Penick: Thinking of tall ships, Tony Awards and cake

To commemorate America's 200th birthday in 1976, I created a 3-foot-wide cake likeness of the Continental United States, decorated in creamy white frosting with stars atop red-and-blue stripes around the entire edge, for "The CBS Evening News."

News anchor Walter Cronkite, now 91, is pictured standing behind the 5-inch high cake holding a long fireplace match as if he'd torched the 200 glowing candles that emblazoned the top. CBS used the patriotic creation for Cronkite's bicentennial publicity shot.

That photo - taken during the heyday of my cupcake-sized bake shop on Manhattan's East Side and five years before Cronkite retired from CBS - has graced a wall in my kitchen since we moved to Naperville in 1993. It's often served as a teaching tool to enlighten my children and their friends about the trusted television journalist before their time.

All weekend, every time I passed that photo picturing the news icon of my childhood, I thought about Tim Russert and his entertaining and provocative role on "Meet the Press."

Every TV news junkie and politically passionate person in the world likely will miss Russert's reports, insights and interviews with newsmakers - especially during the remainder of this historic campaign cycle.

And as my 29-year-old daughter put it, in these days with many cable channel choices hosted by many different pundits on TV, Russert has been one of the constants in her lifetime and, more or less, "the Walter Cronkite of her generation."

Spoon-fed?

With "real time" news sources available on TV and the Internet around the clock and around the world, it's more challenging every week to present fresh information you can use or care to read in the newspaper.

"Read" is the operative word. And it led to my thinking about reading great works of literature, poetry and history - the old-fashioned way to research, analyze and be prepared for the days and years ahead.

And what better time than during a political campaign to dig out a copy of the Constitution of the United States?

In one of my old reference books, the document adopted on Sept. 17, 1787, spans just 17 pages, complete with the Preamble many of us were required to memorize in civics classes.

If you don't have a copy, it's online, of course. Visit www. constitutioncenter.org.

Sunday, to refresh my memory, I reread the document written by our courageous founding fathers, as well as all 27 amendments.

I couldn't stop thinking about how important it is to elect the right people to serve us.

I also thought about America's Declaration of Independence. And just as the symbol of Cronkite's cake, I remembered when hundreds of "tall ships" from all over the world dropped anchor in New York Harbor to help celebrate our nation's bicentennial.

The Soviet Union sent two historic tall ships, one of which was also the longest ship in the parade. I recall that the Soviet ships both remained anchored in the Hudson River during most of their stay in New York - with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

I'll also always remember how one of the Soviet tall ships was pictured on the front page of a New York tabloid. To this day, the big headline that ran with the photo remains as one of my all-time favorites: "Red sails in the sunset."

Certainly, as I watched the tall ships parade known as Operation Sail 1976, I never imagined that on Christmas Day in 1991, the Soviet Union would completely collapse.

Happy talk

Sunday evening I watched the 62nd Annual Tony Awards to see if the revival of "South Pacific," my favorite musical, and "August: Osage County," a play that opened last year at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, would be recognized. Both productions were honored with multiple Tony Awards.

And this year, I was surprised to make a Broadway cake connection.

When composer and clever lyricist Stephen Sondheim received the Lifetime Achievement in the Theater, I remembered creating a cake for Nancy Dussault when she performed in "Side by Side by Sondheim" in 1978. A friend of Dussault's ordered a cake decorated to look like a Kleenex box with a tissue ready to pull out because one of the New York gossip columnists reported that the Broadway singer had opened the show with the sniffles.