The Burrow

It's gone, vanished from my radio dial with a whimper and a moment of blank air space.  Neal Conan won't be riding along with me as I come back from Pilates or drive over to G'ma or run out to pick up the kids at early dismissal.  Just as Diane Rehm greets me in the mornings, I've come to associate Neal Conan with "what am I having for lunch today?" He will be missed. Ted Koppel was the final guest for the final hour; the conversation covered hopes and fears for the world to come.  It was hard for the host to stay impersonal.  Leaving an employer who'd signed your paychecks for the past 36 years isn't easy. Young people, innovation, the internet, civic engagement... most of the callers were positive and forward looking.  Only Neal was holding back the tide. Did his words really slow down as the final few minutes approached, or was that my imagination dragging it out for as long as I possibly could?  I know that he was reluctant to say goodbye; he...

I'm as big an NPR nerd as the next Ivy Leaguer . It's always the first button on my car radio. I cried when Susan Stamberg retired and smiled when Scott Simon married. I was as proud as his mother must have been when Jason Beaubien went from KQED to NPR's Foreign Desk. I've inculcated the love into others, too. There's a generation of girls who played soccer in Northern California between 1992 and 2003 who will forever associate Car Talk with riding in my car to early Saturday and Sunday morning games. The Big Cuter and I still laugh about "driveway stories" - the ones that force you to stay in the car so you can hear the end, whether you're in the driveway at home or the parking lot at the Santa Cruz Beach/Boardwalk . My email describing Middle Brother's "real lawn" lawn furniture - made on his lawn with grass seed over chicken wire - was the closing item read by Neal Conan on a Talk of the Nation program on Do-It-Yourself projec...