Sunday Morning on CBS has to be one of the most civilized programs on television. It has no apparent political motivation. People have complained it's too FILL IN THE BLANK.

It is none of those things and all of those things.

Charles Kuralt presented himself as a man you could sit next to at a lunch counter and walk away effortlessly sated in all ways spiritual, temporal and gustatorial.

I miss three television personalities, Dave Garroway, Jack Paar and Charles Kuralt.

Sunday Morning's current presenter is Charles Osgood.
He is a bright man, wears bowties and would be nice to sit next to at a cocktail party.

On Sunday Morning, to me at least, he is the museum curator, the man who points out where the nicer things are. But, he didn't build the house.

The man who did is dead.

Like meatloaf for dinner, Sunday Morning is comfort food for the eyes.

The ending is always a nature scene, usually noisy to a native New Yorker, but nicely noisy.

This Sunday's scene was the grasslands of the Dakotas, with prairie dogs and burrowing owls. The prairie dogs were fairly common cast members, squeaking little nervous creatures. The burrowing owls were the stars.

A mother owls and her one, two and then three owlettes popping out of a hole in the ground. Seeing a magnificent bird suddenly pop out of hole in the flat grassland, followed by three smaller, down-fluffier versions of herself, put a much needed lingering grin on this tired face.

I may not remember much else about the program, eating in Paris, listening to a pompous artist promote himself, learning again about the great train robbery and the chickens in Key West, but I will remember the owls.
Postcards from Nebraska: The Stories Behind the Stories As Seen on CBS News "Sunday Morning" =30=