Susan we want to listen to just a little bit of jeff bixbys music so people can get a sense of what interested ford and edison. Susan just a little bit of the music. Would a lot of americans be listening to music of this type of this era . I would rather drive you get a sense of place. Somewhere along the line in the 30,000 or so miles i drive every year i started wondering how we got to be a country, a culture where we take for granted we can go anywhere we want to. Since i didnt know i thought it would be a good idea to write a book about that. Your book begins and ends with a somewhat minor character. Who was he and why was he interesting to you . Jeff was an elderly country fiddler working out of michigan playing barn dances and so forth, and that was pretty much the height of his musical career. He was listed in local archives as a shoe maker. Henry ford had heard about his sic and unexpectedly in 1923 his wife opens their door in this little tiny isolated town and there stands he
What is the story you tell . The story, to tell us how america morphed into a car culture to everyone wanting to get into cars and go places. I had not known until i started researching that henry ford and Thomas Edison were at the forefront of this. Idea come to you for telling the story at this time . This is my 22nd book. What i do when i try to do when i write nonfiction books is to go everywhere where the people i write about went. Id rather drive and that way you really get a sense of place. Somewhere along the line in the 30,000 or so miles i drive every year i started wondering how we got to be a country, a culture where we take for granted and we can get in a car and go anywhere we want to. I thought it would be a good idea to write a book about that and as always happens when you look into history, theres more to it than you ever expected. Susan your book begins and ends with someone thats a minor character, jeff bixby. We are going to show his picture on screen. Who was he a
And often rough. If you lived way out in the country, 15 or 20 miles from the railroad station, you had to get up before dawn to catch the 9 30 train. For the next two hours, the carriage went creaking down the old, familiar road while the countryside moved slowly past. If you were leaving the farm for good, to go to the city, you had mixed feelings on that long ride to the station. It is not easy to pull up roots and start a new life. Use saw the faces of old friends as you passed their houses, waving goodbye, and you felt sad leaving them. But you felt to, how old and tired they looked, locked on the land. A woman looked 50 before she was 35. In a way, you were glad you were leaving. You past the old schoolhouse and you remembered the long miles you walk morning after morning to get there. That final run to get inside before the bell stopped clinging. Clanging. Or perhaps you past the doctors buggy and you remembered the terrible night your mother laid upstairs sick and the weight fo
And often rough. If you lived way out in the country, 15 or 20 miles from the railroad station, you had to get up before dawn to catch the 9 30 train. For the next two hours, the carriage went creaking down the old, familiar road while the countryside moved slowly past. If you were leaving the farm for good, to go to the city, you had mixed feelings on that long ride to the station. It is not easy to pull up roots and start a new life. Use saw the faces of old friends as you passed their houses, waving goodbye, and you felt sad leaving them. But you felt to, how old and tired they looked, locked on the land. A woman looked 50 before she was 35. In a way, you were glad you were leaving. You past the old schoolhouse and you remembered the long miles you walk morning after morning to get there. That final run to get inside before the bell stopped clinging. Clanging. Or perhaps you past the doctors buggy and you remembered the terrible night your mother laid upstairs sick and the weight fo
I was nervous because i am the panthers fan and there was an onscreen teeing lombardy in this battle skid they had to do and all of a sudden there was a commercial. I was not really focused but i saw a freeway sign that said detroit and i got my attention and the pocket of backbeat of music and all the symbols of between, joe louis downtown, the diego rivera murals, incredible murals in evoking the manufacturing sculpture, the spirit of deflate downtown and a black sedan driving a couple woodward avenue, the main thoreau fare of detroit, and c. Eminem in the car. I am not an eminem guy. I am now but wasnt then. I love the music that was playing in the background, but he gets out of this restored theater in downtown detroit and walks down the aisle and there was a gospel choir. This is the motor city, and it got to me some way. What detroit meant to me. And my earliest strongest memories of that city, and that commercial, set me on the path to thinking about what do i do . How can i hon