David Letterman Reflects on TV, Retirement, Montana, and Fatherhood

Montana’s Whitefish Review has a new interview out this week with David Letterman, and it’s a great read for fans of the former late night host and part-time Montana resident now in his post-Late Show years. While Letterman touches on some pop culture-related topics like television (“Anything that happens after 10, I’m not there”) and whether or not he misses his Late Show job (“I haven’t missed it, the way I thought I might”), the best bits from the chat are Letterman musing on raising his son Harry and why he loves spending time in nature at his Montana ranch. Here’s an excerpt:

Because of my son I’m not growing up. Because of my son I do things I would have done when I was 12, to show him—look, you can do this. It’s okay. You can do this. Don’t be worried about this. Don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself. A lot of this is in Montana. A lot of this is skiing or hiking. I have gotten into the habit of jumping into any body of water we come across when we’re hiking in Montana—that as you know, is really too cold for any form of life other than fish. (laughter) You can feel your heart being sucked into your digestive tract. And so I’ll just jump in. Because I want him to know that it’s okay for him to just jump in. We’ll get in the river and we’ll float the river. We’ll get out of the boat and he and I will just float in the river. You know—let’s do stuff. So, I find on his behalf, I’m not growing up. You have to grow up to have some wisdom, but I think part of that is letting your kids know that there’s some pretty silly stuff that you can get away with that is going to enhance your life.

Check out the rest of the interview here.

David Letterman Reflects on TV, Retirement, Montana, […]