A Word on Words; 4234; Bill Bryson

from nashville public television's yesterday away celebrated authors literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a word on workers' jobs and sing the welcome once again jordan words i guess today is bill bryson is a bestselling author known for his wit drawn seemingly endless smile and his books include a short history on everything open the woods and have no more life and tons of those a little kid he's here today to talk about one summer america nineteen twenty seven retail story one fabulous season life of america are highlighting father the most eventful action packed months the history of this country bill's going to have you make it i'm delighted to be great then you hear talk about nineteen twenty seven the coast in nineteen twenty seven was that few remember and at all these years a mere eighty six years later it

always happens that year i was more i thought that was what nineteen twenty seven novel about the song which will end up i want to just go through i bet that that period when names like a memorable to history so they marched and let's begin with lending you say that two weeks before he was in the transatlantic flight few people are none of them in love aviation as you pointed out i was the evolving challenge conquering the air was just on the cusp and the challenge was about to compose and we were meeting and then they're warm linda's flight was not the only one plan that's you know that was a

surprise to me and in apes of us and you've got members final analysis kind of imagine that that he had gotten it into his head to fly the atlantic and had done it in a course do that became famous but that it was a lot more what was a lot more to it than that there were as you say there are about eight or ten other teams poised to go and both in france to come this way and in new york today to go that way says there was a big rise condo teague prize which was very valuable because of a prestigious for the first for flight and men clutching person and new york in either direction and the celebrities they all much better funded had bigger planes are all and have multiple engine planes and they all had multiple man crews and then from out of nowhere this kid twenty five year old kid from minnesota flies in in his single engine plane announcing that he plans to fly the atlantic on his own with no navigational copilot disney never did like any dead reckoning doesn't have a radio in his plane and they thought he

was crazy emily called him the flying school and that he was out of his mind into they did that it was suicide but everybody was completely captivated by when he took off the hole the whole world not just that the whole world was really on the edge of its seat with tension for this climate they could hardly stand to the attention of it and wanting to over the horizon you know we disappeared over the ocean the open ocean nobody knew i wasn't a prisoner of the newer charles embry was for sixteen hours was charles lindbergh everybody else was just you had consumed with some tension for this this kid and when he appeared at the other side over ireland the joys of the world felt was just in as probably the greatest appointment to spontaneous happiness that as evidence even in the modern world so it was just it was just amazing and during the course of this fight you know he'd left new york is practically anonymous started to get down but

the as you say two weeks before the flight he was completely anonymous and that amount and it lands and passes a stroke because the most famous man on the planet lazy it's amazing and also beyond the gate you'll remember though without talking about drew altman and the tragedy of the loss of the child for the kidnapping was nineteen twenty seven and expands because of the tragedy of groups the annenberg family that with the kidnapping of their child and i learned so much from this book that's about your members they're really didn't know i mean who doesn't know everything there is an old of a roof and in every american get you love baseball goes up it's a national pastime and you know he is a hero for an all time and yet i didn't understand you look at those photographs points and field

which you may or may not a suspect is booked but there's so much about him as an athlete i just didn't get until i read the book and i had no idea a new less water but i had no idea what a funeral a pitcher pitched for the red sox and done well but didn't last because it was so julian wasn't in exactly the same position my dad was a sportswriter who's born it if he'd say he'd grown up they were to strike the heart of his childhood years and he actually started with play a couple times senator if chicago is a white sox so in nice houses guy with his big belly and stick legs or you know how did he possibly have sixty homeruns and how will you just didn't look like galileo skipped around the base exactly he and i don't do us had no he was he was always told me he was just the most amazing marvelous athlete ever seen just graceful and strong an imperfect has the

perfect alter and evidently he was because you know i mean he is just as a pitcher before you start hitting hamas just as a pitcher hit he had a good enough record to be an authentic based on the strength of his past pitching career they gave all that up there are internet enabled bill really yelling hurry was a pitcher but he was as good pitch in and he went from from nowhere to absolutely fantastic it just it out at the beginning and then you look at the records that of the first couple years of it in the great speeches or walter johnson christy mathewson keep like that the first couple years they use and losing records they were you know they were they were outsmarted by the batters you know that that the kids coming into the major leagues and batters really know how to do with him and an optimum all over the place it takes a while to become a really cunning pitcher it's in a surreal our size bed and came into star striker people out and he was just more straight of the orphanage and he was just so gifted and he was just such a natural that he was you know he

was great from the first day for the red sox as a pitcher and he never stopped being great <unk> a good living along the side and annie and by hitting long poles and heat he transformed the game completely and a lot of people thought it was transformative for the bathtub because you know if you light ty cobb who believed in scientific years old well little into truth i got away and i had never heard that story but i mean it was unheard of the wrist of the need would drink hard play hard and steal sided with his loose bikes up but i have not been all about him and the maiden the list of every year they had a lot of there was a lot of rivalry there and there was another they ended up is pretty good friends i guess but that when the in the know during the plane years they've played dilly long world war because it was not just that there was a

competitive edge and ty cobb was really an enormous psychotic weekend competition but there was also a really defensive in philosophy because ty cobb was of the old school and lived in you know you slap on a single year steal second base get some big sacrifices you want a third all black hackney manufacture runs one of the time and at his desk this big hunk strong confident to come soon and his will purchase and dr martin parra and paula bond book turned eighty which we'll call me and maybe say maybe not but to adult routines or what i didn't realize what a movie was emily we're only assuming married but i misspelled her name is no more apt to tell me so much i didn't know and then the integration put into every single story i mean in the story big story great stories

along you know and then there is sex on guns it will agree that rick roman justice some people would say is i believe the tragedy your own body not read not only the nation but the world you know it was the stress it was really special because you the beginning of the summer flies yes an asian american people are embracing you just to be american you know there was so thrilled with liberty and just a few weeks later we execute saccharin density of his notorious anarchist who were widely believed to be innocent and almost a tour of the crime there are those in the senate the evidence against them in terms of the of the case that they were convicted of it was student loans on pretty widely accepted that it we've had this strange situation that you know him inmate even american streets appears to be an

embrace because your compatriot lindbergh few weeks later yes indeed beaten up because your income from the nation's just excuse acrobats at some level as someone from being absent a lot but the war of the worlds in an absolutely detested by the wider world and because of these two very polarizing events looking back on that year and something about it so what happened later they're related to what happened then the end of it and some of what happened before and so it came to fruition i mean weird head tigers and twenty of twenty one in baseball the blackhawks fan and as you point out done and there's one of photographs in that wonderful photo of almost in the center the book alone it's not as babe ruth changes baseball bought a gentle mound lenders come in

as commissioner has twenty one million and really sort of changed the game before major incident when he did yeah yeah and i'm it was interesting to see and they were the two guys changing game at the tournament they really really did not your immortal but in the lens as you say it was said he was a remarkable place firing publishes guy and they made him commission a baseball and he was sent to assume dictatorial powers and span i was pretty awesome which exist over the seventies like to say that i'm in what he did was was he insisted absences due to there should be beyond reproach and that was that was horrible because you know you we can hardly imagine now how serious a blow the black sox scandal was stirred people's perception that gave me an idea the base for something you can't trust you can't you don't know these guys are really playing the best that i think was was just devastating blow to people's expectations and it was really

important that the state stepped out and landis was was ferocious about into the center of innocent so innocent or mildly very mildly guilty people were worried suffered a loss i mean there was one of black sox people buck weaver was best baseball for life because he took part in in the black sox scandal but because he just didn't he knew about and didn't point nuno and in been bitten and he thought women screaming that there was either a daughter elena kagan in one sense i'm in the town code or the balkans days of opioids they're never played baseball there now than it is of al capone and it again you know and it's not just the story it's the lawsuits that some of lead up to the story and then and that's when al capone conviction was about to lose the most amazed me about it was very long time that he had his great ray he was only twenty five twenty six years old and i am it lasted a very short time was only

about two years was he really at the top of twenty five to twenty seven by the end of the summer nineteen twenty seven he was at a chicago agreement on the run and the reason he was it was on the run was because authorities to catch it up and thinks smart suits is remarkable woman named mabel walker will of that who came up with the idea of finding that way to get to mobsters because and previously they were they were almost invincible cause nobody would testify against the suicide to do so you wouldn't be just wooden go publicly and rattling these guys cause you get killed and it was yeah it was the men walk away at this world the women these guys who work for justice promises of these guys are all self evident and rich and yet verified income tax returns what we go for them for that and it was a perfect strategy was so good that they still use it today i am so i wasn't the first victim of that and he was the first time that high profile that indicated it took until early nineteen thirties catch up in

that twenty seven was really were his last great summer and by the bible for allegedly said he was in florida things i didn't know before you get in the deal but even not he is a respected figure in many areas of life in chicago and it takes take credit for funneling labor disputes billy got access to political figures usually heroic figure before is a villain is a villain blood but you know in some of the summer robin hood character compared to forgive him a lot for two reasons why would a lot of people in chicago were literally dead letter because he you know he paid out a lot of money i mean it was one of the reasons you can't hide i really can't it does so as an order to be brewing beer and us to scale you don't have a lot of people accepting bribes and

turning a blind eye to the citizens handing out lots and lots and lots of money and that you know as an endearing feature for the people that were receiving lots lots of money but the other thing was the reason that the average guy on the street was really quite fond of our point was that he was he divided people chicago with old reliable sources of drink that didn't get him killed and didn't you know it was it was quality stuff i was car was when she sees america we could get here so this is you have to drink soda flight like india you're blind you know mica yeah exactly because that was good stuff in an eye most of an inner was a canadian was given smuggled and so it was you know people in chicago are still able to drink quality intoxicates and people pushing for the lowly just a neon colored when bill bryson about his latest book one summer america nineteen twenty seven and as we say in there with my ear how did you

know and the notion was so much action packed in one five six a problem period what led you to write this book it was on top of an accident really i knew that babe ruth hit sixty homers and trolls enter the vatican the same summer and i was kind of fascinated by that i was my initial idea was to write a dual biography just these two people will relate here with the with the story kind of jobs lost won again there's such interest in contrasting characters and spin a both sort of quintessential american spin completely different wives and then what happened on singing i start of the recession i think all this other stuff happening the same time a lot of which was well known like saccharin then said he greatly city flood which we haven't mentioned the outposts on the zoo is a well known stories but what nobody ever done before is forsythe tell was was look at them is all happening at the same time and how they influenced each other and kind of

how they influence gates will really what it was to take a snapshot of work of one summer critical period and anything i think that that has served an interesting perspective on america's looks was deeply at the well you wait you know the next thing you know your ended up your waist and then puppies sellers and and by that and again get out of it without writing about this is accurate and yeah so i have an end sometime ago those in over my head prisons just so much going on i added the book ended up in places that isn't expected to flow i mean yeah maybe you know everything about it were in this passes through head you know i'm trying to think of the man the flood is sort of drifted bias we forget just how devastating it was and i'm in twenty ten the

region so i'm a city upside down inside out to change life change the quality of life for me whole communities is on edge you interchange <unk> history of american twentieth century visit it can consider the accelerated the great migration which was of blacks to the northern interest to cities which have already started and that was going on was going to happen anyway but a lot of people were suddenly it out there but their farms are underwater and and in those days there was absolutely no there was no backup you know there was you know it wiped out you you know you couldn't you couldn't get any kind of federal relief for any sort of assistance or you know there are certainly people who wants to remain destitute and a new routine a very very serious situation and these are some of the poorest most vulnerable people in the country anyway so a lot of people tens of thousands you know had no choice but to go north unseen target work in the factories so that in itself was that was a big thing but it was

urine and that migration becomes another fall story and the end of the year but we know what kind of the sunni was how does this interactive feature than one of his that i had never thought about medicaid really it wasn't relevant to other bridges that very very strong systems that were taping but because nevada city flood with the same was the lab charles lindbergh to get a job all these other competitors that will condemn bahrain in new york and that was number two to fly across the ocean to catch up with them because they couldn't give away some summers that were moving he's you know one of the thing is to tell us about lincoln is a million dollar into much i knew some of this was true would you talk about cold cases that was sort of quirky china i guess is supposed to grow for lance to talk about her own her work is still isn't any other part of it was so it

was pure imagination the loss i could've gone on a majority of the bees into voter summit of it on the crimes thats because it was a pretty lively is for zero the advent of murders that the one that the route aren't we caught them in the national attention was the one you just mentioned ruth snyder and her lover judd gray decided to murder ruth's husband and before they did so ruth took out a double indemnity insurance policy on the western central ring a bell with lots of viewers because that that double indemnity became the basis for the book which is in pain and then later in this famous movie by of billy wilder's double indemnity which started the whole the whole so more service this murder which was really quite a pedestrian than imaginative murder verse or just gripped the nation and andrew schneider was the paper's for the blue her up into this kind of salt revamp and made it sound like she was this great beauty and

great coming month when tax issues a society pudgy say at newton long island house where the time the paper is going to want to turn on an animation just hung on in one of the words of the cause of happened afterwards i wondered what it was the capture and her lover a cat and a living and to laugh and i guess it was the money you would think well if he knows his attention from the potential for the bomb and they're pretty pathetic characters and then judd gregg her lover was you know he was no oil painting himself feels that he was he was a pretty pretty weak human being and clearly was manipulated today as yasser some of the heritage and and and he would he was very soon that long barber that and they didn't quite closely killed the husband and then and then tried to make images of them were was the work of anarchists which ties in with sacha because of it and they thought that i'd make it look as if it were an

anarchist intruders researcher would somehow that with or the place off the set and the way they did that was by leaving an anarchist newspaper folded up on a table downstairs is if the truth is reality i said it's all of three creative because they would yell they would ah but they were thinking anywhere you know but that story absolutely it's hard for it was oj simpson from the time it will you know it was a high profile murder of a year of high profile crimes and then as you point out roofs just one example that and there are many many i am talk to me a little bit about your writing regimen and down and get into the research that's involved i mean the research that goes into this book along just reminds me

of your other books are now it's on to reach out and grab in the research for gin and teaches you so much you didn't know about something you thought you knew everything about whether they can put that it was a weapon for me what was interesting about to do in this book was a printed on it set a living i could've done it isn't in there because the one thing has changed is you know i mean i was able to do all the swim preparation work i went to all the students i said talk to some experts and then you know did a lot of library research here they are back to england and i was so great about was i write in the book you know i can i can dip into the archives of the worst the postman near times i can look in the box score for any baseball your whole season and you can imagine how what what how hopeful just to be able to just see you know how the baby's due on so it isn't invalid given your online and that's not about a nineteen twenties you know and that i could see the desk in norfolk england and i'm still a must tap into in nineteen twenty seven america has effectively from there's a clip from

so that was that was very very helpful to me it would have made woodman whole lot harder to do this in these limits to what the way the internet can take you and i would ever return to go for that room was theirs but in terms or discounted the fact checking the data day started looking at newspaper archives that was nothing because they just open looking at times i've had sex and you just type in with it or are limited mc lord the photographs for me you know fifteen years ago for the tide to this book i would've insurgency microphone and pretty much randomly and you know you wouldn't know exactly how many times away the articles we'd have to read everything so and as was so was a real treasure to me in ways that i had expected to stand up on our times what's a little heavy exactly decided yet sometimes think about it and i'm in i'm going to go into this winter for american in the younger one the nature opp opp opp what is their searches you're not going into the nineteen twenties

was it that there was something so much goes great view you like all into watching and dancing and the over word on words it's pretty nice