Whatever Charles Kuralt thought of Jack Kerouac, he borrowed the Beat author’s title and part of his concept for a long running series of vignettes on the CBS Evening News starting in the 1960s. Kuralt’s episodes were gathered in the ‘90s as a program for cable, “On the Road with Charles Kuralt,” packaged as a three-DVD set (out Oct. 27).
Unlike Kerouac, Kuralt wasn’t looking for kicks or seeking transcendence. He was no Dharma Bum, but a folksy traveler in search of voices from the back roads that never made the front pages, voices from the fast fading “real America.” At moments he might have suggested Studs Terkel with a banjo soundtrack, although Kuralt had no overarching perspective. The Emmy-winning reporter’s only apparent agenda was to find good stories and he discovered more than a few, including a micro ginger ale plant in rural South Carolina, an 80-year old woman who cooked all day and fed anyone who knocked on her door, and several of the surviving workers who built the Golden Gate Bridge.
Although not every story was equally inspiring (a warehouse wholesaling doubtful patent medicines?), at his best, Kuralt found everyday people whose small contributions kept the world from slipping into darkness.
