At 88 years of age, I thank God that I have lived long enough to have seen and heard Tuesday’s Staples Center tribute to Michael Jackson, unquestionably American television’s most moving and inspirational two-and-a-half hours of well-deserved commendation.

Indeed, all the way from Queen Latifah’s “We Had” hymn and the mid-way words that made Brooke Shields still more beautiful, the program was truly a family tree-mendous production involving teary-eyed people the world over. The King of Pop’s global admirers (and particularly those of us in Uncle Sam-land) “raised our voice and won” as we “went into obit and never came down.”

Paul H. Phelan

Westbrook