The American Story

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Our Greatest Poet Apr 15, 2020

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When you read Abraham Lincoln, you somehow become more than yourself, you become better. And his words want to be read aloud, too. Start with the Second Inaugural—so beautiful—and the Gettysburg Address—his short ones. They are American poems.

Number 42 Apr 14, 2020

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Each year on April 15, all players in Major League Baseball turn in their regular uniforms and wear one adorned with the number 42. On no other day does any player wear that number; it has been permanently retired. This custom, unique in North American professional sports, has been adopted to honor a man who not only changed a sport, but helped change a country.

El Pueblo y el Hombre Apr 07, 2020

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The detective hero, and the detective novel, are not an American invention. But a few authors like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler made them as American as apple pie. The attitude of Chandler's hard-edged, soft-hearted, wise-cracking hero and the atmosphere of Chandler's Los Angeles were as unmistakably American as Humphrey Bogart, who played Marlowe in the 1946 film version of Chandler's The Big Sleep.

Of Birds and Potatoes Mar 31, 2020

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If you need a little poetry in your life—and who doesn't?—Billy Collins can be a good place to start. Collins writes unblushingly to attract new readers to poetry and to encourage those who have given up to come back. And he is famously funny. So much so that, because he reads his poems so amusingly and his readings have been so successful and well-attended, he has been called—not always as a compliment—a "stand-up poet."

Michael Patrick Murphy Mar 24, 2020

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This episode is about an American warship that carries on the name and the work of an American warrior. The ship and her crew operate in more than 48 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The area is more than 14 times the size of the continental United States; it includes 36 maritime countries, 50% of the world's population, and the world's 5 largest foreign armed forces.

On the Way to BB's Mar 17, 2020

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If you are walking down Broadway in St. Louis on your way to BB's Jazz, Blues, and Soups, you will awaken to many American memories, among them a poem you probably already knew.

Standin' on a Corner Mar 10, 2020

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Things happen to a town, and then it's never the same. Or it's the same in some new way. Whatever it was before, it's hard to think of it now without the new thing. Like the Parthenon in Athens or the Statue of Liberty in New York. It comes along and suddenly forever it is part of the identity of the town it came into. In the case of this town, it was a song. Or a few lines from a song.

Bravest of the Brave Mar 03, 2020

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When you visit the historic Mound Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio, the guidebook informs you that, in addition to the ancient burial mound, the cemetery "contains more Revolutionary War officers' graves than any other graveyard in the United States."

Charlie Brown Feb 25, 2020

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There is more of Charlie Brown in most of us than there is Abraham Lincoln or Michael Jordan. We identify with his failures and suffer with him. But it isn't just his failures. Charlie Brown is resilient. He never quits. Despite setbacks and moments of despair, he is at heart an optimist — and one of America's greatest success stories.

Beautiful Goodness Feb 18, 2020

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As a Captain of Volunteers in the Black Hawk War, the 23-year old Abraham Lincoln managed in a desperate moment to keep some hard-bitten men—who had elected him—from committing murder. They had chosen him as captain because he was the best man among them, the one most worthy of their esteem. Lincoln earned it in no small part by outrunning, outboxing, and outwrestling them, but they knew, when they listened to the better angels of their natures, that there were much more important reasons to esteem him.

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