Three decades ago, I did my best to follow Mort Crim. He was retiring and I was trying to fit into the enormous shoes he was leaving at the anchor desk of WDIV-TV. Today, following Mort has only gotten harder. Now that he’s turned 90, if you want to follow him, you’re going to need some caffeine, a full tank of gas, and maybe a bowl of Wheaties.
He didn’t answer when I called him the other day. And when he called me back he said, “Sorry. I was just loading the motor scooter on the back of the RV. I’m heading out tomorrow morning.”
Yes, another outing in the RV, and that’s on the heels of an epic 7,000-mile road trip that took him across the country. Much of it was chronicled in videos and stories on social media. (The journalism DNA continues to course through his veins.) Not sure what you’d expect Mort’s title to be at this point after life as a legendary anchorman, professional speaker, author, and syndicated radio personality, but these days he refers to himself as a “digital creator.” No time for resting on laurels, Mort keeps moving on, in the RV and then, once he arrives somewhere, on the motor scooter for shorter jaunts.
“I always wanted a motorbike as a kid, but we couldn’t afford one,” he tells me in a recent email. “Maybe I’m living out a childhood (second childhood?) fantasy.”
He’s always moving, that hasn’t changed. While we’re generally expected to slow down a bit as we age, Mort still has a firm foot on the accelerator. In fact, maybe you’re wondering (as I admit I did) whether he should still be making long-haul trips in a vehicle the size of a small building. Apparently, neither Al nor Carey, his two children, have asked dad to turn over the car keys yet.
“I think I’m a pretty good judge of what I can and can’t do,” he tells me, and he’s got evidence. In 2014, he gave up boating. And when he turned 85 five years ago, he decided it was time to stop flying airplanes, which couldn’t have been easy; Mort loved nothing more than flying.
Actually, I take that back. Mort had two loves that ran deeper than flying. And sadly, he lost both of them to cancer. His first wife, his high school sweetheart Nicki, died in 1989. He was lucky enough to find an amazing love again with his second wife, Renee, who died in 2022. That means his co-pilot in the RV now is a cat named Groucho.
But Mort is seldom alone. He believes in the power of social connection and friendship. He’s part of a dinner group that meets every week. (And yes, the charming and gallant Mort still dates now and then as he says both Nicki and Renee insisted.) He’s continually striking up conversations on the road, digging into the joys, worries, dreams, and fascinations of Americans all over the map. Not surprisingly, the folks at Winnebago know a good ambassador when they see one, and now Mort is helping spread the gospel of RVing as an official storyteller for RV’s most famous brand.
“They saw a 90-year-old codger setting off in his RV on a cross-country trip and said, ‘We want a piece of that,’” he laughs.
Winnebago is just the latest to want a piece of Mort. Will Ferrell modeled Ron Burgundy after Mort for his star turn in “Anchorman.” The White Stripes needed a piece of Mort to intro their song “Little Acorns” on their 2003 album Elephant. And if you’ve never seen Mort hilariously playing himself with Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson on “The Detroiters” do yourself a favor and dig in. There’s plenty of Mort to go around. And he’s planning on giving you even more.
His experiences of traveling around the country and sitting and talking with his fellow Americans have him hitting the public speaking circuit again. The guy who gave us “Second Thoughts” has a lot of thoughts about what’s happening in these United States. And he’s worried that our differences have become so bitter and toxic that they have broken our ability to connect with one another.
“How can we heal the divide? How do we just turn down the temperature?” he wonders.
“We have to talk to each other.”
As a journalist, Mort believed in strong, neutral reporting. Now that he’s no longer on the airwaves, he doesn’t mind sharing opinions that are not so neutral. But on social media, he is engaging, tolerant and eager for conversation. (I’ve noticed that often those who follow him will ask his opinion on a matter he’s not addressed yet.) But more than anything, Mort is worried that news consumers are too often drinking from the same glass, day after day after day.
“If you’re a Fox News viewer, watch a little MS Now,” he says. “And if you’re an MS Now viewer, flip over to Fox News. I’m not asking anyone to change their mind. I just want them to understand.”
Our conversations often include torments about the crisis in American journalism, the lack of trust and faith that so many have in the press. Somehow, we’ve arrived at a moment when, for some, The New York Times is less trustworthy than garbage churned onto social media by some guy in an apartment in Minsk. The rise of citizen journalism can be admirable, but leave it to Mort to sum it up nicely.
“Saying you’re a journalist because you have a phone makes as much sense as saying you’re a doctor because you bought a stethoscope.” (At 90, if he’s lost any sharpness or edge you need a microscope better than mine to find it.)
We could talk for hours, but, as Robert Frost put it, Mort has promises to keep, and miles to go before he sleeps. (I assume he sleeps; I think he squeezes it in around the 90 minutes of tennis he plays three times a week.) I try to press him on the secret to such rich and healthy longevity, but I can almost feel him shrug his shoulders through the phone. “No one can control their genes,” he muses. That goes for Groucho, too, who seems to be cut from the same genetic material; he’ll be nineteen in September.
And like that, Mort is off, back to prepping the RV for the next day’s trip across Florida from his home in Jacksonville to watch his granddaughter in a horse competition. One more trip among many. He figures he’ll do another 10,000 miles this year by next winter.
Now, about that motor scooter…
Devin Scillian stepped in as news anchor at WDIV-TV when Mort Crim retired. He remained in that role for 30 years before retiring himself in 2024. Scillian writes children’s books and heads the country music band Arizona Son.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Scillian: Whatever happened to Mort Crim?
Reporting by Devin Scillian / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
