The lead story on this page today about Walter Cronkite brought back a flood of memories to me.

Cronkite was the big brother, the father figure, the witness reporter who, during my younger days, told us about some of the biggest news events of the late 20th century.

He had been anchoring the "CBS Evening News" for more than a year, and I had watched him many times, but he didn't really enter my consciousness until that day in November 1963 that no baby boomer will ever forget.

I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in class, when the crackly intercom interrupted the teachers in the middle of their lessons to announce that President Kennedy had been shot.

School was dismissed and I walked home, thinking about how my parents had talked about Kennedy a lot, about how he was a Catholic just like us, and all the good things they saw in him for the future of our country.

Some of those things would be deflated in subsequent years, but right now, Kennedy was a fallen saint, and in our house — as with most of the country — there would be mourning. And much of it would take place around the TV set.

When I got home, I found my mother watching television — most unusual in the middle of the day. She was also teary-eyed, even more unusual any time of day.

On that small black-and-white screen was an unending newscast about the assassination of our 35th president. And over the next several days it became a communal event; people all over the country were glued to their TVs, watching in disbelief as the Zapruder film was shown over and over, and then seeing all those connecting events: President Johnson being sworn in, Ruby shooting Oswald, the pageantry of the funeral. . . .

And there in the midst of it all was Walter Cronkite, telling us about each event as it unfolded. He was distinguished, assertive, somewhat paternal, and occasionally with a choke in his throat that told us it was OK to be sad, even to cry if we felt like it. And we did.

It's become a cliche to say you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot.

But I also remember where I was when Robert Kennedy was shot. And when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. And during all those reports about the Vietnam War and Watergate.

And Cronkite was there, too.

He's been off the nightly news for 2 1/2 decades now, but he's still been around, doing stories, hosting documentaries, writing memoirs — and even showing up with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir one year!

He's the favorite uncle who lives out of town but drops in to visit.

And I'll be watching when PBS's "American Masters" airs a profile of Cronkite on Ch. 7 next week. How could I miss it? It'll be like watching home movies.

Some of this has to do with his tenure as the ultimate news figurehead. And some has to do with the way TV news has changed.

There's so much happy talk, melodramatic background music and cheesy celebrity "news" that it's hard to take it seriously.

Cronkite could occasionally lose his objectivity — but would he interview Britney Spears for a prime-time newsmagazine or dress in drag for a Halloween show or engage in inane chitchat with a 20-year-old giggly anchor who looks like a runway model?

Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America." And he may be the last of a dying breed.

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E-mail: hicks@desnews.com