First place. She was a little afraid of them so she was terrified to see these strangers waiting to a qasr all times of the day and night. Mcnamara had sent an Oil President of the painting as a gift to her. I discovered this when i went through some unpublished correspondence and mcnamaras files which i publish for the first time in this book and other things also from that collection. She wrote i cannot have that painting here. It brings too many things to the surface. The only photograph of jack that i even keep in the house he has his back partly turned to the viewer. And then she told mcnamara its heartbreaking because just last night john kennedy junior walked up to the painting and kissed her goodnight and said goodnight daddy. She said he had been eating candy so i apologize if you plan you get the painting back there will be sugary imprints on the face where he kissed his father. So these are the stories to me, these human stories that are as much history as the story of oswald which i tell in great detail who was who he was and why think you did it and things we do and dont know about it that nothing was more important to me than to tell these human stories about what it was like to live in america then. With the president went through what Jackie Kennedy went through with the families went through what america went through. I think its the saddest story that i have ever written about. It is as or more sad than the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Theres also inspiration inspiration at the end too. About a year after the assassination after jackie gave her televised tribute to the people, not really televised. It was just a two or three minute statement trade she was sitting in attorney general Robert Kennedys office in a club chair and there was a fire in the fireplace. She had received 800,000 letters and they will all be answered. They will be in the Kennedy Library one day. One thing i did discover and i put in the book is jackie scathing letter where she wants to take back all the president stuff from harvard and the library and send it to ireland or washington. There was a big risk between her and the Kennedy Library and she said i should take it all back. Jack and bobby would be laughing in heaven if i did this to the harvard corporation. But during her thanks to the American People she just stops and out of nowhere she just says all his bright bright light gone from the world. A year later in a magazine she talked about his legacy. She said i remember him as he told me when he was a little boy , sick so much of the time. He was ill. John kennedy almost died at several points in his life not just during world war ii when his ship had sunk. He was often import health. Jackie says i think of them as this little lloyd in bed sick rating reading about great heroes and its inspired him to be something. She said i hope other children will do what he wanted to do and read these books and these Great American stories. And then she said at the end my husband believed that any man could make a difference and that every man should try. And so certainly that is i think ultimately the message of John Kennedys life and what which is why i tell in obsessive detail what happened in dallas. I dont want to end with that terry the book goes on with his legacy. John kennedy was a great president who loved america who believed in american exceptionalism and american greatness. He loved the american story and he could communicate that in an enthusiastic way. Probably his greatest trade was he could inspire or motivate others to do things to serve their country. And so i certainly hope just as with my books about the lincoln assassination and john wilkesbooth by the time young adults and audiences get to these books you will realize that heroes are not john wilkesbooth racist murderer who killed one of the best american president s ever and one of the greatest americans of all time. The heroes are not the cypher man lee harvey oswald. The heroes of my books and these two books are certainly john Kennedy Jacqueline kennedy and the story they wrote from the brief time from january 20, 1961 until november 22, 1963. So with that i thank you and you can ask some questions if you like. [applause] there is a microphone in the back of the room. Please go to that microphone. Just tip it towards you. Can you hear me . Yes, i can hear you fine. The security surrounding kennedy of course gets a lot of attention with conspiracy theories. Was that unusual for the time or was it typical of dallas . A few days later obviously security is surrounding oswald was poor enough to let ruby near him. Im just wondering at what point did they start learning about security . It took a long time. No lessons were learned after the murder of Abraham Lincoln and public figures including president kennedy were not properly protected even into the 1960s. One time he was traveling in a motorcade and someone tossed a bouquet of flowers in his car. What if it was a hand grenade or a stick of dynamite . Recordings conspiracies those secret Service Agents and ive met a number of them, they loved him. Its inconceivable that any of them would have participated in any conspiracy to murder the president. Some theorists defamed them but its not true. Unfortunately security was not then what it is like today. Then the president had one limousine. Today the president has three two decoys and the one he is really an all identical. You would never find a president in an open car convertible or walking about in public. It was a different time. I can explain why it was that way because people have tried to kill harry truman in an armed attack at the warehouse when the white house was being renovated. Porter weekend nationalist terrorist opened fire in the 1950s and shot five congressman. The bullet holes are still in the furniture of the u. S. House of representatives. Franklin roosevelt was almost assassinated when he was president he was president elect with the mayor of chicago took bullets and roosevelt survive. We have had enough examples that security was not good but it was just a different time. Kennedy didnt have any were security than was typical for american leaders of the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was unfortunate because so many things if a few things had gone differently that day he would have survived that day. A couple of questions. One which ties in with a security issue. There were stories and i cant remember at what point in time but about the secret service having been out the night before in some of the clubs similar to the one that jack ruby brand getting drunk so they really werent prepared on the 22nd and maybe you could comment on that. I have heard those stories and they had been mentioned as early as 1963. What were the agents doing . Were they out carousing . All i know is this. No carousing prevented two agents from standing on the back of the president s limousine which would have blocked a oswalds main angle. The president didnt want them there so anything they might have done the night before did not interfere with having them stand on the back of the car. To tie in with that i was a little older than you were at the time and i remember vividly a couple of weeks before hearing about the Adlai Stevenson incident and i think the fears that they had for the president having the dallas dallas newspaper ad and so forth i think the mentality at that time was that there be an incident similar to the Adlai Stevenson incident. Yes. What you are referring to is when twoterm president ial candidate kennedys ambassador to the United StatesAdlai Stevenson went to dallas and he was harassed and heckled by a crowd. A woman allegedly hit him in the head with a protest sign. Kennedy was warned dallas is against you. Its a city of hate. The conservatives of the rightwing are after you. Chief justice oral warrant blamed conservatives in his intemperate remarks at the u. S. Capital at the memorial for president kennedy. Jackie kennedy didnt lame the city of hate. She didnt blame dallas. She didnt blame the conservatives. She didnt lame the right wing. In fact the night of the assassination when she was at bethesda Naval Hospital awaiting the autopsy and the embalming of the president she said to her mother, i cant believe it was just a silly little communist. He didnt even have the satisfaction of dying for civil rights. But you are right. For years people blamed dallas as the city of hate. The political divisiveness that somehow killed kennedy. If i could ask one final question because it ties in with the lincoln books as well. I remember one of the first things after the four days had passed was hearing as a schoolchild the similarities between the kennedy assassination and lincoln. It goes on and on and im just wondering if all those things were in fact true or what you discovered about that and also he thought about writing a book. Everybody in this room that is about this age has a very distinct memory as you set up what happened and maybe putting those stories together for a book on the letters to Jackie Kennedy . The summaries i will talk to you about the fleet. How many letters are in their names and where were they killed there were trivial connection so i didnt pursue them. Im doing two books. Im doing a Childrens Book on Martin Luther king and thinking of doing a Jackie Kennedy both. I am definitely doing a book on dr. King and i might do a book on Jackie Kennedy. Anyone else . Thank you very much. [applause]. He has written a book about growing up in West Virginia title crapalachia a biography of place. Coming of age book is set in contemporary appalachia and doesnt romanticize the place. It give slices of experience in the life of somebody coming up in the contemporary reality which includes includes a lot of family members and people he obviously has a lot of affection for and recalling a lot of humorous episodes and it is also about growing up in the daytoday realities in contemporary appalachia, local impoverishment, powerlessness in the local community, living in the wake of outsiderss exploitation of many parts of the southern mountains. Is a different emphasis and in places has been understood to be controversial by some people but i found a lot of it very Good Spirited and humorous and accepting of the details and the people he writes about in the book. Let me introduce and he will be reading for us some and we will have some questions and so forth but the author of crapalachia a biography of place, here is scott mcclanahan. [applause] i apologize for the voice. My daughter started Nursery School month ago and i have been sick ever since. Hopefully it will last. I want to read about 20 minutes and then open up to questions and get out of here so i will show you what i do. First, from childhood, came to our house, brushed the crumbs away, through the chickens of the porch, make the fire, make the bread, and all the other children suffer things that are done, they sit around a table and have the most fun listening to the which is sales the danny tells about and they will get you too if you dont watch out. Little boy never said his prayers, spend the night upstairs, his mom heard him holler and is that heard him ball and when he turned his covers down he was in there at all but said in a room cubbyhole and pressed and accepting jimmy fluid anywhere i guess but all they ever found was little pants and roundabout and getting too you dont watch out and once there was a liberal she made fun of everyone and of her blood and skin, the company in the old folks were there, she mocked him that shocked him and said she didnt care. When she went running high she went running high and the gold monsters standing by her side. And she knew what she was about and the goblin will get you too a few dont watch out. Little orphan annie says when the breezes blue with whip like sputters in windows who. Better mind your pants and your teachers song and the year, better cherish them and love you, draw the orphans to you, help the poor and anyone in cluster, alabama or they will get you too if you dont watch out. Da da da da. A man who eats meat wants to get his teeth into something. Man who does not eat meat wants to get his teeth into something too. Any of these thoughts interest you but for a moment then you are lost. Doc the does the job evelyn adams swerving a short, then the debate brings us back for circulation back to house, castle, bliss you, james joyce and samuel beckett, a year zero, maybe. When i was in fourth grade a little girl in my class got killed. A few weeks before the school dance i wanted to ask her to dance but was too shy. Showed up the School Monday morning and randy dugan told me about it. Did you hear about ginnie sugar, she got killed in a car crash yesterday. Tractortrailer hit her mom. Theyre both that. Into believing matters because he was always making up stuff like this can going on about how that lives in england even though this was something his mother told him because his dad left him for another woman and never came back but he kept going on about it. My mom saw the moon last night, she is dead. Ice it and it will not really knowing what was going on wondering whether it was true or not but it was true. A couple minutes later fourth grade teacher mrs. Morgan sat down on her desk and put her head hands. You are supposed to be working on spelling words like mother, everybody stopped and watched her. She sat for a second and started to cry. I listened to her cry and thought we are not going to have to do any work today. Another girl started crying too. Miss morgan walked over and asked if she needed to go to the better man she nodded her head yes. Mrs. Morgan touch amys shoulder and asked to go to the better with endeavour and told my friend mack, didnt even know his that well. I was jealous because i wished i could be freed too. She was able to compose herself and i know this is a horrible accident, there will be a funeral tomorrow and i hope we can all go, you need your parents if you wish to go. Bible also be calling each of your parents tonight. She said was too much for everyone to stay behind and be shown the movie, somebody raised their hand and said what movie . Mrs. Morgan said she didnt know, she thought maybe a superman movie. I was thinking maybe superman at the funeral. Next day at school it seemed everybody else at the funeral, got on the bus all dressed up in a nice shirt and tie, church dress and church shoes, watching from the windows, got on the school bus, only a couple of us didnt go that day, me and deborahs group, kevin manley, the kid with pants, he wanted to do too but since he lifted his pants teachers made up excuse that he couldnt go, was the leftist endeavour their class and superman iv in the vcr and there was a part of me saying this is great, two days we havent had to do any work. Go to a funeral and superman and after watching half an hour of superman 4 i realize something important, superman iv was horrible. You could see the wires Holding Christopher reeve in the air, and the special needs girl started crying. They will turn of the movie, quit crying, superman iv wasnt Getting Better and started smelling something. Sniffed my nose a couple times and then, you prove your pants, didnt you. Superman iv, he said no i did, yes you did, no i did, yes you did, i smell it. He raised his hand to do what he always did, speech impediment voice, i will tilt tell the teacher and you. The teacher came over, picking on me. And smelled the tuna and turned off of vcr and put kim to the bathroom, didnt watch the end of the movie. An hour later the school bus pulled back in front of lawful and they were all dressed up and nice dresses for some reason and still didnt look happy. Even tried to tell my best friend how superman iv was normal and i should be happy, it was horrible. I didnt say anything, just looked at me all discuss it for the rest of the day i sat on my desk thinking how superman iv was for less than the thinking of jenny sugar and asking her to the dance and thought about how ive practiced my moms old records the tennessee waltz alone in my room, thought about how i was too nehr this tool as current couple weeks earlier my mom took a picture of her and she didnt even smile, school carnival, she was embarrassed because she just started wearing braces. The next couple weeks was like the rest of the kids forgot about jenny sugar, like they would want to stay behind what superman, like never even happened, wasnt even a week later and they were asking again and, playing touch football, recess, strange the jenny was gone, what was the funeral like, people crying, they act like they did know what i was talking about and one day in across the word as k e l e t o n, skeleton. I stopped doing them, looked around, other kids were spelling skeleton like there was nothing wrong with and. Went to the battered as two teachers talking about jennys debt and said i think the kids are holding out well, just so horrible what happened and the other teacher whispered like she didnt want anyone to hear she whispered word, decapitated. I kept thinking about it. I knew what this word lament. I thought of jenny sugar without a head, thought about jenny sugars skeleton and the lead and so much, couldnt even get in my moms car. Weavers of those of visit my grandmother in virginia but getting even more scared, worried about how was baptized and how i was going to seller i didnt want to go anywhere. Didnt want to get in the car and get killed by a tractortrailer and lose my head. This went on for weeks. We were supposed to leave and said in a car and told her i dont want to go. My mom was mad. We were supposed to be leaving. White in title this a couple weeks ago. Then it dawned on her that i was afraid something was going to happen to us. I said in a car and cried why did jenne have to get killed . My mom shrugged and said i dont know why. I ask where is jenny now . I dont know, i really dont. She was telling the truth. I was shaking out. I asked if anything that would happen to us. My mom thought for a second and said i wont led anything bad happen to you. I was feeling better and then she said it again as we pull away, dont worry about that. Theres nothing ba