I started watching “CBS Sunday Morning” in January 1979, when I was living in Tampa, Florida.

With the avuncular Charles Kuralt as host, bringing the same sensibilities he had demonstrated through his many years of the “On the Road” reports, the show’s relaxed pace was a respite from the hurried pace of daily life and the rapid-fire news.

The show mixed topical news stories with segments on the arts (the jazz musician Billy Taylor was a frequent guest); humor (Bill Geist perfected the self-deprecating style of humor); reports from rural America (with “Postcards from Nebraska” with Roger Welch, in his blue jean overalls); media commentary from John Leonard; and one of my favorite quotes came from the media commentator Jeff Greenfield when speaking of local news hosts: “the lights in their eyes come from the holes in the back of their heads.”

Last but in no way least – the celebrated “Moment of Nature” – a vignette lasting several minutes that featured only the sights and sounds of nature.

Through the years and with the challenges and changes of life, it became my weekly refuge – a time for sitting and watching and learning from its stories and guests. As I moved from Tampa, first to Oregon, then finally to Washington, there was always time for “CBS Sunday Morning”.

As in all things, nothing is permanent.

Charles Kuralt retired in 1994 and was replaced by Charles Osgood. And we learned only after Kuralt’s death in 1997, that he was a much more complex man than imagined. He had a wife and family in New York City and a multi-decade common-law relationship with a woman in Montana.

Osgood’s style was different – with his trademark bow tie, frequent turns at a piano, and his commentaries delivered in mischievous verse – but he had the same sensibilities as Kuralt.

The show retained that mix of news, arts, and life outside the major metropolitan areas. The segments were covered by different journalists and commentators as other passed into retirement and beyond.

Osgood hosted the show until he announced his retirement in late 2016, with Jane Pauley taking over the role of host. As the first female host – though there were plenty of female contributors through the years – she faced the challenges and settled into the job.

There were the same segments after Kuralt – David Edelstein became the media critic; Jim Gaffigan the self-deprecating humorist; Steve Hartman taking over the stories once done by Charles Kuralt.

Other voices and perspectives were added with Ted Koppel, Nancy Giles, and Mo Rocca. Eugenia Zuckerman hosted segment on classical music; she had started with Charles Kuralt and continued until 2019 with Jane Pauley.

But as the years went on in the Pauley era (though I suspect the changes were imposed from above), the show began to change.

It began to feel more elitist, with frequent stories about Broadway, more interviews with politicians and celebrities, and decreasing feel for the people and regions Charles Kuralt used to roam and meet. It felt slicker, but less homespun.

And I recognize memories can be tricky – wanting to believe something was different or better years ago; watching old “Saturday Night Live” episodes is a reminder that many, many of the skits through the years were as bad as anything now. We tend to remember only the best of it.

One thing wasn’t a memory. The ‘Moment of Nature’ almost literally became a moment. Where that segment was originally filled with scenes that were self-contained nature studies that went on for minutes, the segment was cut to typically 20 – 30 seconds with abrupt endings.

For a time, I tended to watch only the last half hour just to catch the Moment of Nature. But even that was frustrating with the brief segment, before there was the immediate cut to “Face the Nation” and its series of DC insiders as guests.

Then last October, the execrable Zionist Bari Weiss was put in charge of CBS News – including Sunday Morning. Given what she’s done with the rest of CBS News, I couldn’t stand the thought of what she’d do with Sunday Morning.

So, yesterday I made the decision – no more.

When I want to see the Moment of Nature, I can turn to the CBS News channel on streaming, where there are full segments of the nature studies.

To both Charles and Jane, and all the contributors and staff through the years – thanks for the creating an oasis in what Newton Minnow described in 1961 as the “vast wasteland” of commercial television.

CBS Sunday Morning is another reminder of what once was, but likely will never be again.

But there remains the wish for something that has been lost. So, as Charles Osgood said at the close of each of his episodes, “until then, I’ll see you on the radio.”