In 1981 I was working off duty security at the Twin Sixties Inn on North Central Expressway. It was a week day night and after the bar closed at 2:00 a.m. it was finally quiet and peaceful. A lot of the hotel's business was corporate and most acted like it was their first time more than fifty miles from home.
A man exited the elevator and approached the front desk and asked if there was anywhere nearby he could get a cup of coffee. It was around 3:00 a.m. and the hotel restaurant did not open until 5:30 a.m.
I told him I would make a pot of coffee and while talking to him I recognized him and especially his voice, it was Dave Garroway, former host of the Today Show on N.B.C. Television.
I asked him if he would like to set down in the restaurant and drink his coffee. He told me that would be fine and he then introduced himself.
We drank coffee and talked until the restaurant crew began arriving.
He told me he was in Dallas for a program at Southern Methodist University which was just across the freeway.
A very interesting guy, talked of his time in the Navy and him hosting a radio show in Hawaii where he played jazz and interviewed guests involved mostly in the music business and then his early career in national radio, mostly from Chicago and his introduction to television. The many famous people he met and interviewed and he commented the most memorable was Audie Murphy.
I do not remember if it was before or just after I met him he had heart surgery and had a difficult recovery.
While we visited he mentioned several times he would be in Dallas on November 22, 1983 for the twenty year anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination.
In 1982 I remember seeing that he took his own life. I thought then what an interesting book he could have written.