Famously went to the university of North Carolina and played basketball with the championship basketball team. Election, he famously channelled al greens im so in love withe you. It became the number one phone ringer across the country after that. I have a question for you, do you think he would have projected the same cachet, charisma and cool if he had been into bowling and had channelled again campbells the wichita lineman just as a guy who i understands the entertainment en im speechless. To i think everybody else would have been too if he would have ] sung the wichita lineman. I dont know how the answer that. And i almost dont know what youre talking about. That. Okay. All right. Re enough about that. Were down to the last 15 seconds. I want toeti Say Something te you, please. Obviously between one of my lifetime best friends and a guy that ive known 50 years. I got no business being here okay . Be but i thought it was such an honor for me to be invited o because all ive ever tried to do in my adult life is to make my father proud of me. A and wego were my father dieds few years ago. But when he was 75, he says to me you know, i love you. Id and it was the first time he had ever said that. And he says, and im proud of you. Thats the first time he ever that. He said im proud that youre my son and im proud just as proud that im your father. Goi and that was my hero. You know, im going to tell you a quick story. We have zeros on the clock. D you have to be quick. Wquick . Im i got my first 100,000 contract and i called my father and i said you dont have to as, work any more. I make enough for both of us. And his reaction was i dont want your damn money. I got my own money. Job, and hes working in the foundry. And i says, thats a terrible job. Why would you give it up . M he said listen, ive given these people 35 of the best years of my life. Now im going to give them a few of the bad ones. It has been a tremendous honor for me to share this stage with two of the greatest men. G. I wont say basketball player or football player. Things you just happenis to be the best in the world at doing. But two of the greatest men, two of the greatest citizens of this country that ive ever had the pleasure of being associated with. Let me thank you. Thank you very much. Heres a great read for your Summer Reading list, sundays at eight a collection of stories from some of the most influential people over the last 25 years. I knew there was a risk and i decided to take it because whether its an illusion or not i dont think it is. It helped my concentration. It stopped me being bored. It stopped other people being boring to some extent. It would keep me awake and get me to prolong the conversation and enhance the moment. If i was asked would i do it again . Probably yes. I would have question earlier hoping to get away with the whole thing. Not nice for my children to hear. It sounds irresponsible if i say i would do that again to you. But it would be hypocritical to say i wouldnt touch the stuff if i knew. The soviet union contained the seeds of its own destruction many of the problems at the end were there at the beginning. I spoke about the attempt to control all institutions and all parts of the economy and political life and social life. One of the problems is when you do that and try to control everything then you create opposition and potential dissidents everywhere. You have just made him into a political dissident. If you want to subsidize housing in this country and we want to talk about it and the populous agrees that its something that we should subsidize put it on the Balance Sheet and make it clear and evident and make everybody aware how much it is costing. When you deliver it through thirdparty enterprises and through a company with private shareholders and executives who can extrant the subsidy for themselves that is not a good way. These are a few of the 41 engaging stories in cspans sundays at eight. Now available at your Favorite Book seller. There was a time in u. S. History when competitive walking was a competitive sport. Author Matthew Algeo talks about his book pedestrianism, competitive walking was a major sport in new york and philadelphia in the 1870s and 1880s. The New York Public Library hosted this hourlong event. Its a pleasure and an honor to be here at the New York Public Library and i thank them for the invitation. Also nice to have cspan here, who will be recording the event. As christine mentioned i live in mongolia. Is there anybody else here from mongolia tonight . Yeah, a couple. So i wrote most of this book while i was living in mongolia. And just by way of background, a little background about myself and how the book came about, i went to college in philadelphia. Im originally from philadelphia. And i went to university of pennsylvania and majored in english for a semester. I found out i didnt really like to read fiction. I always preferred nonfiction. Since i didnt like to read it, i wouldnt read it and i got a d in freshman english and decided maybe thats a sign i should try another field. And so, i switched my major to folklore. Any other folklore majors here today . Folklore was a great training for writing books. It really involves research and interviewing and paying attention, basically. But when i graduated in 1988, it may surprise you but back then there werent nearly as many folklore jobs as there are today. And so i ended up going out to seattle. Just moved to seattle. And thats where i kind of drifted into public radio. Back then it was more like a Welfare Program for people with folklore degrees and it was very helpful as well in teaching me how to write and research and write clearly and concisely. So i bounced around a bunch of public radio stations. I worked in minnesota. I worked in st. Louis. I met my wife there. We were married and worked in maine. And in three i moved to los angeles and worked for a program called marketplace and in 2003 it was the year that allison took the Foreign Service exam to attempt to become a Foreign Service officer and passed. And so she was put on a hiring list. You could be on the list for up to two years. It was almost two years we were in los angeles when allison got an email one morning if you want to join the Foreign Service y06[c,4 need to move to washing in two weeks. So we had a decision to make rather quickly. At the time i had a good job at marketplace, allison was still if we took the job she would have a job and i wouldnt. And this didnt bother me in the least. And so we took a vote and it was 11. About whether or not i should quit my job. Eventually, though, she came around and it enabled me to start writing these books. I tend to write books about obscure events in american history. Somebody recently told me you wrote the definitive book on pedestrianism. And i thought you know, thats my niche is i write the definitive books about things that probably dont need to have definitive books written about them. But its been a lot of fun. Its been extremely nonlucrative. And it has given me something to do as we travel about. Usually im able to do the research in washington. Were based in washington between our foreign assignments. And so i can, you know, get all the Research Done at library of congress and elsewhere. And then when we get to post i can concentrate on writing the books. Its a very portable nonlucrative profession at least. And the first book i wrote which i mostly wrote in the capital of mali which is in west africa, the first book i wrote was a book called last Team Standing about the 1943 merger of the steelers and the eagles. During world war ii the National Football league was so short of players, that they had to merge the steelers and the eagles and they became the steagles in 1945. They were a misfit bunch. The quarterback had a prefer rated eardrum. The receiver was blind in one eye. But they had a successful season. You can buy the book. Its in paper back. While i was researching the steagles book i went back and looked at the hisry of spectator sports in the United States. Always interested in how we got to this point where sports are really kind of a cultural its like a its like the sports Industrial Complex today. Multibilliondollar business. Cities build 100, 200, 300 Million Dollar stadium funded by taxpayers just to keep these teams in town. I knew it hadnt always been like that. I was curious how it got to be like that. And thats when i learned about this peculiar sport called pedestrianism. It was the most popular spectator sport in the United States for a very brief period of time in the 1870s and 1880s. And it really began in 18 1860. There was a door to door book salesman in boston. And he made a bet with a friend in the autumn of 1860 on the outcome of that years president ial election. Westin bet that lincoln would lose. Spoiler alert. Lincoln wins. So westin, to fulfill the terms of the bet, it was an unusual bet, the loser had to walk from boston to washington in ten days and arrive in time to see the inauguration. Now this was a really arduous undertaking in 1861, the inauguration was in march of 1861. Im sure its no walk in the park today either. I wouldnt recommend taking the interstate. But he walked from. Go. Set out on february 21st. And of course the roads were terrible and it was the middle of winter. There were no paved roads at all and in some places you had barely more than a dirt path to tell you where to go. There were no reliable maps. When he got to a town he would have to ask how do i get to the next town. But this attempt to walk from boston to washington really captured the publics imagination. It fascinated people. And i think for a couple of reasons. One, winter of 18601861, not a lot of good news in the papers. Southern states are seceding. The civil war is imminent. And westins walk was a feelgood Human Interest story. As he made his way south, huge crowds would turn out in new york and trenton and philadelphia just to watch him walk through town. People would wait for hours in the cold waiting to see westin on the horizon, slowly making his way to town and bands would come out and play and accompany him. He was a shrewd businessman too. He had made an agreement with a sewing Machine Company from new york to hand out advertising fliers along the way. He got them basically to sponsor his trip. He would hand out these fliers and make his go on his merry way. The unfortunate end to the story is he didnt make it in time. He was four hours late for the inauguration. Nonetheless, he had become very famous. He was also kind of a schemer. He if i neighed an invitation to a lincoln inaugural ball and met lincoln. Lincoln offered to pay his train fare back home to boston. But the civil war intervened and it wasnt until 1867 that westin attempted another walk. And this time, it was a walk from portland, maine to chicago. And he made a 10,000 wager he could walk from portland to chicago in less than 30 days. And again, this was considered practically impossible. At the time. He he succeed. He won the bet and again along the way, huge crowds in buffalo and erie and cleveland. When he got to chicago an estimated 25 of the population of the city was waiting to meet him. Another huge sensation and this solidified westins reputation as a celebrity, a celebrity athlete and he was just westin the walker. The name westin was synonymous with walking. He was a clever guy. With his fame at its peak he decided to take his act indoors. In the 1870s, roller skating became a popular sport. It was a fad, really. I think general sherman was a big fan. But anyway, towns and cities began building roller rinks, places where you can go roller skate and westin would stage walking exhibitions in these roller rinks, walk against time. He would attempt to walk 100 miles in 24 hours. And hed pull into a town and hire a band and he would do these walks and thousands of people would come and pay 10 cents a piece just to watch westin walk in circles on the floor of these roller rinks. I mean sometimes the laps were so small they were 50 to a mile. He had amazing endurance and also an ability to function with very little sleep. And this proved very lucrative these exhibitions and soon competitors sprang up. The most famous was an irish immigrant from chicago, Daniel Oleary. He was a door to door book salesman until the great fire in 1871 in chicago. That really reduced the demand for guiiltedged version of the bible or dictionaries. So he had to walk out to the suburbs to sell books and developed a reputation for endurance himself. When he thought about westin he thought i can do that. He rented a rink in chicago and walked 100 miles in 23 hours. And westin walked 100 miles in 22 hours. It became apparent these were the two leading pedestrians in the United States and it was time for a showdown. I call them, really, the ali and the frazier of their age. Westin was the ali character. He walked in velvet shirts and carried a cane. He understood that the event was about more than athletics. It was about entertainment. He was there to entertain the crowd. Oleary would have none of. That he wore a traditional tight cotton pants and a cotton shirt and just looked straight down at the track, wouldnt even acknowledge the crowd. He was always focused, i guess you would say. He was the joe frazier in the comparison. But in november of 1875 it was finally decided we need to have a competition to determine the worlds champion pedestrian. Never mind that it was between two americans. But we call it the world series, so, thats never stopped us from deciding that we had the world champion. And it took place in chicago. Interesting venue, the chicago exposition building. It was the largest public venue in the United States at the time. The ground covered five football fields. You could fit five football fields in the expo in chicago. It was so big that this was the logical place to hold this great walking match. And the rules were pretty simple. Six days was as long as any athletic contest could take because at the time, there were blue laws that prohibits public amusements on the sabbath. You couldnt walk competitively on sunday. Thats the way it was. So the races would begin right after midnight sunday night, monday morning and continue pretty much nonstop until midnight the following saturday night. 144 hours. Generally it was six full days. And in this match in 1875 between oleary and westin, oleary won and he was declared worlds champion pedestrian. Westin, who had been the most famous pedestrian up to that point was not gracious in defeat and complained that oleary had a Home Field Advantage because the race took place in chicago. He said he had been threatened and somebody had threatened to shoot him, these sort of things. None of these reports panned out but westin was quite chagrinned and decided to take his act to london where he started staging these walks against time again and the british just like the americans were fascinated by westin the walker and would come out to walk him walk for hours or even days at a time. Eventually this format of the sixday race kind of was formalized and there would be large competitions that would be staged between all comers. The entry fee would be 10. Later it was raised to 100 to discourage speculators, people who thought they could walk 500 miles in six days but really couldnt. You would have 15, 20 competitors taking part in a sixday race. And dirt track would be late on the floor of the arena about 1 7 or 1 8 mile. A team of judges would keep track of the laps. One part of the foot had to be on the ground at all times. This was walking. Some of the most famous matches took place close to here at the first Madison Square garden at 23rd and 4th or 5th maybe. This was built by p. T. Barnum in 1874. He named it in his typical low key way, the grand roman hippodrome. It was neither grand or roman. A hippodrome was a name for a stadium at the time. It was open air and 10,000 seats total and it wasnt covered. Sometimes barnum would cover it with his tents. By 1876 it was covered. In 1877, i believe one of the vanderbilts who owned the property took it over and decided to name it after the nearby park, Madison Square. Hence we have Madison Square garden. This is the first im talking about of course. The current Madison Square garden which opened in 68 is the fourth. But they keep calling it Madison Square garden. Even though it is moving away from Madison Square which must confuse some tourists anyway. The race atc j z madison squa garden were the most popular sixday races. Now were in the golden age of pedestrianism. 1879, 1880, 1881. Madison square garden seated 10,000 people and it would sell out every night and people would come and go throughout the day. So we dont know how many people in total would watch one of these sixday races but its possible they might have had 20 or 30,000 people come through the turnstiles every day. People were constantly coming and going. And that was one of the appeals of the sport, actually. It was continuous. And at the time you had millions of people moving into the city. Industrialization, new factories, migration of people from the countryside, immigrants especially irish and german immigrants pouring to the city, especially new york but there wasnt much for them to do. There was an entertainment deficit in the United States in the 1870s and the 1880s. I would say we have an entertainment surplus now but back then there was an entertainment deficit. Most entertainment was a Live Entertainment that might cost a dollar or two and the average working person was lucky to make a dollar a day or 50 cents was more likely. There wasnt a lot for working people to do. A ticket to one of the great walking matches might cost 10 cents or a quarter. And because it was continuous if you worked a shift and got off at 11 00 p. M. Or 7 00 a. M. You could stop by the great walking match and have a couple beers and watch for a couple hours. There was no restriction. In fact if you wanted to you could buy a ticket on monday and stay all six days and a sandwich cost about 10 cents. And basically for a dollar, you would have a warm place to stay for a week and at least one meal a day. And they also sold a lot of beer. A walking match, too, i need to emphasize everybody says it must have been so boring. It must have been so boring just walking people walk in circles for days at a time. The only thing i could think be more boring would be listening to somebody talk about people walking in circles for days at a time. But, i will not talk for six days, i do assure you that. But these events look, we have had some really boring super bowls. I think we can all agree on. That we have had some really boring super bowls, everybody watches. And you dont always watch for the football. You watch for the commercials. You watch for the halftime show. And when something unusual will happen, that sort of thing. And pedestrianism really pioneered this. There were brass bands that would be playing songs. There were vendors selling everything from roasted chestnuts to pickled eggs, raw oysters. Wouldnt recommend buying those. But you know, there were all kinds of things to do apart from watching the guys walk. It was a spectacle. And for working people especially it was a rare opportunity to take part in something this spectacular and this famous and on the front page of the newspaper the next day. There were other things to do at the walking match. I went to the new stadium in philadelphia and it occurred to me that these new baseball stadiums are designed to give you something to do besides watching a baseball game. You know . They have arcades for the kids and restaurants and bars and its basically theyve admitted its a boring sport. But youre paying 28. Well give you something to do. And that was a little bit the case with pedestrianism. Pedestrianism also had a lot of fans from the upper class. And you might see celebrities at a great walking match. James blaine attended walking matches. Chester arthur was a huge fan. Stop me if you recognize any of these names. Tom thumb was a big pedestrianism fan, not literally. But he enjoyed pedestrianism a lot. And i guess was fairly easy to spot in the crowd. I dont know how. But word would get around that tom thumb was in the arena. At one point, there were riots. People rioted to get into pedestrianism matches. There was a riot in new york where they oversold tickets to the match and people were still gathered outside trying to get in at midnight sunday night and they heard the roar of the crowd inside and began storming Madison Square garden and there was a very famous, Infamous Police captain, alexander williams. His nickname was clubber. You can deduce from that what you want. But clubber decided that he had to beat back these people who were trying to invade the garden and it turned into a riot and a lot of people say it was the worst riot in new york since the civil war draft riots ten years before. It inflamed passions deeply. The pedestrians themselves became the first celebrity athletes in the United States. Their pictures appeared on the early trading cards. Daniel oleary the irish immigrant from chicago he was the spokesman for a brand of salt. Dont know what the connection was. But apparently he liked that salt. There were corporate sponsorships. I mentioned westin would sell adds as he walked. There were many pedestrians were sponsored by newspapers and would compete with the logo of the newspaper emblazened across the front of their shirt. An early example of advertising on an athletic uniform, a tradition i have to say that Major League Baseball to its credit has resisted, though for how long i dont know. It also had a struck a chord with people not just because there wasnt anything else to do. That was a big part of the appeal. There was so little entertainment but its the idea of walking to the average american in the 1870s and 1880s is very different than it is today. Everybody walked. A good horse might cost 100 or 150. This is one of the things that surprised me. I imagined that everybody had horses. Nobody had horses. 1 had horses. The 99 walked. And they walked everywhere. There was some Public Transportation especially in new york and philadelphia. But by and large people walked. And they had always people had had to walk Long Distances in the middle of the night to fetch a doctor or maybe on a snowy sunday morning to get to church. So people related to the competitors, to the pedestrians. There was an empathy. They were doing this ordinary activity in a very extraordinary way. And also, they were admired for their endurance. In a typical race, a pedestrian might be on the track walking for 21 out of 24 hours. They would sleep about three hours. Usually in 15 to 30 minute i increments. There would be a tent with a cot on the track and thats where they would rest. A lot would have trainers. But the trainers were there to make sure they didnt sleep too much and would throw cold water on them or beat them with sticks to try to get them up and back on the track. A lot of times the trainers were financed by gamblers. It really was an exercise in sleep deprivation as much as athletics. I have a theory i go into in the book in glorious and amusing detail about how sleep patterns affect athletes and affect all of us. Most of us are monophasic sleepers. We sleep once a day. Some are biphasic sleepers who sleep four or five hours and take a nap. Whenever you hear someone say, i only slept four hours a day but you took a twohour nap every afternoon so it all evened out. Some of you who are sleeping right now are biphasic sleepers. But the pedestrians i think were mostly polyphasic sleepers. This is a real thing. You can train yourself to sleep in 45 minute increments several times throughout day. If you are able to fall into r. E. M. Sleep quickly youre as rested as if you slept eight hours a night. It was a physiological quirk that these guys had. If you were sleeping, others were making laps. You didnt want to sleep very much when you were in a sixday race. There were all kinds of strategies. It was interesting. By the fifth or sixth day thats when the attendants got excited. The guys are sleep deprived, dirty, smelly. They did not have the advantage of modern sports medicine, the diet, you know, generally considered of mutton, which ive had a lot of in mongolia now that i think about it and raw beefsteak. One guys favorite was greasy eel broth. I asked allison if she would try to make this and she said no. And also they thought champagne was a stimulant. That would help them. So they were drunk and dehydrated. Suffering from sleep deprivation. You get tunnel vision, actually, when you dont have enough sleep. So later in the race they would take chalk dust and mark a line in the middle of the track so they could stay on that line. And often competitors would collapse. They would just their bodies just could not endure what they were asking their bodies to do. And at the end of a race, often and dan oleary was one. He would be so utterly exhausted he was unable to walk they would carry him back to the hotel. Westin he was usually in good shape. In fact races would end saturday night and he went to church the next morning. It affected different racers in different ways. The sport also opened doors for women and africanamericans in ways that had never been done before. Africanamericans could compete with the white competitors on the same field. The rules were simple and if you were able to do it you were given a chance to do it. Frank hart won a major race in 1881 and for a time was the most famous black athlete in the United States. Women race today. There were sixday womens races. The women, though, they had a they had a special problem because the victorian age demanded that they wear fulllength skirts or dresses usually of a heavy velvet. God forbid we see their shapely calves seems to be the reason for that. And so, while they did race and the races the womens races were quite popular as well, they were at a disadvantage. Lets just put it that way. In 1880, it looked like the history of pedestrian that pedestrianism would last forever. It really was de facto Americas National past time. But several things happen that led to its demise. One there were gambling scandals as it game more popular with the public, it became more popular with gamblers. There were all kinds of ways to wager. You could wager on who would be the first to drop out, who would finish last. So many different ways. Some of the lesser pedestrians would collude with gamblers and fix races. Agree to be the first to drop out the bookie takes the bets on it and splits the winnings with the pedestrian and this began to erode public confidence. There were drug scandals. Performanceenhancing drugs its so good that we have eradicated that from modern sports. Westin was caught chewing cocoa leaves while he was walking to keep him away. He said he only did it on his doctors orders. Which is a pretty standard excuse these days. I didnt know what i was taking basically was his excuse. But, the biggest down fall, two things, really, contributed to the downfall of pedestrianism, and one was in 1885, there was an frrrib arsp named john star. And he invented a machine he called the rover. Which is the modern safety bicycle. You know before that, bicycles were the Penny Farthing with the big front wheel and little back wheel. They were not fast. But the safety bicycle with the two samesize wheels and the chain drive shaft were fast and nimble and more fun to watch race for six days than people walking. And it was almost instantaneous that bicycle racing replaced competitive walk as the most popular spectator sport. It also had the advantage of crashes. The bicycles especially at the end of the six days when they were all out of it they would be crashing into each other. This was spectacular and a lot of fun. No one goes to races to see crashes any more either. So a lot of this a lot of these innovations were really kind of pioneered what we have now in modern sports, the corporate sponsorship, the spokespeople, the monization, it is amazing. It was monetized almost instantly. The owners of the venues jumped in. At its height in 1879, 1880, a pedestrian could win and they got a percentage of the gate receipts. One guy won 20,000 for winning a race at Madison Square garden which would be about 400,000 today. Not bad for six days work. It was very lucrative for a very brief period of time. Unfortunately many of the pedestrians died penniless. They again, you dont see that any more with professional athletes squandering their wealth. So pedestrianism set a lot of standards good and bad. And really, by 1890, pedestrianism was all but dead. It was also killed by baseball. The National League was founded in 1876 and it was really a ragtag operation. Teams would just quit the season half way through if they knew they wouldnt win. Why take the road trip to st. Louis, lets just go home. In the 1880s, the baseball owners decided we really need to organize this thing. And so the first thing they did in their infinite wisdom was impose a salary cap of 2500 a season and they also imposed the reserve clause. This was a clause in every players contract that bound him to his team in perpetuity. You could never be a free agent. You could only be traded or released. This persisted until 1975. It was a very controversial thing but it really solidified baseball and by 1890, the National League had eight teams. And only one of those eight teams is not still with us. The cleveland spiders, unfortunately would be nice to have the spiders. But the other teams and i have to write them down, braves, cubs, dodgers, philly, pirates and reds. Many of them have moved around a lot. But they were all in the National League in 1890 and still all in the National League now. So baseball really replaced pedestrianism as a popular spectator sport along with bicycle racing. Baseball stadiums were built and baseball became a fad and became engrained in the american consciousness as a National Past time as they like to call it. I talked about the empathy that people had with walkers. I did a little research. I mean, it was on the internet so it has to be true. But recently there was a study that the average american takes 51 5,117 steps a day. That is about half of what is recommended. We really dont know how many steps the average american took in the 1870s or 1880s but i found one study that said in North Carolina a housewife would walk half a mile a day just fetching water. It gives you an idea why people walked. Walking was essential. It was the only way to get around and the only way to fulfill your basic needs, food and water and employment. Were not a walking nation any more. I doubt that competitive walking will make a grand comeback although it still exists in the olympics. We have race walk matches, 30,000 is it 30 kilometers 10 kilometer, i think. But its funny, the modern race walking the rule is that one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times as observed by the human eye. So just like the old walking matches of the 1870s, 1880s they have a team of judges who is looking at everybodys feet and making sure that one of them is in contact with the ground. If you do it in slow motion all of the best competitors have two feet off the ground for an instant but its the idea is to not be caught and not have it be visible to one of the judges. And so in that way its very much like old pedestrianism was. I think competitive race walking was was in the first modern olympics in 1896, was it . 1896 and one of the few sports and maybe the only sport that has been in every single olympics since then there has been race walking. And so you can really see a direct line from the old time pedestrianism to modern race walk but in a larger sense you can see the direct line from the idea of sport as entertainment and sport as spectacle to today. With the super bowl i mentioned and baseball. The idea that people attend a sporting event not just to watch the event but to see the fireworks and watch the scoreboard and hear the you know, hear the music between plays. The music all the time it is so loud i dont know why it is so loud in stadiums today. You cant even talk but thats just my thing. But you really do see a direct line between pedestrianism and modern professional sports. And most of the pedestrians tried to switch to bicycles but they werent very good at it. But two of the pedestrians, Edward Westin and Daniel Oleary they continued to stage walking expeditions well into their 80s. Westin walked from new york to San Francisco in about 1907 and again sold one of these pamphlets along the way. He did a walk from new york to minneapolis and sold a pamphlet and the sponsor was the packard car company. Westin did not like cars just because he thought they made people walk less. Iconically, westin, in 1927 was crossing a street in manhattan and was hit by a car. And was left crippled and never walked again and died two years later at the age of 90. Oleary fared a little better. He would stage walk expeditions before major league walk games. He would challenge a player to run around the races while he walked around once. More often than not he would pass a hat through the stands collecting nichols and dimes and this is how he funded his retirement. I imagine he performed before a game in chicago between the white sox and the as in 1927 and i imagine the players in the dugout who were all born well, well after the golden age they had never heard of pedestrianism and they must have been bemused by the sight of this old man Walking Around the bases as fast as he could. But would have been blown away he had made more in six days than any of them would make in the entire season of 1927. It was a sport that flashed very brightly for a very short time. And then disappeared almost as quickly as it game on the scene. And i have written the definitive history of it. Thats all i have to say if anybody has any questions, id be happy to take them. [ applause ] i dont know if we have a microphone. No microphone. Well just just speak loudly. What is the name of my book . Youre a plant, arent you . Youll get your 20 afterwards. Pedestrianism when watching people walk is americas favorite spectator sport and its on sale right over there. What a coincidence. What are the odds. Two questions did the women walk against other women or against other men . And also did any of the walkers suffer favorly bad Health Consequences . Did the women every compete against men . As far as i know, they did not. Womens races were usually held at Madison Square garden there would be sixday womens races but women did not participate in any of the mens races. But the sport was so popular clubs were organized all over the country. There was a Department Store league in new york that that the Department Stores competed against each other and this would be a team affair where, there might be four or five people and the accumulative mileage would be the score for the team and i suspect that women participated in those events but not the major races. The other question was about the longterm health effects. Westin and oleary who lived to be 87 and 90 were the exception. You hear many stories of guys who died very young in their 50s. Frank hart, very famous africanamerican, as i mentioned, probably the most famous black athlete in america after he won his major sixday race, 18801881 he suffered a complete collapse. Dont really know what happened. I sent what i could get from the papers to a couple of what do you call the doctors who diagnosis you . Pathologist . And their consensus either he contracted encephalitis or suffered a stroke. You think that walking would make you healthy but walking six days straight for 500 to 600 miles in six days, that i wouldnt recommend as a health regimen. Did they use special shoes . Did they use special shoes . Early on, no. Many would walk just in their work boots and there are many stories of toenails falling off after two or three days. And serious injuries to their feet and legs. As it became more famous and more lucrative and as the competitors could afford it they would go to there were several competitions in london and they went to the famous shoemaker in london that actually specialized in making shoes for pedestrians which were a soft leather that was bound very tightly to their feet. But the equipment they worked with was pretty rudimentary. You know, i dont think the clothing was very comfortable. A lot of wool shirts, bad boots, you know, the conditions werent great. They did not have any of the advantages of modern endurance athletes in that regard. No nike. I greatly enjoyed your book this gentleman talked about how he thought my book Harry Trumans excellent adventure was what did you say . Greatest book ever written. I think you said greatest book ever written. Im writing that down for a blush. Harry trum trumans excellent adventure they took a road trip. They lived in independence, speech in washington and their daughter lived in new york. They decided to just drive their chrysler from missouri to the east coast and back again. I think it took about two and a half weeks. But at the time, expresident s had no secret Service Protection and no pensions and harry was not a wealthy guy by any means. The expenses of the white house was paid out of his salary. When he left the white house in early 53 he had had to take a loan out from a bank in washington to help make ends meet and he refused to commercialize the presidency. He would not take lucrative speaking fees or sit on corporate boards, that sort of thing. Im glad the president s still dont do. That so anyway. He was really kind of a poor guy. He was the last president to become a regular citizen again in a way. And so on this trip they stayed at hotels and ate at roadside diners and crashed with friends in indianapolis one night. Its the story of this trip and also how being an expresident has changed. Its yeah, its they came to new york. They actually stayed at the waldorf in new york for four nights. I was curious how they could afford that. At the Truman Library i found a letter from the general manager of the waldorf saying we would be happy to have you as our guest and harry wrote back and said he thought that would be all right. So he wasnt averse to taking a few perks here and there. And i went back and recreated it and found people who encountered him. He got pulled over on the turnpike for driving in the left lane. Harry just liked to get in the left lane and just keep going. So he got pulled over by a cop and the cop, a state trooper is still stampler. I found him. Hes retired in arizona. There were reported that he had just pulled true man over to get his autograph. I asked manly about this and he said no, i didnt. I didnt. I wish i had. It might be worth something today but he never got his autograph. Surprised at the pedestrian iminnence that he wasnt allowed to compete. The question was about American Indians participating in pedestrian matches. I really didnt come across much of that. I will say that most of the americans took place in new york. Boston, fefl and some in london. Also many of the pedestrians were very poor. They had working guys. They had sponsored. They had to find somebody to put up the 100 entry fee author th for them. I imagine it was difficult to people to find someone willing to help them pay the 100 entrance fee. Yes. I think you mentioned the d pedestrians, there were trading cars. Did you find any of those . I was able to find the question was about pedestrians on trading cards. Yes, i was able to find a reproduced one. The originals are actually quite expensive. They can be 2, 300. As i said my books dont generate its a tough one to pass to get past the wife. Do you mind if i 3 a 300 trading card of a pedestrian. Its not like its going to be honus wagner. There are countries that reproduce vintage trading cards. I as warizos able to get one fr. Its on sale there. The Cross Country walks and the difficulty therein. Yeah, there were there really were no marked roads. A lot of westinn walks aCross Country especially going east coast to west coast. He also did a walk to lchk weos angeles were done along railroad beds. A lot of the walking did he, which is more difficult in some ways than walking an bad roads. As i said there were no reliable road maps so he would often find himself off course. One of the problems from the walk from boston to washington that he attempts to do in ten days and was four hours late. He got to philadelphia and took a wrong turn. It wasnt until 10, 15 miles down the line that he realized he took the wrong road. So it was very difficult. The prizes. As i said most of the six day races you would win a percentage of the gate. So you might win for a big race 20,000. Often the Long Distance races were done for gambling so there would be wagers made. Westinn would find a backer or somebody willing to put up 10,000 and was confident he could finish the race,