Ask TV folks about their media heroes and you will hear names like Cronkite, Huntley & Brinkley, Barbara Walters...for some of the younger ones: Brokaw and Peter Jennings. I had one student in my broadcasting class at Johnson County Community College say Anderson Cooper...now, that's a young broadcaster. Of course, I'm a little out of touch. I thought Anderson-Cooper was a brand of linoleum flooring. (By the way, when I say "my" class, I mean the one I teach not attend. Although, I would certainly understand why you may think I need to be a student not an instructor.) For me, in terms of broadcast journalism, I always think of Edward R. Murrow. I'm happy to say that, since the George Clooney movie, more of my college students at least know that name. Running right now, on KMBC, is a promo letting everyone know that Channel 9 has won more Murrow Awards than any other local TV station in the country. It is a great testament to the hard work of the news team but, when the promo airs right before weather and it goes from Murrow to me, well, that is just plain wrong. On the entertainment side of broadcasting, folks mention Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore and many other names. But, for me, one of my true inspirations was Allen Ludden. He was really a pioneer in TV. He hosted the College Bowl quiz program and, most famously, Password! He was also married to another legend, Betty White. Fortunately, when I had the honor of interviewing her many years ago, I was able to tell her how much I admired her late husband's work. Betty White, by the way, has logged more TV hours than almost anyone else. The interview I did with her was part of promoting a new ABC sit-com in which she was starring. Her much younger, much less accomplished, co-star showed up with an entourage and generally avoided talking to anyone. But, Miss White was there with one companion and chatted with everybody. Despite the fact that the show ended up being cancelled rather quickly, it was great to spend a little time with Betty White...a class act. That phrase also applies to Allen Ludden.

Allen Ludden was from Mineral Point, Wisconsin. So, right away, you know he had to be a good guy! I loved watching Password. I firmly believe that had grade school included a Lightning Round and allowed me to have a partner like Tony Randall or Carol Channing, my grades would have been much better. Mr. Ludden was not a "jump-up-and-down-get-in-your-face" game-show host. He was calm and cool. He seemed intelligent but not smug. (Sometimes, Alex Trebek strikes me as a little bit superior. Of course, HE knows the answers! They're on those cards in front of him!) Anyway, when Allen Ludden would wave his hand in front of the podium and purr "and for our friends at home..." all was right with the world. The thing that has me thinking of Mr. Ludden and the great game show, was a story on FirstNews this morning about the most popular passwords people use nowadays to get into e-mail and voice-mail and who knows where else! The most used included the word itself, "password," and the numbers "123456."

Around Channel 9, we are required to change our passwords pretty often. We can not use the same one within a certain period of time. It has to include numbers. It has to include letters. It has to include punctuation. It has to include you standing in a cemetery at midnight swinging a dead possum over your head while chanting "coverage you can count on....coverage you can count on...coverage you can count on." Okay, the last one may be just for me because I've never seen anyone else out there when I am, but, the fact remains, we change passwords a lot. Now, if you're a mover and shaker, like Larry Moore or Lara Moritz or Donna Pitman or Jere Gish or Jim Flink, I can see where you'd want to be extra careful to protect sources and trade secrets or, in the case of Flink and Gish, hair-styling tips. But, for a yahoo like me? Nobody wants to see my e-mails...not even the people I send them to. (Did that sentence end with a dangling participle and, if so, should I see a specialist about having it reattached?)

Frankly, I am sick and tired of passwords. You need one to go to your work e-mail and home e-mail and to buy certain things from your often-used on-line retailers, like, in my case, rubberduckie.qak. Yes, I go through lots of rubber duckies in the course of a bath. That's all I'm going to say. I do appreciate their liberal payment policies at rubberduckie, they let me put everything on the bill! The bill! I'm sorry if that pun brought you down! Down! I quack myself up! The rubberduckie web-site's celebrity endorser is Ben AFLAC! Please, stop me! Seriously, stop me! You also need passwords to check voice-mails. By the time I'm done checking the school voice-mails for the four kids, then the college voice-mail and then the KMBC voice-mail, it's time for bed. Naturally, there are no messages on the college voice-mail and the complaint calls on my line at work all sound about the same so that doesn't take long. And, as for the school voice-mail box, how many different ways can a teacher say "Please, have a talk with your son/daughter about his/her behavior in class. Samantha/Harrison/Taylor/Alex must learn not to (Insert infraction here) any more." Still, just punching in the number (who dials anymore?) and sifting through all the steps and remembering the pile of different passwords is exhausting. I didn't even mention the cell-phone.

Now, when I was a kid the idea of a password, even apart from the TV show, was exciting. It conjured up all kinds of images of secret clubs and secret handshakes and secret meetings. Every now and then we'd try to have a more formalized secret club among the neighborhood kids but, then, some one's mom would go to the back door and yell "DINNER!" and, by the third time she yelled, our organizational meeting would fall apart. Once I tried to have a secret password for entry into my own bedroom but forgot it and had to sleep on the front porch for a week. (My father wouldn't let me in without a photo ID and a notarized copy of my birth certificate.)

Several times a day, I will curse this or that password that I can't recall properly. Did I use a number or a letter or a question mark or an ampersand? And, if it was an ampersand, was I wearing a truss at the time? In those moments of despair and distress, I travel back to a kinder, gentler time and hear Allen Ludden's dulcet tones saying "and, for the frustrated pinhead in the 21st century...the password is...." When he says it, it sounds just right.