.

But like Murrow and the men and women who he inspired, it's now Bob Edwards' turn to be an inspiration. His three decade body of work, which is hinted upon in a tribute section at npr.org will be the stuff of study for the few true broadcast journalists who will continue to emerge from our universities.