An Exit Recalls A Reunion.

Your were raised by an Aunt. All your life you had been told your mother had died when you were young. Then one year it is the day before Thanksgiving and you receive a call. "Would you like to meet your mother?" The call is from the producer of a television show, a famous television show. They are doing a reunion show for the upcoming holiday season. They would like to fly you to Chicago so that you can meet a Mother that you thought was dead and two siblings that you didn't know you had. The woman that raised you, your aunt, had lied to you all your life. Your mother was alive and had been looking for you for a number of years. Just recently your mother enlisted the help of the TV show in finding you. The show will fly you to Chicago, put you up for a few days, then on the show while you are telling your story of how you thought your mother was dead, your Mom will walk on to the stage. A few minutes later two siblings will follow your mom on stage. A daughter meets a Mom and a Mom sees her daughter for the first time in forty years.

Remember last year the former girl friend that visited me? The one where it didn't work out? The above is her story. She was living in the Los Angeles area at the time. She flew first to Oregon to spend a couple of days with me and then went on to Chicago to appear on the show. I suppose having a former girl friend on the Oprah Winfrey show is better than having a former girl friend on the Jerry Springer show.

Why am I recalling this now? Because yesterday it was reported that the Oprah Winfrey Show is ending. After twenty-five years on the air she is calling it quits. On today's show she will announce the date of her final show. Some of the reports said she may resurface on her own TV network called OWN that is in development as we speak. Another icon moves on. There were so many memorable moments on Oprah. Tom Cruise jumping up and down on her couch. The show were she gave away a car to everyone in her audience. Three hundred cars at a seven million dollar price tag. Her book club making authors millionaires. Interviewing Liberace three weeks before he died. Michael Jackson stopped by for a chat. She chewed out James Frey for making up most of the stuff in his autobiography, which was a book her book club chose.

She interviewed presidents. She interviewed celebrities. She interviewed the unknown. So many memories. But the memory I most hold is the show my former girl friend was on and what she told me about the show. She was treated like a star and between filming there was no change in Oprah when she was off camera. Just as nice and interested in her guests as she was on air. That is what sets the Oprah show apart from all the other talk shows that currently are on. She asks questions of her guests. Listens to them. Doesn't interrupt. Treats the stars and the not so famous the same.

The show will be missed. What is your memory of the show? Is there a rising star out there that can fill the void she leaves?

TODAY'S WHO AM I?

Yesterday's answer: Dorothea Lange

Born in 1871 an died in 1953. I was a pioneer for women in science and was the first woman to hold a full professorship at a famous school of medicine which now has four of its colleges named after me on its campus. I was also the first woman to head a department in an Institute For Medical Research named after a famous wealthy New York family. My research focused on the lymphatic system, blood vessels and cells, and tuberculosis. I was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, another first. After retirement I was a public health activist in Colorado. I graduated from Smith College in 1892, then attended a medical school and became the first woman to graduate from that medical school. In 1902 I taught anatomy at John Hopkins. In 1917 I was appointed professor of histology. In 1924 I was elected the first woman president of the American Association of Anatomists and the first lifetime woman member of the National Academy of Sciences. Who Am I?