Let's get a little mushy, sappy, and who knows what other emotions and talk about my most memorable moment from the Daytime Emmys. It wasn't the Sesame Street number or Art Linkletter's award or anything you saw on stage (I'm still trying to erase that medley of "love" songs from my mind -- especially "Love Shack")...it happened backstage in the press room.

As the producers of Sesame Street were fielding questions from the main press room, the Reading Rainbow contingent came out from the photo room and asked who had won and Levar Burton went in to congratulate them. Now Mr. Burton had just made a very impassioned speech about Reading Rainbow possibly not coming back due to a lack of funding. Mind you, this show has won so many awards and is possibly not coming back.

As Mr. Burton was leaving the room, I stopped him and told him how much Reading Rainbow meant to me growing up. When Reading Rainbow first came on the air, I was about eight or nine living in Clemmons, North Carolina, pudgy, definitely not athletic, and definitely not popular. I was, if you can believe it, a bit shy and lived in my sister's shadow. She was the more outgoing, more popular, more athletic child of the family and the one everyone tended to gravitate towards while I really wasn't. Levar Burton and Reading Rainbow became friends to me and instilled a love of reading (as evidenced by my overflowing bookshelves at home and the number of books I ultimately gave away when I moved). They were a huge part of my life growing up and to know that they may be lost due to government cutbacks and lack of funding is like losing a very dear friend.

In today's world where kids are more likely to pick up the controls to their Playstation before they pick up a book, we need programming like Reading Rainbow.

In today's world where literacy levels are dropping at alarming rates, we need programming like Reading Rainbow.

In today's world where a child's imagination isn't tested or expanded in the classroom or at home, we need programming like Reading Rainbow.

In today's world where our politicians decry the level of education our children receive yet continue to cut funding that will improve their schools, their support, and their educational learning, we need programming like Reading Rainbow.

In today's world where some parents view school as merely a place where their kids are parked for eight hours while they are at work and don't actively participate in their child's learning, we need programming like Reading Rainbow.

Well, after I told Mr. Burton my story, he put his hand on my shoulder, was visibly moved, shook my hand, and thanked me for being a friend of the show. As he walked down the hall, he recounted for the other producers of the show what I had just told him. Someone who overheard everything said that it was probably more satisfying for him to hear my story than to win the award.

Part of me would like to think so too.