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 co