Linda Ellerbee, Alive and Kicking

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, your Head Trucker hasn't watched TV in the ordinary sense for most of the last two decades now, though I have rented a lot of videos. (And no, they weren't all porn, either, you smart-alecs.)  So I perhaps can be forgiven for somehow thinking that the great Linda Ellerbee was dead. I know some of my truckbuddies will remember with the same fondness I do her lively reporting back in the eighties on such shows as NBC News Overnight, which was both hip and thoughtful. Then for some reason, she just sort of disappeared, I never knew why.

Well come to find out, not only is Ms. Ellerbee very much alive, she's been very successfully producing a children's news show, Nick News, for the last twenty years, which has won a truckload of prestigious awards. Your Head Trucker is very glad to hear it, because she was always a favorite of mine.

It is a curious but undeniable truth that many of the most fascinating people in the world hail from the Lone Star State. Just somethin' in the water out here, I reckon. And Linda, who calls Houston her hometown, is a prime example of that fact, as were the late Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, as well as the late political commentator Molly Ivins. All three women - like my own mama - represent what I might call the shining side of the Texas character: very sharp, very cool, down to earth, and totally real.

Check out some or all of this interview she did last year with the Archive of American Television. I can't embed it here, but if you follow the link, I think you'll get a real kick out of it, fellas. Tell 'em Russ sent you.