could either end up in the military, being an american hero, or a kid that is going to be going tousiness school, or mething more nefarious that i also write about. the title "hella nation," it is slaying, in means intensify, high-profile a young anarchist girl who misused it and referred it to "hella nation," i took it from her. ..

>> his everyday life. add another influence from so i'm not sure everyone has heard of is mark spiegelman. his father survival of the holocaust. another big influence, the

author of another book which is her memoir about growing up in iran during the turmoil of the revolution there. and most, the largest influence for me has been j sacco who is a multisport but now american caoonist who is like a war correspondent and comic book artist all wrapped up in one. and he has done a number of works of comics journalism about areas of conflict like the middle east, palestine, and the former yugoslavia, which is is from in a safe area. anactually, i am one of harvy pekar illustrators, which i've been doing for about 15 years. and this is a sple a recent piece that we did together waxer you might notice that i am actually a character in the story down there in the low right hand corner. so that was kind of cool. i got to both be in a bear can

splendor and from american splendor all in one. so harvey's influence has been so important to me that it led me to write and draw some stories about my own life, including this book, "a few perfect hours," which came out about five years ago. it's about a year and a half i spent backpacking around the world, traveling in southeast asia, living in the czech republic. and all of the misadventures that my girlfriend and i had during that period. and another collaboration that i did a while back was a collection of true life stories of the businessworld documenting the wacky characters of that arena. it was called titans of finance. and it was written by the current new york times columnist rob walker who is an old buddy of mine, and is also a person wh lived down in new orleans and i went to visit him down there before the hurricane, and he wrote a great book about living in new orleans, called

letters from new orleans. a little plug there. so that brings us to late august of 2005, about four years ago. i live in new york, and when hurricane katrina hit the gulf coast and the new orlean lees broke and the city flooded, i was at homeatching on tv like millions of other people around the country, around the world. and just watching in horror as the events unfolded there, especially in new orleans with the people trapped on their roofs and on highway overpasses and stuck at the convention center in the superdome. so what ended up happening was i took some of that sadness and feeling of helplesess, and i ended up volunteering for the american red cross first with my new chapter and then eventually i got trying to be a disaster response worker, and i was the point down to biloxi, mississippi. and i worked down there aer

about six weeks after the hurricane, i ended up down there and i word there about a month basically just delivering hot food, lunches and dinners to folks who were trying to move back into their homes which were still being repaired. they just didn't havehe ability to cook for themselves or provide mls, so we were there to help them out. and the main reason i am telling you that is just to show that my experiencethere, even though they were nhing related to people who actually survived the hurricane, gave me some context for what happened later when i came to draw "a.d." and i saw what the hurricane had done. and gave me some idea of a project that i was about to embark on. these are just a couple of shots from biloxi, which'm sure everyone hears eerie familiar with the and i did get to visit new orleans during that time and that was shortly after the

floodwaters had finally receded and before people were let back into the city proper. this is an image that really struck me of this boat at a gas station. just one of those random things. and one of the things that really stuck in my mind were the water lines that were on all the buildings that were so high off the ground. just made you think about what it was reay like there. and the markings on the sides of the building that were left by the search teams which have gone through checking to make sure there were no dead bodies, animals or what have youn there. so about a year after the hurricane, i was invited to do a comic book treatment of the katrina story on the storytelling website skiff magazine. and here is a screenshot of the first, when it first appeared. as you can imagine, i was both excited and petrified to tell a

story of this sort of epic rank in comic book form. and i took about four or five months just, and discussing with the editor of smith, larry smith, thinking about how we want to tell the storynd how we wanted to frame it and go about trying to make this into a serialized web comic. and eventually what we decided to, we chose to tell the story to the voices of the six wheed new orleans people who have survived the hurricane. folks from across the demographic spectrum a with experiences from everything from those pple trapped in the floodwaters or at the convention center, to people who lost everything in the storm to those who left home and still haven't been able toeturn. and even one person who was hardly even affected at all. and again, these were real people who agreed to have their story told in this comic before and "a.d.." it allowed me to intru in

every detail of their life while i was researching the story. and i am eteally grateful for the. my first task was to take them from their real selves and turn them into, both characters, and as you can see likenesses are not my strong suit but i feel like i captured something, some quality of them. so the most important thing to me when i was going forward with the book was to get to the humanity of my subjects and to show them as more than just victims. so one of the things that we decided to do was to show them before the hurricane, how they dealt with the storm, as it hit and during the flooding and the direct aftermath, and what ended up if they evacuated, and then continue the story forward from there and not just focusing on the events of the storm. so "a.d." ran ran online. i spent all last fall writing new mature, expanding the whole thing for the book edition which

is now out. and altogether is about 25% new material that's in the book that was not on the web. so let's meet "a.d."'s characters. here was a high school student in preacher's son from new orleans east. i wrote about him in my alumni college magazine. he was a current suitor and they had written it article about him and his hurricane katrina expenses, and larry smith and i both want to have a young person as part of the next. and since katrina struck when kwane was going to be a senior in high school, he was perfect. and he agreed to be part of it. leal and michelle. they are twenty-seventh something native new orleans living in it said he and they involved in the underground music and publishing scene. and leo came to me because of a blog that i can't while i was a

volunteer with th red cross which is ort of got publicized and a lot of people are reading it and he heard of me because i was a cartoonist and he is a huge comic book fan, and he came across my blog and got in touch with me. and he had also kept a blog about his experiences during katrina, so that combined with his connection with the comics world, just made him a natural fit. then there is a boss and his friend, darnell, who stayed behind to watch over a boss is family who ran a supermarket located inptown. a boss came to me via a friend of mine who lives back in brooklyn. her cousin is his wife when i heard the story i got in touch with him and asked to be a part of it stored as well. he was born in iran but he went to college in new orleans and has lived there for many years ald is raising a family and everything. then we have a doctor who is a real-life southern dandy who

lis in the french quarter very well known figure in new orleans, doctor looks. he is a former health commissioner of the city of ne orleans and a frequent customer at the restaurant. and i have him here with one of his favorite waiters. and then finally, we have denise when the book starts and she is a social worker living with her money, her niece and her grannies in an apartment in midcity. and in researching "a.d.," i found through denise to a radio show being interviewed and she talked about her experience living in the convention center and which had to say about her expenses there were really counter to what a lot of people had heard about it being all of this violence going on there with rates and gain members shooting each other and stuff. she actually was talking about how when she was there, the gang members who were there were actually acting as a calming force and agreed to have a truce

and were protecting the women and the children and making sure that everyone hadnough food and water. so it was really important to me i thought to have that voice there to counter with a lot of outsiders may become of their perception of what had gone on during the aftermath. so she became part of t project also. so now that we have met the main characters det me tell you a little about each of their stories. as "a.d." opens, kwane family decides to evacuate to tallahassee for the were one of his brothers is going to college. they figure they will only be gone a couple of days at most, but just in case, kwane fills the bathtub with water in case ere is no running water when they come back. when kwane and his family get to tallahassee, it's right on the cusp of katrina hitting new orleans and all they can do is watch and wait and see what happens here as the full fury of

the storm is unleashed, like everyone else they watched coverage on tv. and it's not good. as the scope of the disaster becomes more and more clear, kwane begins to realize that he is not going to be returning home anytime soon. and in fact, it's about to begin on a years long odyssey that takes him all over the country before he can return home to new orleans. and actually, as of this day he still hasn't been able to return home. leo and mhelle. the day before the hurricane strikes, and after debating the issue like so many other people, is it going to come, is going to turn off the east? they finally decide they will evacuate to a friend's place in

houston. and like thousands of oths, they think about facing the loss of their possessions, including lee is huge, but collection. i think it close to 15000 comic books in his apartment. in the end he only takes a couple of bags and i think one comic book out of the house before they leave. and in houston, a couple of days late leo is awakened by a phone call from his mother who tells him about the breaching of the levees and the flooding of the cit and he has a sort of waking nightmare about losing his comics and everything else that he owns. later, as leo and michelle continued their journey away from new orleans tried to rendezvous with leo's parrot in saint louis, leo reacts angrily

to outsiders judging the city and its people in the storm's aftermath. abbas, having decided to stay behind t protect the store from looters they get themselves prepared and settled in, and think they are ready for anything. even talking about just like survivor man. and actually after weatherg the storm, the store is not a bad. they think they are in a clear. they start to celebrate your having fun, right? button in the floodwaters start to rise. and rise.

they try to make the best of it, however, thinking that the waterloo received any minute, and even go around the neighborhood delifering cases of bottled water to randed neighbors and people who didn't evacuate like themselves, who are stuck in their homes. at one point, a boat comes by offering to take into an evacuation point. and gc the waters still getting higher. but abbas turns down the offer, still thinking has things under control and he is still worried that looters will come to his flooded store so he says no. and then that night they have to spend a night on the roof of his toolshed, and got totally beaten up by mosquitoes.

so the doctor, now he is secure in his french quarter home, and he actually invited some friends over to shelter ere. and throws a hurricane party. he is not worried. but the next day unaware that much of the city is starting to flood, the french quarter did not flood and a lot of people in other parts of the city didn't even know that the main part of the city were flooded, the doctoroes around to some o the local bars to see if anyo needs help. and he tends to some cuts and bruises and tells everyone to make sure to drink plenty of water there were actually a couple of bars, well known, that state over the entire time, didn't clo at all. this one is johnny white's and they are very proud of the fact that they don't even have locks on the door so they are open to my what. and as the day passes the doctor swings into action and works

with a group of emts. he ss up an impromptu street clinic called the new orleans health department in exile. and just takes all comers for free. so now onto denyse. when denise and her niece and her grannies arrive at the hospital where they wereoing to stay, it's alreadpacked with people shelteringhere. and there are no private rooms for denise and her family. so she angrily decides to go back to her apartment to weather the storm over there by herself. it's a decision she soon comes to regret. when the hurricane hits.

now she does revive the hurricane, barely. and ends up rendezvous in with her family back at the hospital and then and i'm getting evacuated to the convention center, which islmost worse than anywhere else. and they end up being stuck there for days and he and all of the other people trapped there without any running water or medical supplies or any evacuation or anything. and including, like, national guard soldiers coming by with their guns pointed at people. and they are just asking for water. and that's hen denyse realizes that thousands of people there as well as herself are basically been abandoned to their fate. so that's where will leave off with a story for the characters. you can read more obviously in the book. the rest of the book traces all of their lives, and they did all

survived, thank god. and hopefully the book reminds people how important new orleans is as a living, evolving city, and now it has struggled to rebuild and as a lot of people in houston know, so many people who were never able to return to new orleans and ended up settling here. "a.d." has been a for your long journey and these character storesre just a few of the thousands of such stories coming out of the hurrica. and michael was doing the book was that it somewhere worthwhil to the ongoing story of katrina, and the people of new orleans and the city itself. so i'm just going to end this little presentation with a silent movie style preview of the opening scenes of the book, which is like a birdseye view of the storm as it builds and sweeps into the gol gulf coast.

so i would just take it from here. [silence] [silence] [silence]

[silce] [silence] [silence]

[silence] >> that it. [applause] >> if there is anybody who has any questions, i would be happy to answer than that if you do, they hesked me to ask you to go stand over there underneath that boom mic where there is a little x. so anybody, fe ree. no questions?

>> before th book, you had done some journalistic work, but it must've been a tremendous learning experience at that type of thing. >> yes. >> is there any one thing that u did learn doing this sort of work during that time? >> well, yeah. how hard the job being a journalist, i would say just realizing like the responsible you have when you're telling real people's story to getting to the truth of their experiences and making sure that your facts are right and that you do the background research that you need to do. you really need to do a ton of rearch and interviews with people and get a lot of information that you need to than just coalesce a small part of it remake into the story. so even just taking notes and

being able to keep up with someone when they are talking and not knowing shorthand or any speed typing skills, you know, ose we the challenges. fortunately, at the beginning very smith who was the editor of the magazine county counsel journalism background and he cameith me when we first went down to new orleans to interview people for the first time and took a lot of notes which was really helpful. and also being able to have the blogs and journals of a couple of the characters themselves really helped in my research, just to get to make sure that i got everything right. sort of following along in that vein, one of the things that i ended up going with a couple of the characters, denise and leo, was there were certain scenes that were really critical that i felt needed to be just done exactly right and not get any details wrong. so i actually ran the script by them first, and let them take a look at that. not sunday i normally do as a

cartoonist, and i don't even think a lot of journalists do that but i want to make sure since i was doing some way t expose something about these characters tt, you know, the world did not trying to tell their story and do honor to the. i want to make sure the had full approval of the script and felt like i got their dialogue right, that whatever special dialect issues might come up or accent issues, where ever i would get those, right. so that is sort of a very long winded response. to your question. anybody else? all right your will, thanks a lot. pplause]

>> what's the best way to secure america? tom ridge takes an inside look at the terrorist threat. his tenure as first head of homeland security and what led to his resignation. tonight on c-span2. >> former unification church leader reporter and nevada state assembly member, pat hickey, talks about his memoir, "tahoe boy. carson city, nevada, hosted the program. gets one half hour. >> thank you for coming. my name is pat hickey, i am the reason you are here. and i am here to share my book to shamelessly self promote it tonight, read some things, take your questions and answers, and talk a little bit about this

here, "tahoe boy. let me begin in the beginning and read you just the first paragraph. and maybe that's enough. finding happiness is damn hard to do, even growing up in a picture-perfect paradise like lake tahoe, it wasn't easy. friends of mine got lost looking for it in america's year-round new playground or kemeny went elsewhere, soldiering for their piece. i did also before i came back to nd mine back home. maybe that's really all that needs to be ead, but i will find some other things. writing the bk about tahoe, tahoe is a metaphor, if you will, like kansas in the way was to dorothy in the zard of oz. there was no place for her like

home, and for anyone who is fortunate enough like i was to grow up in lake tahoe, the place mark twain of urse called the affairs place to paraphrase on god's green earth. very, very fortunate to have grown up here. about tahoe is more than a place for me was a metaphor for the happiness that i thought in my life like each and every one of us here. tahoe, the book -- let me give you a little bit of background as the family i have my 96 year-old father, and let me read you a little bit about the family that were early pioneers in the tile area. . .

it was special to write about what had happened in my life up until that point of reaching 60, and the things that it meant to me. i guess one of thehumb of the things that happened to me growing up at the lake, i h an experience on the good friday at st. thesa's parish where i was a member as a catholic young

person and i had an experience on the good friday being an altar boy of walng around the stages or the path of the cross as it is called, a i really wondered why jesus had to die or i guess at that time in the '60s the song came up where he said, why do the good ol die young, abraham, mark ineon and later bobby kennedy was added to that. i wondered at t time maybe jesus should have been added as well. that led me into other thoughts that day and i sat there in depue of my church as a 16-year-old and i wondered what would happen when i died? who would come to remember me and more than that i thought, what would i say to those or have they said the things to those that i led and cared for in my life and i concluded i never had so i guess in one way writing the book "tahoe boy"

what an opportunity to say things to all of those people that cared for me that meant something in my life and writing a book like this gave me an opportunity to do just that. let me again read just a little bit about the family, the hiey's that came to the carson valley in the 1800's. from all accounts grandpa was an terprising coast not foolish enough to remain a dirt-poor irish farmer, neither was the wise enoh to become a land ch american rancher. witead pat harvested ice out ofrother-in-law wallace park's frozen pond. you have seen it on television, th pond that is. it is the one lend charles barkley slices his t shot into every summer during the edge with tahoe celebrity golf classic. that water hazard holds the distinction of being the only place i know of that bh sir

charles and my grandfather occurs that incessantly. another retail the family's land has mar twain penning parts of roughing it over edgewood for friday's station as it was known then for it would serve as a pony express station for the likes of snowshoe thompson and his beleaguered mail carriers as well as the place where grandpa p to get backdoor play to the fires do from sister maggie park, one more words to my grandfather. no one can say f sure that eugene o'neill used my grandfather is the model for his 1939 hickey of the iceman cometh but he did resembled t character into important ways. pa love to talk in the love to drink, not necessarily in that order. so, my irish relatives are certainly giggling and resonating with that one. later in life i went away to boarding school in berkley in the '60s, whichas a wild place

to send a guy like me in the middle of the '60s. i write little b about boarding school. i went away to st. mary's high school in berkley. in number of tahoe parents send their firstborn males there to save them from this surge of public education. it was too early for parents to know that sacrilegious singers like muthanna or a produ of cathol high school and not the moral hennesey of the present. the school was ol boys all the time which mnt there was a constant bought about imaginary girls. other things happened at t boarding school. it makes you long for a lot of things you don't have, having a car with the milk contact of any kind for thenes you the proper ladies of nearby st. joseph's school with great sais marries gemmed with their perfumed presence. we would act as a that was no big deal but sectl each freshman border was after shaving his brains out in their best anticipation oa would-be

dance encounter with someone other than their 24/7 male companions. so that is boardg school and that led into other things. we came back, or i came back with all the kids from tahoe. reverend ril remembers the boys for getting in fights with the valley boys like our "associated press" bureau chief here who came up probably tangled with a few of the guys back in the day. so we weren't invited to come back to st. mary's and i return to south tahoe. i am only going to be due to more parts and then we will have a discussion. this is about life and self tahoe hi. spring baseball was more like a combination of ice hkey and mud wrestling than the national pastime. for eay season practices the king would head to the sert east of carson city. of the rival dayton does doqbles with landess there dryer diamond

for weekend play. one day guys brought along their 22 rifles alongor the right and after the scrimmage we piled into the back of george reposit pick up ostensibly to go hunting but no one before or after the great daniel boone has managed to shoot a jack rabbit with anything other than a shotgun so you shouldn't be surprised that anyone in our safari to did not produce the intended results. unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you view such matters there were other nearby adventures in the desert waing to be false. one of the outfielder suggested a truth nordair such an over the moonlight ranch. for those, i will skip nevada's brothel. avoiding eye contact or making four attends at man humor most of the team watched as a few puffed up stallions turned over their dollars to the madam inside the trailer of iniquity.

name said been forgotten to protect the in the sense that was lost and for the question and answer session let me repeat that, names haveeen forgotten to protect the in the sense that was lt. when boy minus crovato confessed he kept his socks on during the mostly sordid affair, a metaphor for purebreed now bright, his white sox were remnant of the decey that even a ten dollar lay could not rove. enough of that. i guess it is a tell-all book. maybe ihould say that i'm running for office and i've gotten everything out there and i'm going to run for re-ection. the problem is at the republican i would have to have an affair i guess a i love my fe much too deeply. i don't know what is happening to the republicans. it must be something in the water. i did run for office in the state of nevada. it was one of theitizen legislators here that served one

term and was done. i guess that was t way many thought it should be. it took carof the state's business but i was a flash in the pan. one of the reasons why i quit, yo will have to read and by the book to get it in chronological order, was that came to t conclusion will live for children and forll teenagers at someone could probably fill my seat in the assembl but not my shoes as a father, and so i turned myack on the assembly after many good experiences, some, a few frustrating months but had the honor of doing it anyway here in nevada. for those who aren't in nevada, we all admire mark twain. the best thing he ever said about the nevada legislature is that it meets every two years for 60 days. nevadans he said back then would be better served if in fact they met every 60 years for two days.

that was true 130 years ago and some would argue it might still be true today. i did get into the media for galactica intel i have a good face for the rio swhen i came back, rush limbaugh who i've known since he was a big fish in a small market in sacram and i talk about him going to reverend moon's conference when he was broke and reverend moon bay is way to washington but i got theeport on the fatand some of its quirky characters. one day i had the privilege of reporting on this one. one such story was on the day of may 14, 1992 when i reported on the fact that g almighty had filed for office in the silver state. the radio report when somethi like this, many americans are happy that h. ross perot has stepped down off the corporate ladder to run for president but one individual from reno it's about to top him hand if he is who he says he is, then u.s.

senator harry reid may be about to meet his maker. that is right, god almighty has filed to run for reed's tenet seat inning cason are running he is a democrat. he is 56 harold alladi. he was allowed by nevada state law to file in the name that h was commonly used by and he had a faithful disciple who claim that people always did call him god almighty or at least he acted that way. i editorialize the little bit of the peace and i said no one has to wonder or one has to wonder what god almighty will think of a vote for none of the above which is another option in nevada but on second thought ghy wmuld god almighty want to join the u.s. senat wit99 others who already think they are him? [laughter] from the carson city news bureau. by the way in spite of all my hyder connections i never could get an intervi with god almighty. the lasting will tell you about

before question in answers was my marriage. i did have a uniqu background in my married life nd a very happy one it is. we would all like to think that we found a match made in heaven. mine was a little more liberal than that because i believed in a certain person, the reverend moon who we thought was arranging our marriage in heaven and i was one of those participants in that small of their many of you watched on television with 2,000 stanely drez couples and madisonquare garden. i was among those. what let me read the last account from the book. about how met my beloved wife. a measure for the first time on top of a garbage heap in the subbasement nf e boston sherrod, was thanksgiving weekend of 1978 andeverd moon was hosting an international conference at the hotel.

the pture matching. we were matched by pictures. she had a lot of faith, didn't she? we completed-- had only one thing on our mind, seeing a picture of our men and honey. colonel the was the reverends translator chief assisnt had ought mane embolize from korea with photographs and letters from our betroths in between his duties guys were trying to ambush him so they could see a picture of the woman it was to be their eternal mate. i waited for just the right moment on the evening of the d.i.p. event before making my move and after midnight the translator came back to his room and i greeted him anxiously, went into his room. he sd all the manila envelopes and pictures are there. find yours. there was a bunch there with other guys with nam i couldn't pronounce oforean women but no patickey, no prize winner for me. he said i don't know where it is, i am sure i brought it from overseas and kea.

he had no idea where it was but i did. what if it had fallen out the dresser and a careless made made the mistake of throwing it away? having some experience with hotels for my days as a ski bum from my 96 drillbit's first garbage business in leg tahoe unfortunately that did not keep the garbage business or i wld be rich enough not to have the federally book these days. anyway i wen down, i knew the facility as mode as the chariton were made in supervisors dumped the discarded ways. i wentown to the front desk and explained my situation to the night manager who was already befuddle from all the organizers' request to smuggle korean kimchi into reverend moon's codys summoned a security guard and they tooke down to the basement and i began my post midnight pilgrmage debate chariton's garbage in search of true love. how about that? ey couldake a whole reality show on this one.

after rummaging for two hours a spot of the corner of an envelope protruding from the pile saying a prayer at t moment bar introduction. i opened the bag and found a manila folder with my namen it, the caribbean style, hickey, patrick. on the morning of november 25th, 1978 i saw her for the first time. i don't know what time it was that hour in korea but i swear she was there with me in spirit which is primarily how we would conduct our core chip for the next four years of ou engagement. years later we were together in chicago with theeverend moon segatti visited the city and kidded me for being too close with my new sles. it was a problem for the movement in the early days in america and the american movement where it had kept its young parents zealous in part by keeping them chased. abstinence i c assure you does make the cards and other body parts of bonder.

anyway i said to ribbon moon, since he had arranged my marriage he had told them he had no one to blame but himself that i was close to her. he laughed and i escaped judgment, at least for the meantime. okay, enough reading. [applause] thank you. stories at the end are about lake tahoe, coming back home, finding the peace and happiness that we all seek and you know, living on both sides, the secular and the sacred points so to speak, politics and religion i am gratel i was a part of the old religion and part of a new religion coming unificationism. i'm grateful to both brick otis been a great experience for me and mfamily and my children who grew up in the unification family, went to catholic schools. reverend moon to me don't start a church here. there are already too many. you might be surprised he said

that and we send our kids to catholic schools like i had gone to come is that we have a mix d match, chay convey marage, faith and everythinglse but this point i would like to thank you and open it up for a little dialog. we havgot a couple members from the press you have grill me d watch me squirm a ltle bit on the stool but anyone who has a question about the book or about me or whatever. [inaudible] >> thank you for asking. i kind of expected that question. the funny answer but with every joke the is truth, was to explain to my four kids why they had such a crazy old man. more than that though, i wanted to bring a certain clarity and conclusions of the first part of my life. for me, writing always allowed me to see things in my life and to see myself in ways that maybe i didn't observe or get a

perspective on not writing. i always love to write growing up and i guess we'll have a book in us as they say but most people don get around to doing one. i had the time, had a supportive wife and was able to do it. i am pleased to say my kids have enjoyed it in spite of all the shocking things they have suspected then confied about me in reading the book, so in that sense that was very fulfilling. i am glad to share my experiences. i think for a lot of people that grew up in the '60s who have read the book so far it brought back a lot of memories for them and i guess i feel someat successful, as "reading yet they found their own mories in it as well. thank you. >> how long di it take to write the book? >> it took me ott three years. i have a laptop, went fishing and we have a little cabin that

got me away from things. the hardest part of writing a book iof course read reading it and rewriting yet before it gets to your editors. still a about three years, at times difficult. not so much writer's block but one thing, if you write about yourself along the way for sure you get pretty sick of yourself and you kw, i experience that. why am i writing about myself? who wants to know? i am a first-time author writing about himself. i am sidney poitier-- i am not sure how interested you are about pat hickey but fulfilling to do it and that is how long it took me. >> what-- [inaudible] >> the best time of the day, i would say late at night, when as 58-year-old i don't sleep so well as i used to end would get

up and get some clarity, get some quiet and write. one of the things i did, since it was a book of memories, probably for the first two or three months i rode down memories in no chronological order and kind of visit from ti to time, and when all was said and done most of those things that were in there, so memory, we'll have selective memory. some wouldrgue i didn't includ everything that i chose including the old simon garfunkel's song. i am sure i disregarded things that maybe didn't put me in such a flattering light, but i put plenty in there to embrass myself, but nighttime was a good time. but you have to read read and you have to be right for it to be acceptable. naudible] >> if i ever get around to it will be about someone else. i would like to write a

ography of some interesting person. course there are many out there. >> there's is to be out there. >> did you keep a journal for out most of your life? did you have one when you were writing it? >> riders are famous for doing that in people who aspire to be writers are told to keep a journal. i really didn't so i guess, i kept one upstairs. it was more mental. it was memories. no, i really didn't keep a journal. i think one should it they are serious about writing. >> is there any truth tohe rumor that you are writing a send book called the sole girl? >> soul girl? [laughter] by qole girl he means the soule korea. she is very capable of wring her own book. believe me, and the but that

will be up to her to do. june, yes. >> did this complete like you mentioned you had in life or do you feel like this is the beginning of a new stage of your life owriting and that you have other stoesnd books in you that are not your own personal memoirs? that is kind of a lot, but any part of that. >> this wasn so much a mission, but somehow i was compelled to get it t of me and to write it. i would like to ride again. i did eoy it, i do enjoy. i guess i will find out if i had enough skills for others to enjoy it enough to warrant me finding another publisher to write something. i really don't have something in mind right now but i would rather write about someone else, for sure. this nt time.

no's sequel, note tahoe boy two, the end of the geezer or something you know. i don't know what it would be. >> when are you going to make the movie? >> make the movie, yes. i am sure we would love that. have they ever want to make a beautiful movie with tahoe is the background, how nice it would be, that is dreaming at best. ople will tempt you with those thoughts. i will say this, a book that i read probably some of you have that was made into a movie produced by an penn,hat is it, out in the country? what was that? into the wild. we visited alaska last year and sa the b where he died. i don't know if yo saw the movie or read the book. it was an interesting book. it wasn't really his story. it w a bunch of stories about young people like him searching. it was a great movie made by sean penn,ind of sad though.

think there are stories with better and things. i am not sure mine is it, but i don't think all movies have to end with someone finally finding enlightenment being so far of touch with decided that he died on the bus before he could t ck to truly enjoy his life. sure i would be happy if someone wants to make a screenplay or something. but i am certainly not counting on it. yes. >> so much as changed since we were kids. the newspaper business, tahoe-- when you write a memoir the most bathgate that some things are not changing, some things that are really valuableá did the memoir clarify those to you? >> well, yeah. i y the first line in book,

finding ppiness isard to do. fastforward to the end, i think the last line is after all, findin happiness is a good to do. but, of happiness for me meant being able to return home, i guess, the kind ofs the prodig son. my dad would concur. the welcome me back after an unusual 60's live. you have heard parts of it. but coming back home and finding the love of home, family, parroting. one of the chapters in the book after having been so religious, i said becoming a father and finding god and to me, of no traditional orthodox or unorthodox new religion can compare with the experience of parenting. if god is something like love or the hour father that jesus prayed about, then i think being a parent gives you the earthly

experienceo may be shared at in common with the divine as mu as any other earthly experience so my greatest threat was to come home with family, children, have the opportunity to learn from them, to be a bigger and a better person because of what they taught me and trying to learn how to love and having a wife who has completed me and complimented my life. so, those are the things you find happiness with an those are unchanging. for those of us in the '60s who rebelled against many of the values of r parents, but i am so grateful to have come back and found thehings that they always said were most important, which for love, family, children, community and in my case nature, to return to tahoe to this mills, this sounds, the places to fly fish with old friends, filled with old friends like john hill were right about in the last chapter of the book

and just to reconnect. those things are timeless. >> when you left, this cousin o yours, i always ask about you and what was going on. no one really knew. there was always a concern because i had a dream of getting closer in that piod of time. and then as things progress and reverend moon and the marriage and all, and then as theids would come into the carson valley, which i had my real estate office in, and they would be selling flowers and the paintings and whatever that came

in. i never quizzed the young people but if you happen to be somewhere in the ste and you run into pat hickey would you tell him that i still love him and i would love toee him. some people, a smile come on and others were like, what is he talking about. somewhere in thare there was a connection that came through. didn't figure it out until you returned. and we are happy you were here. and come i it was great. that is just a bit of the ire sentiment. >> thank you for the sentiments and welcoming back the prodigal son like the father, and the brother didn't but in your case the cousins' sure has welcomed me back. there is a line in the book where i say on my way to have

and i put my fami and my parents t@rough hell, and there was a lot of truth to that, not meaningfully but hometown was always something i wanted to return to. i took the reverend literally because he staed talking about hometown and i in fact did it. i am so grateful to return to family, connect with family and there were many that i lost touch with but have regained touch with. and i hope this book in some ways tells me to do that and i hope it will. yes. >> i really enjoyed one line that was so great. being a child of the '60s and having gone through all of this also and reading about all the different plas, the things that you did to answer the great questions of life.

then you have this one line, so finally at the end of all of this-- [inaible] ihought that was so-- >> that is one of the ironies of life. i had so many questions and then i thought i had all the dancers in the line in the book, the ironic thing was i had t sons that never asked any of those estions but i was ready to te them. at is the irony of life, right? so, yeah. now i say this. i have a lot more questions than i do have the answers these days anthat is probably a healthy thing. i think we probably need to retire over to the book signing here, as our good friends from c-span have so much time for this. thank you all. maybe one more question that someone really has won the want to get in and didn't, and then we will go over into some