To get the Recording Studio and voiced a book that youve written in having some fun with it and i try to get that done right now so before i get to see whamalala i have to finish this audio book. So that is on my list. Williams talks about creating his 1982 book blue highways a depiction of the United States and its people as seen from the countries back road. Spent 42 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list when it was published. This is about one hour and 20 minutes. Can everyone hear me . Okay. Good. In 1977, the young professor at Stephens College during the winter of 1977 he got word that the population was diminishing and that his position was no longer going to be existing in the following semester in 1978. They hit the road for william at the time to see whats out there to see what the back roads of america look like. Something that he had been dreaming of doing for years anyway. The time was right. So he left columbia missouri and he headed to the circle around the United States and the 38 states and almost 13,000 miles of backroads america. I started reading that book o ta cold january night in 1983. It didnt take me very long to realize someday im going to make the trip. My wife is a secondyear medical student and i was three years in the medical practice you can columbia. I had an 8yearold daughter and a 5yearold son and i didnt have time to travel the route. So it was a dream i had to hang onto for about three decades. I put it down stairs and it would be one of the photographers to help me fulfill that dream my son edgar for the limit is 5 inches taller. When i retired in 2005 i went to work with a company that we formed and about a year into that i said im going to talk to him about that trip. As we met i a cafe in downtown and i would shoo i wish you hadf these images from the coast. They cant begin to write like he writes bu that they could tae photographs. He said one of the most common questions people ask is to find out how things have change chant i am never going to make the trip again. Four years later he didnt think that my son or anyone else for that matter would make that 14,000mile journey into turn it into a book. So the goal into taking the trie truth or to find the characters in the book and we found about 11 of them still living almost three decades later. We wanted to find the beauty of that backwoods america that he had so beautifully described in his book and we wanted to find the patterns that he frequented. We wanted to find the mom and pop cafes that he always ate at. And after visiting he came up with the five calendar system for ranking. If the cafe had no calendar it is the same as eating at a pitstop in the interstate pitstop. One calendar suggested that they have pre processed food similar to new jersey. Two calendars would eat at if it had this on the wall with the two calendars. Three calendars meant that you couldnt miss the farmboy breakfast because it was going to be good and the four calendar straight to eat as well, keep it on your head or franchise. Im going to brief you take you on an 8,000mile trip for the United States and when you get to the primary speaker. You would think making a trip almost three decades after the original would be very difficult to recognize what he was talking about. What surprised me was that time and time again w we did go out d then and there was the scene that he had so beautifully described 30 years prior. In this case it was on 60 into something that wasnt indeed from the road. There was a shoulder on the bank of the ohio river. He also visited some wonderful towns. Two of my favorites were from tennessee and from texas. When i arrived to find out how it got its name. When i arrived i thought on every door in town except for one. Nobody was home. The Merchandise Store was still there but of course i had no idea. Later i would track down any town probably 30 miles away he and his aunt marilyn would come back. Unfortunately she would sit on the bench while i was talking to davis and her son after helping out of the pickup truck. He said im really sorry but the original at the other end of the bench but we gradually scooped you down and she would move that direction and halfway down she said you know everyone in the picture but me is dead and im just about that as well. So she like most of the other characters that we were able to find were indeed wonderful characters. I really thought that i would most enjoy and i thoroughly enjoy the landscape photographer because he described many beautiful scenes but i thoroughly enjoyed people. Adding to see the inside of that is like taking a time capsule that could have 30 years and it is preserved in about three saturdays in the fall it is open is more of a museum. He continued east until he hit the North Carolina coast. He left for South Carolina and we are making a rapid prediction. Hes all the water tower and he said even the bible belt. He drove down the line to find the monastery of the holy spirit and it was there that he met the 23 for the guts of the people, 37 people in all in one of them was Patrick Duffy is very outspoken monk and he carried on a long conversation that goes along five or six pages. He was in the monastery for about 20 years total. Then he became a priest in new mexico where i was able to track him down and he was already retired. You knew how outspoken he wasnt one of the questions i asked him is what is it like. People kept coming to the monastery asking what is it all about. By now we are headed across southern louisiana on highway 15. It was on that path that they would have out if only for the cooking. We are now in texas about a third of the way across taking to the little town. Claude tyler was a barber that took him out of his chair and over to this window right here to look at a cottonwood tree rolling out from underneath of the building it was lifting of the foundation and for six years he cut it out and it kept coming back. The book was released in 1983 in the claude tyler died. When i went to back it wa back l causing havoc in that building. We are now in new mexico. Its difficult to see with the slides on but there is a on either side. He pointed out that the coffee mill off of the old west. They developed a way of using the coffee mill to make barbed wire. Another of my favorite towns was the frenchman and people often ask me what di did change on the route and the two things that changed the most were frenchman and the area in west virginia. The frenchman had a population of the people and the younger lady here in her motherinlaw and her husband chris and daughter consisted of two buildings. The larger was a cafe both held and the other was a garage related to the service station. Behind that was a fence that separated their property from the naval bombing range. And they heard a story about the bomb that got dropped and almost killed a guy. When i went back there he was gone so im sitting there with the doors open eating my Peanut Butter and Charlie Savage thinking how am i going to find him in the tow town isnt even. About that time i began to hear it does and i thought its coming from above me. I realized its one of those drones. So i looked up and said i was in the air force. [laughter] in retrospect but probably wasnt smart because they were navy pilot. Several minutes later the bombs began to drop about a mile away. They used to sell tshirts and they said i got bombed in frenchman and i joined the club. I was able later to track her down between two of her daughters and grandson there. All of the stories of these 11 people that we found our wonderful and i hope you get a chance to read about them. He described david climbed down the side of the wall of the lake and if they survived getting to the bottom you know if you read blue highways every coldstream he came across he jumped into. So knowing that he had some heritage i think it had to be in the dna. We have now hit the west coast and we are going to quickly turn north and head east along washington 14 where of course on the south side are the busy highways in oregon that asked you would expect they took the less traveled road. He ran across and noted the significance to the rosa parks expedition because it was the first place they made very asians in the river so they knew that they were very close. Weve now traveled all across northern United States. Most of it is no longer legible. Weve now hit the east coast and we are now going to turn south and eventually go down through new england and head back west through west virginia. West virginia was the other place that changed the most. He described billions of old tires disposed of and hundreds of old rusted out vehicles. I am looking for faces that i recognize. Too many im afraid. [laughter] it is a common thing among writers to say the home town is the most to the audience to face and i found that to be the case. From outoftown people dont go be but nothing to as i am finished i am out of town so whod give saddam but i will stay after this. I want to thank Patricia Miller for helping to set this up with the columbia public library. On occasion was a very good copilot but was a reporter rest of the time. In to see one of the photos khios the deducted the cover photographs in this is my fathers watch. Not having a lot to do with time the place and direction. In to pick up the Book University press gives me five copies. The rest i have to buy. I went up to the clerk a and i said to you blue highways . And he said he was that by . I said william least heatmoon simic he said no. That is not its. [laughter] i am pretty sure that is set. What you think . To make is that the one with the dog . The guy who walked across america. But i dont think he wrote that he said i am pretty sure. [laughter] and i did want to blow my cover so let him look on a computer intel he founded. [laughter] my wife she and who is sitting here in the front row is one of my editors ox and also edited my remarks for tonight but first i want to tell you. She also has a book coming up next year it is accepted by yale the boyle person that she is to misery even though her degree is from arizona Missouri Press will publish her book next year as the unknown travels in dubious pursuits of William Clark of the lewis and Clark Expedition and with the days before the if you are interested in the with sand clark you will find your understanding as it is vastly change. There was information is there that they would have the preferred she did not find out. It anyway i asked her to looks the talk over said she put brackets around certain things but i did not know what shec meant normally when we add it that means take this out. She said you cannot tell the story at the columbia public library. [laughter] so i went through and looked and said i have space left. [laughter] and unnoticed where she had taken out with stories that did the blonde and so would cut my time down. Of what you to know when i get to a portion that i have a story to tell you and i am not allowed i will let you know, at that point, can you see that red light . That means i had a good story and it has been edited out. [laughter] i heard mark twainsbbr wife olivia was his editor for his performances of which there were many. He got so good delivering his lectures there almost perfect and people began to fall asleep. He said it is because theyre so perfect and flawless. When i was teaching it was for the opposite reason so twain built in deliberate errors to keep people wake. I want you to know now when you see a mistake in this script i am just trying to keep you awake. Mark had the idea but i will use said. Sometimes wonder what he bush have done if he had a little technology. He loved inventions and lost a lot of money on new products id like conventions to a and i am working now on one that i call the apps. I dont have a cell phone but if there is allow a person on the phone speaking on a cell phone i can pick up my apps hit the button and disconnect him. I want one that will change volume or channels on public tv so if i am at the dealership and the tv is going to pick a channel may be fox news. [laughter] maybe play a pivotal to loud i can turn it down and disconnect or when i am at barnes noble the next time to turn off that music in there. B this is of bookstore were supposed to be able to concentrate. Now were into the age of laptops and computers you know, theyre pretty flimsy compared to the typewriter those typewriters were solid if you are a writer it was an important thing to do. But now there goes 1,500. But i am working on it. I will call with the suburbs of small device and when it makes one to the mistakes it you are ready to hit it you hit the stumper that cries out in pain or program it so apologizes to you. [laughter] or better yet encourages you to keep continuing. Most of them are pretty interesting. Some of these letters came in earlier. Deere mr. Heatmoon 12 lead levels well written books and have ever read but what have you written since travels with charlie . [laughter] deere teeeighteen your book is one of the dell listings i have read but i read every word of it i read portions to my wife said she could see how dull it was. I think the term is obsessive compulsive. Deere mr. Heatmoon forgive so long12b letter but i have the odd habit of reading your books. [laughter] select your former professor please hurry up with your next book i got your last but categorize sale for a dimeni. [laughter] did you know, how long it takes before things get to a garage sale . [laughter] my motherinlaw told me when rivers speaking that i should read your river horse book. Of course, she will read anything. Have you had enough . One more . The favorite time to read is in the afternoon when the kids are not home yet but there is a problem my husband told me that if i would stop maybe he was stopped writing your book ct to ontime. Of these make we want to continue writing the other ones that i rely on that make me think occasionally whenever is spent by life to bring it could be worse according to somebody else. In el way, a sequel to blue highways and why it took me so long to write blue highways. For years. It happened because i was 60 years a photograph of Ernest Hemingway and a little nibble typewriter at a mental working on his books. A fiber of my typewriter on the mantel i would be typing like this. [laughter] but hemingway was over 6 feet so that worked. I knew he was a correspondent, a foreign correspondent. So i decided i wou p like to be like Ernest Hemingway and for my 16th birthday in 1955 i asked for the olympia us portable typewriter which i still have the first draft was written on that. I said i will sit down to write a short story i got ready to type i sat and i sat so i will begin with the title. I dont know what it is about yet. Woody allen said calling from nothing to something was the hardest part but i learned later that isxd exactly it. I was blocked by trying to work on a machine and i began to understand now what i call wearing. It works like this. To begin with so little notebooks so finding something making notes i have something there. It is not good but it is something. Then i proceed for coil is wanted to teach chemistry or physics quiddity to spare . So then i go to Something Like this that happens to be of book. How many of you read this . How many of you would like to . [laughter] but the if you have this she would be happy to cite it. But on this side of free here this is the narrative but on the other side i would receive these blank. Photographs or whenever it happens to be. I had not written a word yet in the final manuscript but nothing is gone and now i have something to work from in that horrible fear the bank the blank page is not there. I began the book months in plants ago. I keep pointing to a point to your book with the photograph of the last few days of working on blue highways there is a picture and there are 10 box is about 1 meter high. Those are all the giraffes of blue highways 1982. There are almost 2 Million Words i was using a portable typewriter so those had to be hit with a keystroke every time. When i just about finished i had a hundred pages, a double spaced in there was no way another writer will get the 800 page manuscript published. I had to cut it down so i started to sink like a dime store manager. 498 pages to begin to cut. Of the first putt the first part i would cut out about myself. It is not about me. So i got a bid of maybe 200 words. [laughter] then it got hard. Pe so if i can demonstrate government you will space see this in the back but that is what you get for assisting in the back. [laughter] as simple manuscript page. Can you see that white space . That little bit of dark . That is called a widow. Trying to get rid of words i thought i can do this so i started to play with the margins i would move those out for a deaf so it did not look like i played with the margins exactly the opposite where writing students wanted to do. So at that point i was ready with an electric typewriter. I would come through with the finished page and say i have bow window that is a whole line is so i would go back to retype the page to get rid of that. It would work sometimes it would create another one. So i would have to retype it again. But i take it down to the 498 pages. It worked so well that when the editor first saw the book he seriously amiss underestimated how the new words were in the book. I got a call that manuscript that there was a hundred and 45 one headed 45. It is getting too expensive. People will not pay 13. 85 for a book. It is not all right. We have to take up the photographs. You cannot take that people will say i made up the trap. So they said if that is the way that you wanted. They said the i said if you take a matter of a straw the manuscript for i was working on there for four years. Finally when i find up publisher the author says no you cannot do that. He called the next morning and all he said was you wind. The photographs remain and they are important reason why blue highways found the audience it has found. The problem with the book is the trip took three months, 100 days but to write the book took four years. So what you see now is the ratio 15 115 days of the typewriter to describe one day on the road and questions come up dont you overdraft . I dont think so. Nobody would be here tonight to try to pass off an early draft it is just not pretty enough ranging from the idiotic at times it takes that want to go back to get it right. Stand by. [laughter] thankyou dee