stories and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 come from these television companies and more including comcast. >> are you thinking this is just a community center? >> comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create wi-fi enabled as it sounds so students can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> good evening i mary ann brownlow and welcome to hill center and to talk of the hill with house bill press, veteran journalist, political commentator, author. before hill center really even opened bill had an idea that he wanted to sort of create and host an in-depth conversation that he would moderate with, you

know, distinguish gas. and over the years there have been so many very distinguishing tasks by the have to say i think no one more distinguished than our guest this evening. [applause] >> from the "wall street journal," editor, political editor and reporter neil king. yes just published this extraordinary book "american ramble: a walk of memory and renewal." there are copies for sale and neil will be signing the book afterwards but i'm sure you all can see it's just, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive to say the least so without further ado please welcome neil king and bill press. [applause] >> thank you marianne, a good evening, everybody. it's great to see you all. thank you for coming this evening i want to say a big

welcome first to our friends here at hill center. i don't know what number of talk of the hills this is but there always had an exciting and then morris mary ann said then tonight i also want to welcome all of our friends from c-span who are watching on c-span around the country, around the world tonight. thank you for c-span for covering our event tonight. it's very appropriate that c-span is here. the talk of hill program started at the hill ten, maybe 11 years ago now. we've had many, many programs. our very first guest was brian lamb, the founder of c-span. [applause] full circle. i also want to takea a chance o welcome all of those people who will be listening to tonights interview on my podcast, the bill press pod.

that's a shameless plug, the bill press pod wherever you listen to your podcast, i'm there and our conversation this evening will be part of that podcast as well. as such, in terms of welcome such a great treat to welcome a good friend and a good neighbor, neil king, who a couple years ago did this crazy thing of walking out his front door and walking to central park new york. lot easier ways to get there, as we know, but no way more exciting, no way filled with more adventures than neil discovered and writes all about and relates to us in this wonderful, wonderful book, "american ramble." i liked it so much i read it twice. i encourage you to at least read it once, and again the city

books this year copies for you to buy in for neil to sign. neil, let's get started. you live two blocks away. >> i live, yes, just down the street which is right there. >> did you walk over tonight? [laughter] or are you kidding? >> i just want to be sure. start us off, page 11 if you will, when you walked out the door and just -- set the scene for us. >> i will say that of all the events that have occurred at hill center are all the books in your view of right, this book has the distinction of starting street.shing on ninth many of us who live on ninth street, we know what an honor that is. so the beginning of this book has a section called preamble for a walk at my door and then i spent a lot of time talking about why i walked out my door and the history of the territory

between. >> will get to thatt spirit rigt but i just wanted to get to a portion i'm going to read you because this is at the very end of that chapter. i set out that monday morning nine days in the spring north up ninth street, eager to see if anything of interest might crop up along the way. as i turned away, the marine corps barracks by blocks of blank out in a record rendition of the star-spangled banner. through the loudspeakers of the combatants mansion and they did every morning at eight sharp. it was a brassy version in the style of susa, to those strained ipad of the first blocks of an arching path over rivers and freeways and farmland to where the hudson spilled into the gig harbor with lady liberty and her torch the sun hung warm over my

shoulder pure there was birdsong in the trees. i had a skip in my step and a satchel on my back, and concealed within blocks a little bliss seeping in. >> what a great beginning. one word could wrap this up for the entire evening complex at take that long moment, but why? >> it started out the idea right over there one morning when i said what if i just navigated as a pedestrian to new york city? didn't take i-95, didn't go to union station come? what would the pedestrian experience comport with the prevention experience? >> and so that festered for a while and then i read more and thought more about the land in between ander how others at the condensing trip, and by the time march of 2021 rolled around, i

had done tonsra of preparation d it became something i just absently had to do. >> so the route you talk you deliberately decide you would not take anything close to 95, right? you wanted to go kind of the roundabout way, which you did, we'll get into that. again, why that route? >> it's funny because i come out of my street if i took a bite and came down pennsylvania avenue speeders i thought about that. >> go over the chesapeake and then up and across and up the jersey shore and i was like that would be a leak in half of ocean andrs jersey shore. that's not interesting. the more i thought about the route, the moreha i realized i d to go through pennsylvania i had to go c to lancaster county whee the mennonites are fair and rigt across the mason-dixon line on an important part of the mason-dixon line. i had to go to valley forge. i had to cross the delaware washington to the. certain things sort of fell into

place that y work must. >> how long did it take you to play that. >> was in various ways it took basically a year. is going to walk at my door march 2020, but something happened. it didn't disrupt my life by the way. and so i had to scratch it and i decided to postpone it for exactly a year. so i walked at my door on the 29th of march 2021 in between those two dates everything unimaginable happened, including a couple of months before, before i left the whole insurrection at the capital. five walked into a world that was profoundly changed since when i'd originally planned to do it. and so it's increase the number of things to think about by the magnitude. >> you took off her 26 days. did you take a lot of shitmac with you? >> no parametric variable with me. and i didn't camp. so the fact that i was sleeping

in their b&bs and inns and think that the pot those places which was not easy. so i went like. 516 pounds or so. i had a fly rod to do some fishing. i had one pair of shoes. >> one back. >> one pack. i said satchel. that was like huck finn or something how many pairswe of shoes did you were? t >> just one pair the whole time. >> we talked a little bit about this, i'm a big fan of travel writers, and i've read a lot of them some of the old-fashioned ones like hb morton, eric newby, today's traveler bill bryson, paul theroux. have you read them after they inspire you? when you kind of following their lead? >> yeah.t well, my list would be slightly different. i'm a huge fan of bruce chaplin patrick leigh for more who wrote

about -- but you know the reading i did do that really did inspire me and kind of set the stage for the walk was the whole stream of writers that it come to come to the united states in the 1820s, '30s, '40sal and that the basically what i was doing, which was to travel slowly through an important part of the country to figure out this place and would relax and put this young country made up of all these languages and creeds and races and everything ever form into one union here and alexis de tocqueville was a famous member of that tribe but there were so many that came, and every dozens of those books. my attitude was i wanted to go out as if i wasn't already hugely familiar with the landscape and the people in between, which is really in a lot of ways wasn't, and make up my mind about various things by going through it. >> there so many different levels to theh book which, thee

we go, i really enjoyed for so many interesting places you walk through, walked to. and learned a a lot about that o many interesting people that you count all the way and then kind of the big picture, so many life lessons that you came back with. so let's start with something interesting places that you talk about lancaster junction appear to be that railroad -- hanover, i'm sorry. >> this is one of the things i had decided i had read how is a junction, there's a train station, this is one of the first rail lines in the united states i think was completed from philadelphia, sorry, baltimore to new york in 1834 in 1863 abraham lincoln took that line and at the hanover junction is alive because this with it takes the train to gettysburg, and deposited there for half an

hour or so. he was actually waiting for the governor of pennsylvania to show up, which he didn't. and then a year and half later lincoln was on a train that went this way and kept going straight on this very long route to take him in the casket to springfield for his burial there was something that was just fascinating about that station and the fact that those two sets of tracks diverted there, and that was sort of one of my pilgrimage destination was to go to that station and think about those two things. >> you also, lancaster, i mixed up there earlier, and learned a lot about president buchanan. >> yeah. >> only present i think you f ce from pennsylvania. >> until joe biden if you count him. >> i'm'm sorry, we are from, frm delaware. >> all right. >> we forget about scranton. >> right. >> buchanan ended thaddeus

stevens whom i never heard of before, and you talk a lot about buchanan and stevens. >> for one of the things that was great about the walk, the memory in the subtitle wasn't really my memorywa so much, as a national memory like who is it that we remember and why? when you walk into lancaster they were actively debating who to rename oneol of the elementay schools after because they wanted to take james buchanan's name off, hesi being the last president before lincoln, and of these democrats who is a slave owning toddler other southern confederacy, soon to be confederacy. and a moral count essentially. and ever since he had died for particular look after his mansion and you can visit it, the junior league had been very attentive to that, and thaddeus stevens who would live in the same town at the same time when

buchanan was president, thaddeus stevens was ahead of the ways and means committee in the house, and was way more righteous than abraham lincoln or almost anybody else in congress, and was lincolns conscience in a lot of ways. he wasas selectively pushed lincoln to issue the emancipation proclamation. they were just been getting underway to sort of rehabilitate his house and it's now simply become a museum which is like a civil rights destination. but thaddeus stevens was one of the great figures of the 19th century, a person of hundreds of times more important than james buchanan and james began at least in that place has been held up until now he finally rightfully you know they didn't have to tear the statute of but if they had i would've been fine with replacing them with the thaddeus davis that you. >> you he walked into the midf this debate which was great that it seems, you'll find out when you read the book of every city with you every time you went to

you connected with the town historian, right brexit told you the history of the place and showed you the places that you should see in terms of learning our history.gh >> yeah, precisely. >> gettysburg. >> well, actually i did not go to gettysburg. you talk about valley forge. >> sorry, valley forge. >> so valley forge was really fascinating to me because so i'm sure many of your familiar but valley forge, the winter of 1777-78 continental army at wits end, fittingly have shoes, they have nothing but hardtack to eat. the following apartment the british had takeny over huge portions of the country and there in philadelphia all sitting around fires in the cotton alarm is freezing in valleyi forge i went to valley forge i met and historian of their and she had written a book about what i was interested in which is not that winter was when we decided to care about that winter.

and it took was basically a century to care about that winter, and we kind of needed to have that moment in the late 1800s were all these various kind of victorian sensibilities and unthinking, came together and we needed this symbol of grit and persistence and sticking it out, and valley forge became the place. so it's a fascinating thing that we codify gettysburg, gettysburg became more of the memorial immediately after that battle. and 13 years before valley forge became like a thing of importance, and it's more many times since it does not become a huge national park whichtu happened until gerald ford actually. that he was also, i was walking through a landscape where we had been fighting over what statute should be torn down or not and were we erasing history or not erasing history, the reality is

history is a very fluid thing, always has been and sometimes it takes us a long time to acknowledge that certain things happen in the fact that some people are being erased or the statutes or being torn that is part of that process. >> so there so many other historical p places, particulary revolutionary war. you are crossing the delaware, there was, anyone most interesting places was the great mound. >> yeah, i had on the drive back to new york and washington, if you take the jersey turnpike you will see these things that were not so proudly noted but we are building, which are these rationales come these landfills i sawwo one of them and us like wow, very actively and filter about to go to the top of that lame filter so i sent them an e-mail speed isqu a dump. >> dump. it's quite a structure that weu building. you could see it right there by the river.

they said sure we would love to take you to the top of the dump. i arrived there and you know, i went up as t the explorer and ws from thet top of that length i got my first glimpse 32 miles away of the tiny, tiny glimmer of manhattan i knew a bit in the book about how if you go to the grand canyon andou at the top yu in the present, and within about five minutes you've walked out of all of human history and you go down that 1.9 billion years in geological time. the landfill, you start out like at the eisenhower administration and then w you walk up. at one point i started i thought where are we now? the guy said about 2006. [laughter] i was like wow that's in ron, george bush, second term and then the present is when you get there and the trucks are dumping stuff in it it's not sorta fun to make fun of but it's not so funny but it's just to see the

immensity of this, this is one county's creation. spirit and this is still an active landfill. >> very. that guy i went up with i got to ohio state university when we were walking up i said you know, there's this culture of thousand years ago that built mountains all around the ohio river valley down the mississippi we should all be aware of these. he said oh, i note that i went to the university start tell me about thosee maps and he said r mounts are notot like those mountains. >> so many interesting places and interesting people. so you're walking along. you've got a water bottle, and a water bottle is empty and you are thirsty and you encounter a very interesting individual all you want is to fill your water bottle. not so easy, right?

tillis. >> one of the things that was really amazing was by the second day, it only took two days for meiz to realize that when you go out on a walk like this we have a destination and is going to take weeks to get there, you start to experience water like bona fide parables like you have incomes with people along the road and you like, act, this stance or something more than just this thing. so that afternoon i was walking along in a water bottle was empty and walking through this really rich new subdivision of his huge mansions have been built around baltimore. this young guy in his 30s came down his drive and there's a big house and mypt bottle was empty and i said, do you any idea where i can get some water works i asked it that way contingent as opposed to could you please my water? so we said, and he gave me these very elaborate directions to this place that was like two miles away. and i said, wow, okay thanks dick ian appreciate that your pastor to walk and he said, by

the y way, i would advise you to be careful. that i said, what should i be careful of course he said, there are 20 people in the state would going to be wondering why you are just walking through the neighborhood. and i said really? are the? and i told him then the story about this guy who's who w walking like around the world essentially and when you walk across the country of georgia come 54 nights come every night he was put up spontaneously by the people in georgia picked and i said, so anyway, i ended up walking -- whilele i was leaving the guy i said one thing, i just want you to what i said be careful, i wasn't talking about me. [laughter] i think you're fine for i was warning you about the other people in the neighborhood. [laughter] and in the book i think on use about our version of hospitality. you go back and a look at any of the holy books it's all about how you treat the stranger who comes down the road you know, in our case we basically turned

hospitality into an industry and rightfully i think of the article at dunkin' donuts. [laughter] which is what you're supposed to get water, right? >> it never occurred to him to say oh, here. >> with no pit no pitn think it because i kept, it took me 45 minutes to get out of this ghastly place and he could think he's going to show up at any moment, right? like weight, it just struck me, here's some water. i've got plenty of water. >> never did? >> it didn't happen. >> one of the most magical moments in the book is when you'reg walking through the quaker, the mennonite country, and you come to some kids playing ball, which turned out to be quite a visit, right? >> again appear that was one of these moments, i just want to impart one obvious fact but i can't overstate it walking is you might say 20 times slower

than driving versus 60 miles an hour. hundreds of times more meaningful, hundreds of times richer. all of the experiences that i had come i meet some of them were just walking and noticing of watching springg and unf. i've never done that before but like literally i just spent a month watching spring out. but you also have these encounters would never have noticed. anyway, this would in have hd or i'm walking up the road, look over at ac beside a school there's a woman, young woman, she's like ninth grade or so, and she's sitting there with a long formal dress on, and bon on edges are based on the other hand, that i hear this, this black, she backs up and she catches his flyac softball and e holds her back unlike what is going on course i go to the playground and there are the mennonite kids on this huge game, two games of softball, all the young women are wearing these ankle-length dresses and they are amazing softball

players, like full out sliding into second base the whole thing. so at the end of camp they stop playing they all come over for jacob the teacher comes over and interests of w the whole welcomg of the stranger, the first thing he said, what brings you here? i told many sickk kids come as a renter let's see what mr. keating has to say. and he was like him tell us what you were doing and i started to talk to them they were kind of taken aback by my commentary about j.c. that are part of the country. and did one of the young woman stepped forward and she said come mr. weaver, could we sing for mr. keating? and he said do you have time? i said i've got time. [laughter] so i went into the school. we went down to the basement if they got on the risers, they are about 30 of them, at the same these two incredible hymns of the afterlife come which was so sore because these are like

14-year-olds on a beautiful spring day after singing about loggingt for heaven. but anyway, it was the fullest most spontaneous like saying thanks to me that i wasn't there and that i did, and was interested in them. it was so extraordinary. one last thing, i was leaving for all of this cold blue occurred and i m was going for y water bottle out of the drinking fountain. mr. weaver got back into t the class and if that essay anything about me or anything the first words out of his mouth like a well, as you know, we were working on our vocabulary so if you turn to page 30 sixth and i was like wow because they are just so in the moment pick they are just sogs focus on things tt it was phenomenal. >> what a magic moment. so from the guy who will fill your water bottle, tell us about

-- won't telle us about peggy te vulgarities in the book. >> so the whole walk, i'm just walking person and out there because if you go out on the big odyssey, there hashe to be a dragging of dragon of some kind of something, cyclops or something, and the dragon was i-95, right? it was like how am i going to confront and deal with i-95? so site to distal arcing pathse been identified cranberry new jersey answers perfectly preserved 19th century town, midway point on the all postal route. and to the right of it or the east of it all these warehouses, amazon, wayfair, all this kind of stuff in the woods in the running between them is abrupt. i found before i left i was looking at google maps and i

said oh, i will go there, i will talk to the town historic preservation people and for a make my way up that river and out the under the turnpike by water underneath it picked some women talking to them, this beautiful boy at attila my plan, and this woman katie brennan was well into her '80s that definitely do work that i said like what she said it's all water. there's no room for a pedestr. but i have an idea. so she gets upe and she gets hr phone and she calls her son, to mislaid percentages of adhesive followed leader go to his ouster equals a kayak out from underneath his house to take me toix the lake, and like six of them, i get in the kayak and there always a goodbye as i kayaking up this brook gantry at toby after you told me is going to have to go over this impediment, all these trees, waterfall, finally get over all of them at that will be able to go to the turnpike to it was the fact that she concocted

this plan that became one of the great moments of the whole trip was paddling up the amazon i called it. [laughter] >> so then, let me leave room for your questions but let's talk about theoh lessons you learned. >> oh, yeah. >> what did you learn about the american people? >> i mean, you know, i was never on a scientific mission to come out with a statistically accurate sampling of americans that would lead me to some firm conclusion, but one ofth the things, this is on the one hand, sort of obvious needs to be said all the same, that if you go and stand with people on their patch of earth, their common ground that you share with them at the time andwi have interactions wih people who might be basically residing in another century or shortly a distinctly different political views froml your own,

in that setting you're dealing with a fully rounded person, right? everything else about them that's not just three or four other political beliefs and i met quite a few people and politics did not align with mine, but to a person they all had other characters and traits and things that were just so amusing and funny. so it was the other signs that we'veib almost forgot that they were breaking into tribes and breaking into, and you know, one guy i met who was an auctioneer who had all kinds of pronounced views on things that certainly didn't align with mine, i imagine in this barn filled with all these incredible vintage contractors but he started telling about the tractors and it was, such a great encounter. there's a world out of there and that was my by design was toy very particular attention to the particulars that i saw and to put out of my the more sort of

abstract things with overheads with certainl us kind of anxiety or venom i'm not saying that's the real america but i'd say to do that for a spell really opened your eyes to a different slice of the country. >> i was struck by your summing up on page 340, the love you feel for your country can deepen along with the knowledge of the shameful things we've done. there is ugliness but also beauty in the ugliness. what we remember of an era to reflect more than anything, our desire to give the best gloss. >> i am a firm believer, i knew there are certain governors around the country that think they figured out our ministry to our history or what, what we should be teaching the children about our past, and anyone that thinks they figured that out hasn't given it ample time because of such a complicated thing but the one thing i do know is if you don't do the

valley of shame part of it, and it's a i long and dark one, and it's an ongoing one, and i encounter things almost every week and reading like we did that? you know. if you don't continually do that, then youou don't come out the other side to have a love for this country that is found in the reality. it's the people that believe that, if youou have a shame for your country, then you're not patriotic and you don't properly love it, it's just such nonsense. i think it's exactly the other way around, that by acknowledging and fully absorbing those aspects of her past, it's how you have a better or high respect from where we've come and where we are now. >> to everyone of the travel books we talked about, including yours, is is the discovery oa certain country, certain region it's also self-discovery. what did you learn about yourself? 26 days walkinge. by yourself, a

lot of time, right come to think? >> i had some really amazing moments of joy along the way, and he sort of rapturous moments that i think came about largely because i just decided i would devote myself to paying attention and not listening to anything, no music, no podcasts here and it had an accumulative effect over the days, and it really did become kind of religious experience, certainly a very spiritual one. so by the time i got to new york i just thought that i was sort of glowing, and it was kind of a radiance about things that a lot of that i still think is there any way. i mean, it's a'nn funny thing wn you walk out your door. the one thing i'll say speed you've got your book there. youth talk about that rapture which came at a very unusual

place, walking around across the bridge. >> exactly. actually chapter called rapture on the bridge. when i was going up the bridge i was when looking for my head but it was right there. where looked up and saw i was overwhelmed by the side of manhattan and ite is by the way can we get a lot of service this kind of philosophy you would have done but one distinct service with that is built the city of manhattan because it is a gorgeous thinker receipt on spring morning with the river in the harbor at that thing rebuilt, you can go back and read all the f. scott fitzgerald jointly talks about and many others about that gorgeous site come and it was a gorgeous site. i describe your this weird rapture that would be on near gratification. i had seen the skylight before a thousand times over the years i

can't citeded from all directios as a cabdriver in the common traveler. but on this morning the site of it physically stanley. the dates and all steps had pried open a part of the human spirit that magnifies the potency of otherwise simple things and grants the commonplace touch of the divine. spirit so the second time through your book i sent remember now something that really struck me once about union station. so i went back to union station to double check at, and there on facing unionization on the upper left side of union station is this quote from samuel johnson. so it is in traveling a man must

carry knowledge withm him if he would bring home knowledge. spirit that's because actually talking here when i say that meaning you bring. >> does that fit to your experience? >> absolutely. to the extent someone said ramble, how do you ramble? what qualifies for ramble? my think is you pick a place that is important to you, doesn't matter how far away it is, you leave your house to get to it because i think that continuity of where you live a normal life at this place you want to go to is really important, and you spend a certain amount of time preferably months really study andan thinking about and steepig yourself into what's in between, the stores, the travelogue, the geology. the more meaning you bring with you, the more meaning you get in return.

it's a trade. it's not just the people you meet your it'ss when you arrive, go on a river edge and read a lot about that river edge you know how old that river is as you fully respect that river it pays you back when you arrive at it. it gives you things in return. it's a transaction. >> the onlye regret is that we all couldn't go with neil on an american ramble. [applause] >> thank you. >> questions about the road, the people, the places? please use the microphone so that c-span can pick up our questions. >> we have another microphone over here. >> just one. >> okay. please. >> have you heard from anybody since the book has come out come the need of people you encounter? >> that's a really interesting question because -- didid

everybody hear the question? >> more importantly have you heard from the water guy? [laughter] a lot of people have said you should bring him the book. [laughter] i have to do that. s of the one thing i haven't really tried to convey is my firm belief that we all live under certain sort of regulated time, that's the kind that comes faster the goes faster the time we were you when it's over and then there is this other form of sort of touched time that you can see for yourself that has higher, i don't know, resident meeting about it. the whole of this walk took place in that time. i was in new york tonight to do and we had a party and the guy who took me across the hudson in the boat was at the party. i mean, i remained in touch, right brain ship touch with probably i don't do know e from that think the walk. including the mennonites.

i was up at the same school two weeks ago at 200 people came into the basement at a talk with him and then the kids sang songs for half an hour. i'm like him how to do to form a bond with them? i was on it with them 45 minutes two years ago? they invited be a blessed christmas underwent for a christmas program. i think a lot of it is if you put yourself out and you really open and interested in other people and what they are about, they respond. >> follow-up. so when you let people, obviously -- >> microphone. >> sorry. did you tell them i am neil king, i'm a "wall street journal" report and i'm writing a book? at what point did the conversation -- >> welcome for the most part i kind of did, at least i made it clear i was walking but i was a writer, and that became an issue later when i was writing a book because people had to go back to

make sure they were going to be in the book but that's a different thing. >> we have a member coming around with a microphone. >> right here. >> neal, thank you for doing the walk and for sharing your story with us. really enjoyed the book and found one of them a beautiful part of it to be the dedication to your brother, whom you said noticed things others list. it seems in some ways this walk for you was about doing just that spirit absolutely. >> help us understand how your perspective on life perhaps changed after the walk. >> youth know, one of the things that was so interesting about the reading going back like i re-create in the book which you will know if you read it this walk that thomas jefferson and james madison took to like champlain in 1792 i was so fascinated by that thing because jefferson had desperate they

both decide to want to go up there. jefferson'sl travel jotting wee filled with theta most incredibe details i was just like, like to go over the mountain and they come down to lake champlain and he says come we've noticed there are no more persimmon trees on the site side of the mountr i'm like, what? like nobody notices the lack of persimmon trees. unit, he crossed the delaware and he wrote, i heard the first session i was like wow, so was the spring. the first katydid i read a lot of perot's jottings likehe that, too, where he would throw his notice when certain flowers first bloom and when the last leaves were on what trees at the end of the season and all that stuff. you know, immersing yourself here it's an editor, we spent so much of her time now, i'm guessing the things that we salivate over on television are not worth being worked up about,

but there's something else going on in the world it's also worth noticing. the board you can at least counterbalance with that kind of tactile, the unfolding, the whole event, that was an exercise worth noticing. >> for the most part you work let's forget the water bottle jerked, pretty well received spirit absolutely. >> did you ever think about what the reception would've been if you were a 55 year old black male doing that walk? >> i did a lot and i wrote about that a fair bit. i have two thoughts on that subject one is,fo i would for a second act as if i faced less risk being what i am walking down the road and all kinds of other people, black man, woman, you could do on. i probably faced the least risk anyone because i'm training this kind of thing, a

journalist. on the other hand, i would just not hesitate but not say that anyone set said or type of n shouldn't do this. it's really an amazing -- decision in philadelphia if there was a guy probably 55-year-old black man sitting in front and asked me a question along those lines, when it answered he came over and introduced himself, and a new history because he had actually last year walked from area tablets birthplace to the canadian border, and he introduced himself, ken johnston.an i said we've communicated her i had not met him in person to exit why did you ask that question? he said, i just wanted to see your response. [laughter] part of what his point was, and if you're predisposed to doing something like that and feel that you're good at it, that's a different matter. on the other hand, we've all seen the atrocious things that

happen the lastwe few weeks, and that level of just like insane, if youfe see the group in a way that you fear, feel fear for person looking through your door after them and you just shoot as a result of that, that's like a mental illness, right? that is out there. the one thing i didn't do by the way, when you take a walk like this notice people that are the most intent on multiple no trespassing signs generally live in houses that you would never want to go onto the property, like you know, they have like five cars and there are dogs at the end of change. like i'm not going to go on your property, you know? [laughter] and their like no trespassing everyone. >> okay, we got it. >> neil, you just said it was an exercise for noticing and i've heard you quote mary oliver before, attention is beginning of devotion. life as we all know as a way of,

the noise of it, the distractions and become the incessant bombardment can numb us all. having done this walk, do you feel like you can access that more quickly, more readily, that sort of paying attention stealing yourself and gettingng back to the place? >> yeah, i do and not acting as if i'm on some higher plane or something like that but i do think it kind of hard outer space that is accessible. •-ellipsis also, not acting as ifev i don't get into all the distraction everybody else o suffers from one of the ironies of having witness book about walking to new york is now spent hundreds of hours driving back and forth. [laughter] this morning i drove back down through most of the same territory and it's just brain-dead time that just, it evaporates. that again going to the

different forms of time, time spent going back and forth in a car is not remembered time. it's not time that is going to be the last thing you think about in your final moments on earth. weirdly enough, this lot probably will be among those moments. it is crystalline quality that certain stretches of time can have. >> the next question is from someone who is m mentioned in yr book. >> more than mentioned. >> bill press. first-time longtime. >> talk show rate of. >> longtime listener first-time color. >> we did a radio show for 14 years together. spirit indeed, indeed it was a great run. neil, i've been struck by how many specific experiences you had on your journey that resonate with current events to imagine somebody getting shot through somebody's front door for example, the one thing and

think about is we're finally having issues debate aboutut solitary confinement and you had experienced about the origination of that can you talk about any one of those experiences that seem to inform your opinion or your observations about any current event? >> wow. >> you can use it when i did expect solitary confinement would one example. >> there is that. i had to wrestle a little bit without i with you the city coud write books about that. i decided to focus in large part on the fact that theirs is really fascinating prison there called eastern state penitentiary, which ironically was one of the things that drew alexis de tocqueville to come to the clinic because he was in the u.s. to write about our prison system, ande it was only when he was here looking at our

prisons that he became taken by the democracy aspect of american descent not to write about that. at that time solitary confinement was seen as like a very humane thing because the alternative to it was deep throat into place like sing sing where we were surrounded by all kinds of other criminals would be beating on you while you work, like a matter to be like if all of us were in prison to lock the door and he would be altogether and you would all prefer to be in a solitary situation. that's an example of how our view of these things can change so much, something that seemed a point time to be humane becomes anything but over time i certainly would see it that way now. >> hey, bill. neil, what a wonderful story, and on waiting to hear his memoir spirit i'm going to come to that early.

look, 80 event but a finished undergrad i had the best job of my life i traveled around the country, 44 states selling $800 sets of cookware to single women. it was like it was a hope chest item. the one thing i learned there were these kind of regional quirks everywhere. usually if i'm selling it to a mom and her daughter, if i would say in the rio grande valley, they would get up, all of the friends and neighbors would come over and i would be talking to 12 or 15 people. when i was in south louisiana, every household that we need to, the dance would bring me a beer. when you were like north of burlington and durham they have like north carolina just artist accent i've ever picked people sound like they have marbles in their mouth. anyway, i wouldn't see these courts around the country but did you notice like when you're walking around didn't seems like

i was south jersey different from north jersey court i was at lancaster different from 30 miles away? >> yeah, no, write about what i called the micro nations and i actually give names to i these various places i call it the kind of greater washington, and then when i got into maryland it was self like india because northern maryland is actually quite sudden a lot of oyster that area of york county as well. going across the susquehanna from yorktown into lancaster county i think is one of the biggest cultural leaps anywhere in the country because you're going from a very frontier-ish place with a very different way of approaching farms and land management to this theory prim and very exacting anabaptist way of farming and the farmhouses were like really big and proud at thehe huge grain silos. it was a striking difference.

i sort of traced the as i become a somewhat , somewhat tongue-in-cheek, walking up another sociologist but the imprint of who settled where when is a very much of an ongoing feature in american life everywhere and it may remain that way for centuries more, despite all the movement somebody's don't change that much. >> another thing that -- raise you have the rage menta question for another thing that struck me, you point out is you can be walking people think about history but you have to sometimes stop and recognize that what's really striking is the land spirit yeah. >> this land of ours, beautiful land of ours at your service a lot of it came to appreciate. >> yeah. i have one part at the end of the book or summarize some of my conclusions.

i have a little riff on how it wasn't, youll know, we americans likes to think it was the principles that we came across the atlantic with, where there was like adam smith or are vim and strength and resourcefulness and persistence and all that dirt in the not disputing that the saints are of some value but the one thing i think we diminish is the place that we found. that was by the way very inhabited from the first encounters all along the coastline, i think way more inhabited than a lot of people are aware. but those people had done no damage to the place. so we arrived on the shores where so much of our greatness that was to come was because of this place, right? weave in some ways done few favors we continue to do it relatively few

favors. >> right here. >> thank you. >> just a second. >> "american ramble" signed by the author by the way. >> yes? >> so i grew up in the west, and as you talking about this unthinking this is a very east coast kind everything. >> yeah. >> how do you think this trip would've been different att different parts of the u.s.? >> yeah, very, i grew up in colorado and unlike -- yeah, yeah, yeah. one of the things is that, i just read by the way a fantastic book called the oregon trail which i recommend, such a good description of that that whole passage. he didn't get it with his brother in a covered wagon actually a fantastic story. but logical for the west the

density of the stories become less and particularly when you get out into the more mountain west. there is just not as much divided by to write about entrance of the human side ofms it. you would have to travel large distances have kind of a narrative thread. in my case there was all these civil war sites, so the construction of railroads, the canals, all the revolutionary war sites. there's so much that was -- but it really drawn to doing some things that way. >> longer walks. >> yeah. >> "american ramble: a walk of memory and renewal." neil king, jr. thankin you, nei. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you for doing the walk. thank you for writing the book and thank you for being here tonight. >> thank you all for being here. this is amazing.

>> they will be glad to join you & your book for you, and thank you all for coming to see you at the next addition of the talk of the hill. good night. thanks. >> thank you [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> weekends on c-span2 on intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories, and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 come from these television providers and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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