TV REVIEW : One Last, Memorable Journey on Charles Kuralt’s Road

Welcome back to CBS--when CBS was CBS. “One for the Road With Charles Kuralt and Morley Safer” is the closest thing to a valedictory statement by the network on its once glorious self. That is because Kuralt always represented the best face of CBS, when it believed in the human face of news.

In what marks Kuralt’s last “assignment” for CBS News, he chats and reminisces and reflects with Safer in a reading room at the New York Public Library. And because he has always been a reporter deeply affected by the place he is in, he looks around at one point, astonished at all of the books surrounding him, frustrated that he can’t read them all.

The moment is spontaneous, thoroughly revealing of the man best known for his regular “On the Road” features for the “CBS Evening News” in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Safer, looking slightly envious at a colleague able to retire at 59, has only to mention the names of the people in the “On the Road” pieces and Kuralt bursts forth with charged, eloquent memories.

Of Bill Bodisch, the farmer who sold his farm and built a yacht to sail around the world. Of the poor sharecropping Chandlers, all nine of whose children graduated from college. Of Jethro Mann, who created a “lending library” of bicycles for the poor kids in the neighborhood.

“It’s community he’s teaching,” Kuralt tells Safer, but he might as well be talking about himself. Kuralt doesn’t blush when Safer calls him “an unreconstructed patriot,” because he deeply believes in the country’s culture of possibility, of rewriting one’s life.

As the choice clips appear, listen to Kuralt’s leads. He’s a real writer, which is what he’s now becoming full time, as he plans a book on his 12 favorite American places. Say goodby to a happy man.

* “One for the Road With Charles Kuralt and Morley Safer” airs at 8 tonight on CBS (Channels 2 and 8).