So I just got on the phone and the engineer just patched me in and I did reports. I'd get a community leader and bring him to the phone, call up the station and do an interview over the phone with the guy.

That's when I hit the ground. So in the instant that that round landed and blew me in the air, I had those separate and distinct thoughts. The guy who was standing right next to where I had been standing had a hole in his back I could put my fist into.

The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.

You know, I think I still have a sense that no matter what you do, no matter what you achieve, no matter how much success you have, no matter how much money you have, relationships are important.

Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have.

I stayed three weeks in Paris, fell in love with the city, and decided that I was born to live in Paris.

My mother worked in factories, worked as a domestic, worked in a restaurant, always had a second job.

The people in your life are important. Meaningful relationships with those people are very important.

I'd watch my father get up at 5 o'clock and go down to the Eastern Market in Detroit to do the shopping for his restaurant, and get that business going and then go out on his vending machine business.

And I always found that the harder I worked, the better my luck was, because I was prepared for that.

And I realized that there was no sports reporter, so I started covering sporting events.

But you know, I always said that no one else on my block was on the radio, and it was fun.

I always felt more emotionally attached to Cambodia than I did to Vietnam.

I did anything that would get me on the air.

I had a lot of fun in Cambodia, much more so in Cambodia than Vietnam.

I had never been out covering a story, but boy, was that fun.

I knew that God put me on this earth to be on the radio.

I made the decision to come back to New York, quit my job and move to Paris.

I taught sixth grade for three and a half years.

I will not go into a story unprepared. I will do my homework, and that's something I learned at an early age.