Mark Halperin

He sounded I can't imitate it and I can't really describe it that well, but didn't sound like himself.

It was weak, almost almost comical, almost like a Disney character.

this person who had this incredible broadcaster voice.

We talked very briefly.

He said, I know you're going to Japan.

I think you're going to have a great time.

You know, you haven't been overseas enough, you know, because he was big on how he teased me about how little foreign coverage I had done.

I had done next to none.

And he thought that was a hole in my resume.

So very short call, very weird to hear his voice that way.

And that was it.

Never talked to him again.

He died shortly thereafter.

And I'm haunted by two things.

One is,

It's hard for me to conjure up, I had a thousand conversations with him, thousands of conversations.

It's hard for me to conjure up any of them because when I try to, I just think about that one horrible last call and how his voice sounded.

And then the other thing is, and this is obviously very common,

when you lose someone is, you know, for years after, because I lived right next door to him across the street, and we lived two blocks from ABC, so I'd see him all the time.

For a long time, I would think I'd see him in the neighborhood.