In 1996, NBC News sent its anchors fanning out across the country, each to do a story about the place he or she came from. The series was called "Going Home." I panicked a little at the prospect. My first thought, irrational as it sounds, was "But nothing happened there."

I found a story about a federal busing order that brought racial diversity to my high school. The opening shot would show me waiting for a school bus on the porch of the house where I grew up. But I hadn't found one story, I had found two, and the second, I can say without exaggeration, would change me forever.