Although it slipped by just about everyone in the room, CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt did give a hint back in January that he was thinking about retiring.
"I have given some thought to pursuing fly-fishing full time," he said to a group of critics in the midst of the Winter Press Tour.But no one took Kuralt too seriously when he immediately followed that up by saying, "I don't know, I'm a creature of habit. I've been at CBS for 37 years almost, and there are still satisfactions in `Sunday Morning.' Hardly ever a Sunday goes by that I don't get a little thrill or become moved by some element of the program - nothing I did, but something some of our contributors have done."
So it was at least a bit of a surprise when Kuralt, 59, announced this week that he's retiring from CBS. His final stint as host of the classy "Sunday Morning" will be Easter Sunday (April 3).
And it's the end of an era in television as the medium loses perhaps its most viewer-friendly, least pretentious network newsman.
Describing "Sunday Morning," Kuralt said, "The program seems to me to have held up pretty well and to be a program unlike any other on television. I don't know of any place else which pays as much attention as we do to music and dance and painting and literature - some of the things that lift the spirit."
He might have been talking about himself. Kuralt's quiet style and his "On the Road" reports aren't likely to be duplicated.
His personal style meshed perfectly with the style he helped create for "Sunday Morning."
"When we started out, I thought (the audience) would all be college professors in tweed jackets with patches on the elbows," he said. "But so many cab drivers and skycaps and ordinary folk around the country have told me, `Boy, we never miss that program,' that I'm inclined to just do what we've done all along, which is not worry very much about what audience we have and just do a program that pleases us."
Kuralt in person is just like Kuralt on the air - soft-spoken, intelligent, self-deprecating, respectful. A thoroughly charming man.
Mentioning that 60 half-hours of his "On the Road" reports had been packaged and sold to the Travel Channel on cable, Kuralt said, "Of course, we did not produce 60 half-hours of good material over all those 25 years. And so it's kind of embarrassing to watch because much of it is really mediocre."
Lots of us would disagree with that appraisal.
Kuralt's first post-CBS project is to finish work on a book he's been writing about America. But, despite all the work he's put in over nearly four decades at the network, he pooh-poohs his contributions.
"My colleagues have always insisted that I was on vacation since 1967 when `On the Road' started, and it's true that I don't have many pastimes," he said. "I very much like fly-fishing for trout, so whenever I get a chance to take a vacation usually I go to Montana or Wyoming or someplace and try to forget about everyhing on a trout river, which is very satisfying."
Almost as satisfying as watching Kuralt on TV all these years.
NO SALE: Reportedly, Larry H. Miller recently turned down an offer to sell KJZZ-Ch. 14. Officially, the station is not for sale.
But then, neither were the Salt Lake Golden Eagles.
TONIGHT ON "20/20": There's a Utah connection in one of the segments on tonight's "20/20" (9 p.m., Ch. 4).
A report on a scam involving a company that makes pizza vending machines includes a couple of Ogden men. Jerry Malan lost $40,000, and Don Clark lost $20,000.
And one of the best quotes of the piece comes from Clark, talking about how much trouble he had getting anyone from the company to talk to him on the phone about the fact that his machines were never delivered.
"You could write a book about it," he said. "You know - `We had a bomb threat and a car on fire outside,' and just all kinds of things."
MORE MEDIA OVERKILL: Here's a big surprise - NBC will air "The Tonya & Nancy Story," a made-for-TV movie, on April 30. Alexandra Powers ("L.A. Law") stars as Tonya Harding; Heather Langen-kamp ("Just the 10 of Us") as Nancy Kerrigan, and James Wilder ("Melrose Place") as Jeff Gillooly.
Undoubtedly another "quality" project being rushed into production as we speak.