Ever since my mother sent me to Saturday morning grammar classes when I was 7, I wanted to become a famous actor. I loved the idea of captivating an audience and moving them truly through performance, but more importantly being recognized and heavily lauded for that talent.
My mom was a big 'Smurfs' fan, so she would force me to watch every Saturday morning. I had no choice in the matter. I would jump downstairs on Saturday morning, 'Hurray, cartoons!' and she would say, 'Smurfs! That's what you're watching.'
One of the reasons that I take such joy in being a trustee of the New York Public Library is the love of reading that I found as a child in the Saturday morning library events for preschoolers and first and second graders as I was growing up in Augusta, GA.
I remember lying on the floor of my room, staring at a black-and-white television for most of the '80s - watching 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' 'Silver Spoons,' Saturday morning cartoons, and 'Murder, She Wrote' while eating an insane amount of Stouffer's French bread pizza. I was sucked into it all.
With Saturday morning cartoons, you've got to start at 6 A.M., right?
I used to go to a Gaelic class on a Saturday morning, but I never felt myself that I could speak it properly.
It's the little things you remember. My mam, Sue, would take me to training in a taxi when I was a kid if Dad, who is a builder, had to work on a Saturday morning. You look back at the stuff like that and realise the sacrifices were all worth it.
When I get back home, I want to spend as much time with my family as I can. I love just being at home and not having to rush off anywhere so on Saturday morning I might make a big breakfast with freshly-squeezed orange juice, yoghurt, eggs and bacon.
I'll co-host 'TODAY' from Los Angeles Saturday morning and then make my way up to Merced for that evening's graduation ceremony. I'm still touching up my remarks, but my challenge to the Class of 2010 will be to break through the deafening and too often negative echo chamber of the digital era and become critical and independent thinkers.
Being raised Muslim, we had to get up at the crack of dawn to pray. There was no sleeping in, no getting up Saturday morning to watch cartoons because there was no TV in the house. But you got up and you worked, cleaned the house.
