“I’ll miss you, too.”
That’s what Don Alhart said in the last moment of an hour-long special about his 58-year career at Channel 13.
“I’ll miss you, too,” he said, emotion and tears breaking through on the face of the most composed and steady man we know.
And though most of us have never met him, we do know him. At least we know the part of him that has been in our lives for all of our lives. What exactly that means varies from individual to individual, circumstance to circumstance.
It doesn’t involve studios in Henrietta, it may not remember who sat beside him on the desk, the stories might blur together, and journalistic principles of storytelling and unfolding technology might never have been noticed. But he’s a Rochester landmark, a certainty – the river runs north and Alhart tells the truth.
In the box in the living room, early in the morning, late at night, while dinner was being served. For almost 60 years, one of our own has been the best of our own, the handsome young man who became our father, our friend and ultimately our grandfather, the arbiter of decency and goodness for a place and a time.
The friend we shared with loved ones and times long past.
We watched Don Alhart when we were children, and newlyweds, when Dad was alive and before the kids moved away. He followed us from family homes to nursing homes, on the best days and the worst days of our lives. He was the constant in a changing community, a Rochester certitude: The lilacs bloom in May and Don is on at 6; you can take it to the bank.
And that doesn’t have anything to do with the news really. Oh sure, he was the source, and two generations of Rochesterians knew that if Don Alhart didn’t tell you about it you didn’t need to know about it. He was the starter of conversations and the settler of disputes, the standard of accuracy and veracity by which the world was measured.
But anybody can do that.
News was the horse Don Alhart rode, it wasn’t the sword he wielded. Where Don was Don was in the unspoken goodness, the unfaltering decency, the daily reminder of what a gentleman is and what a Christian should be. His sword was the sword of truth, the constant subliminal reminder that we are called to be better and that this man’s example can show us how.
His dad quoted Bible verses; Don let his light shine. They did the same thing, only different.
And ultimately, Don Alhart became an ambassador from Rochester’s past, when you could get hundreds of people to come to Marketplace in the early morning, when Kodak bonus day was a holiday, when the Young Lion of the West could still roar. He knew and chronicled, and finally represented, an earlier, stronger, more prosperous day, when the numbers we tracked were stocks of local interest, not homicides, when the impulse was to decency, not degeneracy. He was the man from before time, before this time, the graybeard who had seen the past and could prompt us toward our future.
Or maybe he was just the man on the news. A relic from the days of film at 11 who will walk off the set tonight being what he’s always been, the best at what he does that this town has ever seen.
And a beloved Rochester man. The relative we all share. Someone who has crossed over from mere celebrity to member of the family, in the real and unreal world of media intimacy. He’s never been to your house, but he stops by every night, and always has.
In an earlier day and a different medium, Rochester had Arch Merrill, a writer who took the region by the hand and led it on adventures, introduced it to its neighbors and told it about its past. Since the days of Lyndon Johnson, Rochester has had Don Alhart, who has done the same thing, only far longer and far better.
And it ends up being about love. We get the news on our phones now, and used to get it mostly from the newspaper, and Don informed us, but he mostly warmed us. He knew that people come to a broadcast for companionship, to see their friends, to be part of a flickering electronic family. And he played well that part. He never faltered, he never failed, he never let us down. He never pushed us out, he always drew us in.
And people who had no one had Don. We all had Don. And that’s kind of what Rochester meant.
And now he is done, off with Mary to Aruba, with time to be a grandfather, a Rotarian and a writer of children’s books.
A long time ago, his master gave him several talents, to watch over and be the steward of. And he did not bury them in the ground. He most certainly did not bury them in the ground.
And hundreds of thousands over near 60 years are better for it.
Better, and blessed.