again brings you all day coverage of the national book festival guests and authors include library of congress. but a judge onis book i have something to tell you for young adults. former nfl player russell author of the yards between us. complete national book festival online at booktv.org. the library of congress national book festival live saturday beginning at 9:00 a.m. eastern on cspan2. cspanshop.org's c-span's online store. browse through our latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home to core, and accessories there's something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support of nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at cspanshop.org.

♪ a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this democracy at work citizens are truly a republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capitol to wherever you are it is the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span powered by cable. >> good evening i am mary and welcome to hill center and to talk at the hill with host bill press veteran journalists, political commentator, author. before hill center really opened bill had an idea he wanted to create and host an in-depth

conversation that he would moderate with distinguished guests. and over the years there have been so many very distinguished guests that i have to say i think know it more distinguished ngthan our guest this evening. [cheering] wall street journal editor political editor and reporter neil has just published this extraordinary book american ramble a walk of memory and renewal. bookshop has copies for sale. and neil will be signing the book after words. i'm sure you have all have seen the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive to say the least. without further ado please welcome neil king. [applause] >> thank you mary and fred 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 at the health center. i do not know what number of talks on the hill this is they are always fun and exciting and none more as marion said then tonight but i also want to welcome all of our friends from c-span for watching on c-span around the country, around the world tonight. thank you for c-span for covering our event tonight. it is very appropriate that c-span is here. the top of the hill program started at the hill 10, it may be 11 years ago now. we've had many, many programs. our very first guest was brian lamb the founder of c-span. >> yes. [applause] >> come full circle tonight. i also want to take a chance to welcome all of those people who will be listening to tonight's interview on my podcast the bill

press pod. [applause] that is a shameless plug. [laughter] bill press pod listen to the podcasts our conversation this evening will be part of the podcast as well. in such in terms of welcome such a great treat to welcome a good friend and a k good neighbor, nl king. who a couple years ago did this crazy thing of walking out his front door and walking to central park, new york. tthere are a lot easier ways to get there as we know. but no way more exciting. no weight filled with more adventures then neil discovered. and writes all about and relates to us in this wonderful wonderful book american ramble. i like it t so much i read it twice. i encourage you to read it at least once and again a city books is here with copies for

you to buy in for neil to sign. so let's get started you live two blocks away. >> yes i live just down. >> did you walk over tonight? [laughter] i just want to be sure. start us off page 11 when you walk out the door. while the events that might have occurred that all the books any of you have read this has the distinction of starting and finishing on my street. we know when on it that is. so, the beginning of this book has a section called preamble. i walk out might door and i spent a lot of time talking about why walk out my door the history of the territory in

between. >> will get to that. >> yet so much is the portion going to redo. this is at the very end of that chapter. i set out that monday morning, nine days into spring, up ninth street eager to see if anything of interest might crop up along the way. as i turned away the marine corps barracks five blocks away brokeof out in a recorded rendition of the star-spangled banner. to the lord's beaker as they did every morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp. it was a brassy version and the style of sousa and for those restraints i patted the first block of an arching path over rivers and freeways and farmland to her the hudson spills into that big harbor with lady liberty and her torch.

the sun hung warm over my shoulder. there were bird song in the tree i had a skip in my step and a satchel on my back and could feel within blocks a little bliss seeping in. >> what a great beginning. one word could wrap this up for the entire evening was not take that moment. but why? [laughter] >> it started as an idea right over there one morning i said what if i just navigated as a pedestrian new york city did not take i 95, did not go to union station, what would the pedestrian experience be? and so that festered for a while. i read more in thought more about the land in between and help others had taken that same trip. by the time march of 20 to 21

rolled around i done tons of preparation and it became something absolutely had to do. >> the route you took you deliberately decided she would not take anything close to 95, right? you wanted to go around about way, which you did we will get into that. again, why that route? what is funny i come out on my street if i take a right and go down pennsylvania avenue. to go over the chesapeake and then up andac across and up the jersey shore, that would be a week and half of ocean a and jersey shore. and the more i thought about the route, the more i realized i had to go through pennsylvania. he had to go to lancaster county where the amish and mennonites are. i head across the mason-dixon line unimportant part of the mason-dixon line i had to go to valley forge but had across the delaware were washington did but certain things fell into place

that work must be quick selling to take you tous planet? books in various ways it took basically a year is going to walk out my door march 2020. but something happened. [laughter] and so i had to scratch it decided to postpone it for exactly a year's i walked out my door march 29, 2021 in between those two dates everything unimaginable had happened including a couple of months before i left the whole insurrection at the capitol. so i walked into a world that was profoundly changed than when i originally had planned to do it. and increase the number of things to think about by magnitudes. >> you took off her 26 days did you take a lot of stuff with you? quick snow i took very little with me i did not camp. the fact i was sleeping and

their b&bs and ends i had the plot those places, which was not easy. i went light at 16 pounds or so. i had a fly rod to do some fishing and one pair shoes. one packet was not large. it was a satchel it was like huck finn or something. >> how many pairs of shoes you wear out? 's just one i just where the one pair progressively the whole time? >> yes. >> so we talked a little bit about this, i'm a big fan of travel writers. i have read a lot of the sum of the old-fashioned ones like hb morton, eric newby, or phil bryson, paul peru, have you read them and did they inspire you? were you following their lead? >> my list to be slightly different i am a huge fan of

bruce chaplin of patrick, yes. but the reading i did do that did inspire me and set the stage for the walk was a whole stream of writers to come to the united states in the 1820s, 30s, 40s and had done basically what i was doing which was to travel slowly through an important part of the country to figure out this place. would we at last? this young country made up all these languages and creeds ever form into one union? and alexis de tocquevillet wasa famous member of that. but there were so many that came in i'd read dozens of those books. my attitude was similar to theirs i wanted to go out as if i was not already hugely familiar with the landscape and the people which in a lot of ways i wasn't and make up my mind about various things like going through it. >> are so many different levels of the book there we go.

i really enjoy so many interesting places you walk too. and learned a lot about so many interesting people you encountered along the way and then it kind of the big picture life lessons that you came back with. let's start with some interesting places you talk about lancaster junction. >> the hanover junction tells a little bit about that. >> 's is one of the things i decided i had read there's a ttrain station. this was one of the first rail lines built in the united states it was completed from uncertain baltimore to york. in 1834. and in 1863, abraham lincoln took that line and at the hanover junction there's a line that goes this way that takes the train to gettysburg and he paused there for half an hour or

so. he was waiting for the governor of pennsylvania to show up. and then a year end half later lincoln was on a train that went this wayng and kept going strait was a very long route to take him from itasca to springfield for his burial. there something just fastening about that station and the fact those two sets of tracks diverts their that was one of my pilgrimage destinations and think about those two things. next lancaster, learned a lot about president buchanan, the only president i think to come from pennsylvania. >> until joe biden if you count him. [laughter]. i am sorry i am from delaware. all. right. forget about scranton. [laughter]

buchanan and then thaddeus stevens whom i had never heard of before. you talk a lot about buchanan and stevens. >> one of the things that was great about the walk or the memory and the subtitle was now my memory is a national memory like who is that we remember and why? when i walked into lancaster they were activelyti debating rename one of the elementary schools after because they want to take james buchanan's name off he being the last president before it lincoln one of these double-faced democrats was a slave only because of the confederacy or was soon to be confederacy. and a moral coward essentially. ever since he had died they had meticulously y looked after his mansion. you could visit the junior league and thaddeus stevens who had lived in the same town at the same time when the pecan and

was president thaddeus stevens was the head of the ways and means committee in the house. was way more righteous than abraham lincoln almost anybody else in congress. was lincoln's conscience in a lot of ways he would push lincoln to issue the emancipation proclamation and so on. they were just then getting underway to rehabilitate his mehouse and it is nelson going o become a museum and what should be which is like a civil rights destination but thaddeus stevens some of the great figures of the 19thim century. hundreds of times more important james buchanan. and james buchanan at least in that place has been held up until now they did not deter statue down but there had been when i would've been fine with replacing it with betty steven statue. [laughter] question walked into the middle of this debate. we'll t find out when you read e book every city went to every

town he went to you it connected whatconnected with the town historian. who told you the history of the place showed you the places you should see in terms of learning our history. gettysburg? >> a did not go to gettysburg we talked about valid. so valley forge was a fascinating to me. i'm sure many of you are familiar but valley forge the winter of 1777 and 78 the continental army i didn't have shoes nothing but hardtack to their falling apart the british are taken over a huge portion of the country. there in philadelphia sitting around fires the continental army is a freezing and valley forge. i want to valley forge and met a d historian there she had writtn a book about what i was interested was not the winters when we decided to care about

the winter. it took us basically a century to care about that winter. we kind of needed to have that moment in the late 1800s were the victorian sensibility came together on we needed a symbol of grips, persistence and sticking at out. valley forge became that place. it is aco fascinating think we codified gettysburg, gettysburg became more of a memorial immediately after that battle 13 years before valley forge became a thing of importance. it has morphed since then has become at huge national park which is not half until gerald ford actually. but that to me, i was walking through a landscape where we had been fighting over what statues should be torn down or not on or re- erasing history are not

erasing history? the reality is history is a very fluid thing, always has been and sometimes it takes us a while to acknowledge certain things happen. and the fact some people are being erased or their statures are being torn down as part of that process. >> right there so many other historical places. particulate revolutionary war you are across the c delaware tt was trenton, and then to meet one of the most interesting places was the great mound. [laughter] >> i had on a drive back from new york down to washington take the jersey turnpike you will see these things these trash up mounds, these landfills. i saw one of them very active landfill i want to go to the top of the landfill. >> a dump we are building and see it right there by the river.

so they said yes, sure would love to take it to the top. so i arrived there and i went up as the explorer it was from the top of that landfill i got my first glimpse 32 miles away of the tiny tiny glimmer of manhattan. i am use a bit in the book about if you go to the grand canyon and at the top you are in present and within about five minutes to walk out of all of human history you go down about 1.9 billion years in geological time. the landfill you start like the eisenhower administration and then you walk up. [laughter] at one point mike where we now and the guys said about 2006. i'm like wow that's enron, george bush. [laughter] and then the present is when you get there and the trucks are dumping. it's fun to make fun of but it's not so funny.

just to see the immensity of this this is one counties creation.l >> is still an active landfill? looks very in the guy went up with a gun to ohio state university and said you know, there is this culture 1000 years ago that built mount all around the ohio river valley and down the mississippi something we should all be aware of these places present i know, i went to ohio state university he started telling me about those and said our mounds are not like those amounts. [laughter] correct so many interesting places and so many interesting people. so, you are walking along you've got a water bottle in your water bottle is empty and you are thirsty. you encounter very interesting individual. all you want is to fill your water bottle. not so easy, right?

tell us. >> one of the things that was really amazing is the second day. it only took two days for me too realize that when you go out on a walk like h this you have a destination is going to take weeks to get the you start to experience like a bona fide parables encounter people along the route you likefo wow. that afternoon i was walking along my water bottle was empty i was walking through a really rich new subdivision with these huge mansions have been built outside baltimore. dothis young guy in his 30s came down his drive and it's a big house my bottle is empty and i said to him that you have any idea where i can get some water? i ask it that way intentionally as opposed to can you please fill my water? he said and he gave me very elaborate directions to place that was like 2 miles away. [laughter] i said okay thanks i appreciate that i started walking and hein

said by the way i would advise you to be careful and i said what should be careful if he said there's going to people in this neighborhood wondering why you're just walking to the neighborhood. i said really are they? i told him the story about this guy who is now walking around the world he walked across the country of georgia 54 nights every night he was put up spontaneously by the people in georgia. and i said so anyway, i end up walking in while i'm sleeping the guy said oh onene thing, i want you to be careful i wasn't talking about me. i think you are five i was warning about the other people in the neighborhood. [laughter] and in the book i go on to muse about our version of hospitality you go back and look at the holy books it's about how do you treat the stranger who comes on the road.

and in our case we turned hospitality into an industry and rightfully i feel that my water bottle at dunkin' donuts which is where you're supposed to get water, right? >> it never occurred to him to say here? kept thinking it took me like 45 minutes to get out of this place and i kept thinking is going to show up at any moment, right? it just struck me, here's some water we've got plenty of water. but note. he never did? >> no did not happen. >> to meet when most magical book is when you are walking through the quaker, the mennonite country. you come to some kids playing ball which turned out to be quite a visit. >> i was one of these moments who want to impart one obvious fact i cannot overstate it. walking is you could say 20

times slower than driving it's hundreds of timesgf more, hundrs of times richer. all of this experience i had, some of them are walking in noticing andha watching spring i've never done that before like literally just spent a month watching spring happen you also have thesese encounters he would never notice. i'm walking up the road a look over in a seat beside a school a woman a young woman she's ninth grade or so sheet has a long floral dress and has a baseball mitt on her hand and i hear a whack she backs up and catches this flying softball she hurls it back the other way i'm like what is going on? i go to the playground there mennonite kids playing softball. all the young women are wearing

ankle length dresses and they are amazing softball players. like a full out sliding into second base the whole thing. gand so at the end, they stop playing come over towards me their teacher comes over and in terms of the welcoming of a stranger the first thing he said is what brings you here and i toldga him he said kids gather around let's hear mr. king has to say. it was like tell us what you are doing? i started to talk to them. they were taken aback by my commentary about seeing their part of thene country. one of the young woman stepped forward and said could we sing for mr. king? he said jeff time customer i question isaid yes i've got tim. [laughter] so i will into their school with him down to the basement they got on the risers there about 30 of them they sang these two incredible hymns of the afterlife which was so bizarre

these like 14 years old on beautiful spring day they're singing about their longing for heaven. but anyway was the fullest most spontaneous song's song of thanks that i was there and i had come and was interested in them basically. on one less thing when i was leaving this hullabaloo occurred was going to go up and fill my water bottle out of a drinking fountain. mr. weaver goes back into the class and instead ofof saying anything about me or anything the first words out of his mouth is as you know we were working on our vocabulary few turn to page 36. i was like wow. they are so in the moment they are so focused. >> what a magic moment. so from the guy who won't fill your water bottle, tell us about

peggy she was also the charactershe in the book. >> the whole walk i am this walking person out there because if you go out on a big odyssey like odysseus or night there has to be a dragon of some kind or a cyclops or something. the dragon was i95. how am i going to confront and deal withoo i95? so i took this whole arcing path and then identified cranberry new jersey is a perfectly preserved 19th century town the midway point between new york and philadelphia the old postal route. and to the right of it or the east of it are all of these warehouses. amazon, wayfarer all the stuff in the woods running between them is a brook. i've vowed before even left them looking on google maps i will go

there, i'll talk to the town fathers and the historic preservation people and i will make my way up the river and go under the turnpike find water underneath it. so whenti i'm talking to them on this beautiful morning i tell them i plan this woman, maggie brown is well into aces s not going tono work and i said why? she says it'swa not there's all water no room for pedestrians but i have an idea so she gets up and gets her phone out and calls her son and 10 meds that her son shows up and said go to his house he pulls a kayak out from under his house they take me to the lake in like six of them i get in the kayak and they're waving goodbye kayaking up this brook after he had told me i was going to have to go over this i finally get over all of them i will be able to go to the turnpike. it was the fact that she

concocted this plan that became oneho of the great moments of te whole trip is a paddling up into the amazon as i call it. [laughter] quick sor then let's get to in your questions. talk about the lessons you learned. did you learn about the american people? i was never on his scientific stmission that came out this statistically accuratee sampling of americans that would lead me too some firm conclusion. but one of the things, this is sort of obvious but needs to be said all the same. if you go and stand with people and their patch of earth their common ground that you share them at the time and have interactions are people that might be residing in another century or distinctly different political views from your own.

and in that setting you're dealing with a fully rounded person. everything else about them is not just three or four of their political beliefs. and i met quite a few people whose politics do not align with mine but to a person they had other characters and traits and things are so amusing on so the other five we almost had forgotten out or breaking into the tribes we are breaking into. one guy i met who was an auctioneer had all kinds of things that certainly did not align with mine. i met him in a barn filled with these incredible vintage tractors he started tell you about the tractors. it was such a great encounter. there isas a world out there tht is my desire to pay very particular attention to the particulars i saw and to put out of mind the distractive things

that fills us with a certain kind of anxiety or venom. i am not saying that's the real america but i'm thing to do that for a spell really opens your eyes to a different slice of the country. quick so 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 have done. there is ugliness but also beauty in the ugliness. what we remember of an errant may reflect more than anything our desire to give it the best gloss. >> i am a firm believer. i know there's certain governors around the country think they figured out the mystery to our history. what we should be teaching the children about our pastor. and anyone whoou thanks they figured that out is not given ample time. it is such a complicated thing but the one thing i do know is

if you don't do the valley of shame part of it it's a long and dark one and it is an ongoing one i encounter every week and i think we did that? if you don't continually do that then you don't come out the other side to have a love for this country that is founded in the reality. the people who believe if you have shame for your country are not patriotic you don't properly love it is just such nonsense. i think it's exactly the other way around that by acknowledging fully absorbing those aspects of our past is how you have a higher respect for where we have common where weks are now. >> everywhere the travel books we've talked about including yours is a discovery of a certain country, a certain region. it's also self-discovery. what did you learn about yourself?

of all these days walking bass e of the allottedt. time, to thin? click sign some really amazing moments of joy along the way and these rapturous moments. i think came about largely because i just decided i would devote myself to paying attention and not listen to anything, no music, no podcasts. had had in a cumulative effect. it really did become kind of religious experience, certainly very spiritual. by the time i got to new york i felt like i was glowing and thereha was a radiance about things. a lot of that is still there no way. a >> you have your book there. you talk about that rapture had

a very unusual place. walking across the bridge. exactly. >> there is a chapter called rapture on the bridge. one is going up the bridge i wasn't looking for manhattan. when i looked up and saw that i was overwhelmed by the sight of manhattan. we have done a lot of disservice to this continent by a lot of the things we humans have done but one distinct service we have done is built the city of manhattan it iss a gorgeous thig for me see it on a spring morning with the river there in the harbor there that think we've built and you can read all the scotts fixture realty talks and many others about the gorgeous site. and it was a gorgeous site. i described this weird rapture went beyond mere gratification. i had seen the skyline before. 1000 times over the years i

caught sight of it from all direction as a cabdriver and a common traveler. but on this morning decided physically astonish and stunned me. the days and all of the steps had pried open a part of the human spirit that magnifies the potency of otherwise simple things and grants the, place a touch of the divine. >> beautiful. so the second time through your book i said i remember now something that really struck me want about union station so it back to union station to double check it. and there it you're facing the union station on the upper left side of union station is this quote from samuel johnson. so it is in traveling a man must

carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge. >> i actually talking here when i say the meaning you bring. >> is that fits your experience? works absolutely. to the extent if somebody says how do you ramble? what qualifies as ramble? my thing is you pick a place that is important to you it does not matter how far away it is. you leave your house to get to it because i think that continuity of where you live your normal life in this place you want to get to is important. you spend a certain amount of time preferably months studying and thinking and steeping yourself with him between the story, the travel logs who moved where when. the more meaning you bring with you more mean you get in return

it is a trade. plus not just the people you uemeet. when you arrive and you've read a lot about that river and you know how old that river is in you fully respect that river it pays you back when you arrive at it. and it gives you things and return it is a transaction. >> the only regret is we cannot all go with neil on an american ramble. [applause] >> thank you. questions about the road, the people, the places? please use the microphone so c-span can pick up your question driven to the microphone over here or just one? okay good. please pay. >> if you heard from anybody since the book has come out, any ofnt the people he encountered? quick that's a really interesting question. quick said everyone here the

question question. >> more poorly have you heard from the water guy? [laughter] a lot h people said he should bring him the book. [laughter] so that one thing i have not tried to convey is my firm belief we all live under certain regulated time that's the time that goes fast, then there is this other sort of touched time that you can season for yourself that has a higher residence and meaning about it. the whole of this walk took place in that kind of time. i was in new york two nights ago we had a party guy who took me across the hudson and a boat was at the party. i mean i remained in touch like touch with probably 20 people from that thing, the

walker. including that mennonites i was up at the same school two weeks ago and 200 people came into the basement and i talked with them a 50 of the kids sang songs are about half an hour. how did i form a bond with them? i was only with them for 45 minutes two years ago but they invited me up last christmas and i want for christmas concert. i think a lot of it is if you put yourself out and you are really open andr interested in other people and what they are about they respond. >> a follow-up. so you met people obviously did you tell them i am neil king i am wall street journal reporter and in writing a book? what pointed that conversation come up? well, for the most part i kind of did or at least they made it clear i was walking and i was a writer. that became an issue later when i was read the book some people i went back to to make sure they

knew they're going to be in the book but that's a different thing. >> marianne is coming off the microphone. here we are, right here? >> yes request neil think of it in the wall and walk insuring your story with us. i really enjoyed the book found one of the more beautiful parts of it to be the dedication to your brother whom you said notice things others missed it. wait seems in some ways this wok for you was about doing just that. >> absolutely pray. >> help us understand how your perspective on life perhaps change after the walker? >> quick sort of thing so interesting about the reading going back and reading was a retreat in the book know if you read at this walk thomas jefferson and james mattis chukchi lake champlain in 1792. i was so fascinated by that. jefferson had a headache, and madison had something they both

said they want to go up there. jefferson's travel jottings were filled with the most incredible details i was like they go over the mountain and they come down to lake champlain. i sit with notice there's no more persimmon trees on the side of theik lake. i am like a what? nobody notices the lack of these trees. when you cross the delaware and he wrote i heard the first unlike a while. so it was spring he heard the first katytt did. i read aou lot he was famous for noting when certain flowers first bloomed and when that last leaves were on what trees at the end of the season and all of that stuff. it's an anecdote we spend so much of that's our time now i'm not saying the things we salivate over onp television aren't worth being worked up

about but there is something else going on in the world that's also worth noticing. the more you can counterbalance with that kind of tactile, the unfolding of the season the whole of it. i wasn't exercising noticing too. >> for the most part let's forget the water bottle jerk, pretty well received. >> absolutely. >> did you ever think what your assumption would havewe been if you were 855-year-old black man doing the walk? >> i did a lot and i wrote about that a fair bit. i have two thoughts on the subject. i would not first second act as if being with what i am walking down a road with all kinds of other people black man, woman, we could go on. probably the least risk of anyone. i am trained in this kind of

thing i am a journalist. on the other hand i would not just hesitate but not say any one setis or type of person shod not do this. there's an event in philadelphia there's a guy probably a 55 real black man sitting in the front he asked me a question along those lines and i answered he came over and introducedhi himsf and i knewam his name he had walked from harriet tubman's birthplace to the canadian border. he into introduced himself ken johnson i said can, we had communicated but had not met him in person. i said why did you asked that question he said it wanted to see your response. [laughter] 'part of what his point was, if you are predisposed to doing something like this and feel that you are good at it that's a different matter. on the other hand we have all

enseen the atrocious things that have happened in the last few weeks. that level of insane if you see the world in a way you feel fear for a person looking through your door at them and you shoot as a result ofnt that that's lie a mental o illness and that is t there. one thing i did not do by the way we take a walk like this you notice the people the most intense on a multiple or no trespassing signs generally live in houses you would never want to go onto their y property. [laughter] they've got like five cars there's dogs at the end of chains. like i am not going to go on your property. [laughter] and the like no trespassing everywhere. [laughter] >> okay we got it. great pills. >> and neil, hean said it was an exercise in noticing and i've heard you quote mary oliver before, at the beginning of devotion.

life as we allf know the noisef it, the distraction of at the incessant bombardment can numb us all. having done this walk, do you feel like you can access that more quickly more readily that paying attention, steeling yourself and getting back to that place? >> yes, i do. i'm not act on come on some higher plane or something like that. iut do think it carved out a spe that is accessible. but i don't give into all the distractions others suffer from one of the ironies about writing this book aboutpe walking i've d hundreds of hours driving back and forth. [laughter] this morning i drove back down through most of the same territory at the time that has

evaporated. and again going to the different forms of time. time spent going back and forth in the car is not remembered it's the time this going to be the last thing you think about in your final moments on earth. weirdly enough this walk probably will be among those moments. it's this quality certain stretch of time can have. >> the next question is from who is mentioned in your book. >> more then mentioned that. [laughter] >> first time long time. [laughter] longtime listener first time caller prick works exactly. >> my business partner did a radio show 14 years together. >> indeed, indeed is a great run. neil, i have been struck by how many specific experiences you had on yourr journey that will resonate with current events he mentions in my getting shot through somebody's front door for example.

one thing i am thinking about us are finally having a serious debate about solitary confinement you had an experience about the origination of that. can you talk about any one of those experiences that seem to inform your opinion or your observation about in a current event? for quick solitarynf confinement will be one example because solitary confinement will be one example precludes there is that. just to pause on that. i had to wrestle a little bit how i would deal the city of philadelphia there's books about that. i decided to focus a large part of the fact there is this really fascinating prison called eastern state penitentiary. which ironically was one of things that drew alexis de tocqueville to come tonight stacy was in the u.s. to write about our prison system. it was only when he was here

looking at our prisons he became taken by the democracy aspects. but, at that time solitary confinement was seen as a very humane thing because the alternative to was being turned intoal where you're surrounded y other criminals who are going to be beating on you. it would be like if all of us were in prison they lock the doors we all be together and some would prefer to be in a solitary situation. that's an interesting example of how our view of these things can change so much. and something that was seen at one time to be humane becomes anything but over time. i certainly would see it that way now. >> yes, sir? >> hey bill, what a wonderful story. i'm waiting to hear bills a minute come for that early.

and 80 when i finish undergoing the best job of my life. i traveled around the country, 44 states. selling cookware to single women. it was a hope chest item. but one thing i learned there were these regional quirks. i was in the rio grande valley they get their friends and neighbors would comee over i wil be talking to 12 or 15 people. every house i went into the dads of bring me a bear. when you are north of burlington and jerome north carolina the oddest accent i've ever heard. he was like the marbles in their mouth. did you notice like when you how

is south jersey different from north jersey? how is it different from 30 miles away? >> i write about what i called the micro nations and i gave names to these various places i call the greater washington and then when i got into maryland it was southland northern maryland is quite southern in a lot of ways. better of york county as well i think is one of the biggest cultural leaves anywhere intr te country. you are going from a very frontier -ish place a very different way of approaching farms and land management to very prim andxa exacting way of farming and the farmhouses were really big and proud in these huge silos. it was a striking difference.

i trace that somewhat tongue and cheek as i'm walking i am not a sociologist. the imprint of who silverware and when is a very much of an ongoing future in american life everywhere. it may remain that way despite all the movement some don't really change that much. >> another thing raise your hand if you have a question. another thing that struck me that you point out you can beate walking in and think about the history. but you have to sometimes stop and recognize what is really striking is the land. this land of ours for this beautiful land of ours. what you sought came to appreciate. >> i one holding at the end of the book where we summarize the

conclusions. i have a riff. we americans like to think it was the principles that we came across the atlanticik with. i was out of am not disputing the center of some value. but the one thingng we diminishs the place that we found. that was by the way very inhabited all along the coastline. way more inhabited then people are aware. but those people hadn't done no damage to the place. and so we arrived on the shores were so much of our greatness that was to come was because of this place. we have in some ways done that place relatively few favors we continue to do it relatively few

favors. >> the beauty of the land? >> yes absolutely. >> anyone on the side of the room? >> right here okay? thank you. we'll bring it to you in just a second period american ramble signed by the author. >> i grew up in the west. this is a very east coast kind d of thing. how doen you think this would he been different in different parts of the u.s.? >> i grew up in colorado. one of the things i just read who wrote a fantastic book called the oregon trail. i could not wrote a much more he did it with his brother in a covered wagon it is a fantastic

story. once you go further west the density becomesan less particule way to get into the mountain west there is just not as much to write about in terms of the human side of it.ld you have to judge travel longer distances. they're all these civil war sites there'sth construction of the roads there are the canals the rougher letter there is just so much. but i'm really drawn to doing some things out that way. >> longer walks. [laughter] the american ramble, a walk of memory and renewal. neil king junior thank you neil. [applause] >> think of her during the walk think of writing the book and thanks for being hereal tonight. >> thank you all for being here.

>> will be glad to join you and sign your book for you. thanks. thanks. [inaudible conversations] ♪ a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this it. americans can see democracy at work citizens are truly enforced. a republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the nation's capitol to where ever you are it's the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks

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