i love bonnie raitt. >> oh, yeah.onnie raitt i love all her music, but every time i see her i just walk up to her and start singing, "nick of time." i'm not even a woman, but i just love the song, never mind the storyline. it's just a great song. so i love bonnie, and one of the things i love about her, not unlike you, that she found, shall we say, commercial success or critical acclaim, she found that at -- i don't want to say -- >> forty-something. tavis: chronologically gifted, she was, when she got that kind of acclaim. >> chronologically gifted. tavis: the same could be said of you -- that it didn't come for you when you were a baby, like you are on the cover of this book. >> no. tavis: so what do you make of that, that it came when it came? >> well, it is what it is, but i feel lucky about it, to tell you the truth. for one thing, i got a chance to really cut my teeth on down and dirty, struggling hard work in this business. nothing came to me on a silver platter. i also got a chance to slowly build an audience.

bonnie raitt and when the, john and darlene and craig and cheryl, extraordinary, extraordinary all. i have the privilege, singular privilege of being your wing man these last four years. also wholeheartedly cherish the friendship that susie and i have developed with you. your leadership of the nation's air force of turbulent change and uncertainty has been nothing short of extraordinary and on behalf of all ammon i thank you for your vision and your exceptionally steady hand. i would like to thank my fellow air force four stocks, and past and present. i am grateful for the confidence that president bush and secretary gates and admiral mike mullins had in susie and me when we were asked to continue serving. on receiving a telephone call on our anniversary night in 2008 we almost instantaneously realized what would be the answer not withstanding the fact that our retirement paperwork had been submitted and approved. our lack of hesitation in accepting had nothing to do with the few glasses of wine that we each enjoyed celebrating our twenty-seventh anniversary. it came down simply to