May your days be merry and bright,
and may all your Christmases be white

Happy Holidays from Walter

Best of 2006

It wouldn't be the end of the year without a "Best of" list. I won't impose any specific categories on everyone, so feel free to add, subtract or expand the list of categories I used for my list.

Curtis' Best of 2006

Best Movie I Saw: The Departed
Jack Nicholson is always fun to watch, but for me, the best scenes were between Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg in supporting roles. They were chewing up the scenery with such intensity, you might think Scorsese didn't allow them to eat at the Crafts table until they were finished with their lines. Matt Damon was also superb, and I actually liked Leonardo DiCaprio for a change too. The storyline had lots of twists and turns and kept me guessing, which is a rarity in mainstream movies these days.

Favorite Movie: Little Miss Sunshine
This slice-of-life road movie about a dysfunctional family got off to a really slow start, but by the end of it, I felt like I had made new, neurotic and manic depressive friends. I don't know that it deserves Best Picture status at the Oscars, but it was easily the most enjoyable film of the year for me.

Best CD I Bought: The Fray - "How to Save A Life"
Okay, technically my fiancee, Jennifer, bought this CD, but what's hers is mine and vice versa, so it still counts. I've always been a sucker for good piano pop (I own all 3 volumes of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits), and these guys just seem like decent chaps making heartfelt music. We saw them live in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock in November, and it only made me like them even more.

Song I Listened To the Most: Guy Forsyth - "Long, Long Time"
Imagine a typical Guy Forsyth tune complete with harmonicas and violins, but instead of singing with his big, bellowing voice, he talks about growing up and today's sign of the times in a sort of bluesy rap. Between Guy, Bob Schneider and Mingo Fishtrap, I always have at least 2 Austin-based CD's in my car at all times.

Best Live Peformance I Saw: Cat Empire - Los Angeles, CA
This is the second time I had seen this Austalian-based sextet perform live. The first time was at Antone's in May of 2005 with Walter and Jennifer. This time, we took Jennifer's mom and stepfather, and it was a blast. Cat Empire has the horns of a ska band, the DJ scratching of a hip-hop group and one of the funkiest keyboard players I have ever heard. I highly recommend them if you get a chance to see them.

Best Book I Read: The Great War for Civilization - Robert Fisk
This non-fiction book chronicles the adventures of a British journalist who served as a Middle East correspondent from the late 1970's to the present day. The historical perspective he gives on the region as well as the first-person accounts of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian hostage crisis, The Iran-Iraq War and both Gulf Wars is an invaluable tool for understanding the great struggle to control this volatile corner of the world. It also makes you wonder why British and U.S. administrations continue to ignore history and repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Best Guilty-Pleasure Book: The Ruins by Scott Smith
The author of a "A Simple Plan" is back with another intriguing "What Would You Do?" storyline. This time, it's centered around a group of tourists who venture into the jungles of Mexico and may or may not ever make it out again. I don't know if I would even recommend this book to most of you unless you are the type who buys every novel that Stephen King writes, but it was definitely a page-turner and kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end.

Most Memorable Life Moment: Proposing to My Girlfriend
Knowing full well what I was getting myself into, I never hestitated for a moment once I realized how lucky I would be to spend the rest of my life with a woman who saved me from a terrible crisis in my life and made me realize what true happiness is for the first time in many years. I got down on one knee and presented the ring at the first anniversary and exact location of our first kiss - the entrance to her apartment building. Not exactly a romantic location on the face of it, but it was meaningful to us.

Most Memorable Live Event: U.S. Ties Italy at the World Cup
I already wrote a long post about this game on this blog earlier this year, but suffice it to say, I've never been more proud of being an American than watching our guys fight their hearts out against the eventual world champions only to be foiled by terrible officiating. The National Anthem at the beginning of the game, and the passion of the American fans in the stands throughout the game will always be one of my favorite sports memories of all time.

Most Memorable Work Experience: Pearl Harbor Survivors
This was my second work trip to Pearl Harbor to cover the anniversary ceremonies. I did three stories with Kevin Tibbles last year for the 64th Anniversary, then I went back a few weeks ago to do two stories with Tom Brokaw (one for The Today Show and one for Nightly News). The Nightly story was a profile of a man named Jim Leavelle. You probably know him as the police officer in the white suit and hat who was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when Jack Ruby shot Oswald in the parking garage of the Dallas Police Department. What most people don't know is that Leavelle was also at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, so he was an eyewitness to two of the most seminal events in 20th Century American History. However, that wasn't my favorite story of the two. That distinction belongs to The Today Show story which followed the loves of two people who met the night before December 7, 1941. A 10-year-old girl named Patsy Campbell was at a Battle of the Bands contest in Honolulu when her father, a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, asked a young 17-year-old sailor to dance with Patsy in the jitterbug contest. They were so good that they won the trophy that night, then went their separate ways without learning each other's names. Patsy saw the first Japanese planes fly over her house the next morning on their way to bombing Pearl Harbor. The 17-year-old sailor, Jack Evans, spent the whole day in the foretop of the U.S.S. Tennessee and watched every bomb and torpedo come into Battleship Row. Jack and Patsy both survived Pearl Harbor and went on to lead fruitful lives with careers, spouses and children. 58 years later, both were widowed and living alone. Patsy now started thinking about that mystery dancing sailor who had won the jitterbug contest with her so long ago. She started submitting letters and articles to Navy veterans' newsletters. After about a year in 1999, Jack came across one of the newsletters and called Pat to reveal that he had been the sailor who danced with her. The kicker? Jack and Pat had lived about 15 miles apart in the San Diego area for the last 40 years and never knew it. For the 65th Anniversary Gala Ball this year, 82-year-old Jack and 75-year-old Pat went back on the dance floor to recreate their winning jitterbug dance from 1941. As the band played Glenn Miller's "In the Mood", Pearl Harbor survivors in the ballroom stood and applauded as Jack and Pat relived that memorable moment. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, and we managed to capture some special moments on camera and showed the story the next day to a national audience.