The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 361: Salena Zito—A Place and a Purpose in a World Gone Mad

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

The Washington Examiner columnist and reporter discusses why Lincoln's Gettysburg address holds up 160 years later, why she's building a room to hold miniature trains, the "dust up" in the Middle East, our current age of disruption, and why people are searching for something bigger than themselves. Then, by request, Mike serenade's Salena.  

Well, hello there. It's the way I heard it. Episode number 361. This is called A Place and a Purpose in a World Gone Mad. Because that is what Selena Zito has in this upside-down, topsy-turvy world in which we find ourselves. She has a place and she has a purpose. And both of those things, Chuck, I think she makes abundantly clear in the conversation. We're about to share. Yes, she does. And it's not just about her, the place and purpose. It's a feeling that, that everyone is searching for a place and a purpose. I guess. Do you think? Yeah.

I'm not sure. I don't know if everybody's searching. I don't know. I am. I suspect you are. Selena clearly is. People are obviously twisted up right now, whether it's the situation in the Mideast or, I mean, just pick your headline.

Yeah. People are just in a constant state, it seems, of, oh, my God, what am I going to do? And the reason Selena is always fun to talk to is because she always writes about people who typically aren't covered in the mainstream press. And she writes really well about them. She's become a friend. And I think this is the third time we've had her on. And I really wanted to talk to her about her most recent column. It was the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

And she wrote something that I thought was great. And so we kind of jump into that. We didn't talk too much about the article she wrote. wrote before that, which was about this dude, who you know named Mike Roe, who. Our Venn diagrams are in danger of overlapping, you know, in a pretty profound way, me and this woman, I think. She touched on it a little bit, which, because the subject of that article was the fact that people who go to trade schools don't necessarily protest things. They're not marching in the streets, beating drums and chanting chants. They're learning how to...

And burning flags. They're learning a trade. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. In our typical fashion, it's a rambling kind of conversation. But Selena and I do sing out of the same hymn book with regard to the past and what we think is interesting, the way language works, the things we choose to write about, the people we choose to call attention to. I find myself increasingly in violent agreement with her. I do need to offer one disclaimer, however.

This conversation. Oh, God, you guys must be so sick of hearing it. But yes, there's some technical challenges. You'll be able to hear her just fine. But in the background is a soundtrack of sorts. Chuck, I'm just going to call it the soundtrack of work and let the listener wonder what in the world is going on before it's finally explained.

And then, you know, it kind of takes on a life of its own, I think, and becomes a part of the conversation. a way that's not entirely displeasing. There's a lot that just becomes part of the conversation. The conversation goes a lot of different places. Places I didn't expect, and I was very pleased about it, a lot of fun. Well, thank goodness, you're happy. I'm happy as well. I think Selena's happy. We just finished chatting with her and promised to do it again real soon. If you find yourself looking for a place or a purpose and a world gone mad, you, my friend, are in the right place. It's episode number 361, and it commences forthwith.

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Soon may the noble men come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. That was the best mic test, Selena. Do that again for me. Hit me with the quote of all quotes, the greatest opening, perhaps, to the greatest speech written in the last 200 years, hit me. 272 words delivered in two minutes. He thought it was a failure four score and seven years ago. Our forefathers bought forth on this continent a new nation. He said it 160 years ago this past Sunday. It is probably most significant. Conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition. that all men are created equal. Thank you. My friend Selena, our friend Selena,

wrote a terrific piece earlier this week commemorating the writing of the Gettysburg Address and Chuck, had we been thinking, which of course we don't really do so much anymore these days. Not a lot of, no, no. We would have preceded the conversation that I have every confidence is going to be both scintillating and unforgettable

with the story that I wrote a couple of years ago about the writing of the Gettysburg Address because I've been obsessed with this thing from the first time I read it, Selena, and there's just so many cool things to talk about and I've got a bunch of stuff I want to get to with you, but let's start there. Why did you write the column,

aside from the fact that it was the anniversary of the event? Why do you give a damn? I have always gave a damn about this speech. To your point, there are so many different things, compelling side stories to this speech that people really have no idea about. You know, there is the myth that he wrote it on a whim and was inspired on his ride up from D.C. Not true. He spent over two weeks working on this speech for the moment he got the

invitation and that, you know, it was glorified the moment that it was written. No, it was completely panned in the newspapers across the country. They hated him and they hated it. Yeah. We did not in our country talk about the Gettysburg Address until 40 years later. It was just forgotten. Yeah. And I always find that so fascinating.

And of course, Lincoln's invitation to attend, this is for the dedication of the soldiers' National Cemetery, right? There's no Arlington at this point. because Arlington is still the Lee home, right? Right. So this is the first National Cemetery. This is the first and last battle fought above the Mason-Dixon line in the north. And they really wanted to make a big deal about the commemoration of this National Cemetery.

The guy who was behind it, his name is David Wills. If you've ever been to Gettysburg, you can go to his home. There are 36 people that stayed in New York. home the night before the Gettysburg Address, including Lincoln. But they invited Edward Everett. And Edward Everett had been the Ambassador to Spain. He had been a vice presidential candidate in 1860. He had been Harvard's president, very successful and very much the rock star of his era, because rock stars then were the great orators, the people that can deliver these sort of compelling, moving speeches. He was invited in September.

Lincoln was an afterthought. He was only invited like two weeks before the speech, wherever it was invited two months before the speech. You can't overstate this, right? This is like Nirvana at the height of grunge or Pearl Jam. This is the Rolling Stones. This is the biggest act in the country coming to knock it out of the park. And by all accounts, he did. Oh, yeah.

I mean, he wrote thousands of words. In fact, check this out. In contrast to the incredibly brief, concise and unforgettable words that we just butchered, he comes out with standing beneath this serene sky overlooking these broad fields, now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet. It is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and nature, but the duty to which you have called me must be performed, grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy. It just goes on. I'm scrolling

through this speech, I've got to think it's close to, I don't know, 12,000 words. 14,362 words, almost two and a half hours that he spoke for. And he was praised for his speech. People were applauding him and weeping. And Lincoln gets up. People don't know this. Be a very high-pitched squeaky voice. And so did George Washington.

His voice does not carry. It just sort of goes off into the, the wind. It's a sunny but cold day in November in 1863. And he gets up there, he speaks, his voice sort of disappears. Most of the people that were reporting on the speech didn't even get the exact wording right because it was so fast and they couldn't hear him. And he steps off the stage and believes that he has failed the moment. And for the most part, most people did think he failed the moment. Amazing. To me, it's such a terrific example of the difference between form and function, performance, and actual content, and how sometimes it just takes a while, in this case,

four decades. Yeah. People to truly, like a whole generation has to come and go for a new batch of people to sit back and look at this and just try to comprehend the weird. combination of brevity, eloquence, and the impact of it. It's just mind-boggling. Well, it wasn't until the Civil War veterans, specifically the Union veterans, were starting to hit their late 50s, early 60s. And they were trying to find purpose as to what they did. They're trying to figure out what was the meaning behind what we did, and did we achieve it. And so they started this fraternal organization. They're called Gar's Grand Army of the Republic fraternities.

Built these beautiful buildings all over the Midwest, all over the Mid-Atlantic. And at each of these dedication ceremonies, they would recite the Gettysburg Address. And they would also start building memorials at the Gettysburg Battlefield, but also at Antietam. And every time someone gave a speech, they referenced the Gettysburg Adress. It was then that it started to become part of our culture and society. And then that sort of escalated because that was sort of 1910, 1912. Then we head into World War I. There was not this sort of patriotic sentiment going on at that moment.

We were feeling very inward as a country. And so that also was used to help inspire people to be patriotic and to fight the war. in Europe. And then when the boys come home, they decided to build, they started actually building the Lincoln Memorial in 1914. It was finished in 1920. And of course, if you've ever been to the Lincoln Memorial, there it is right behind Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address. And ever since then, it has been enduring. It has never left our hearts and or our education. I think we're in eighth grade when we have to recite the Gettysburg Address. Well, we used to be. I don't know what they're doing in eighth grade today.

It's so interesting to me that we were within a year of the battle, not even, right? I mean, the battle ended and the cemetery was being commemorated. It all happened incredibly quickly in terms of timelines that we would experience today. I mean, I'm still waiting for the best version we have today of the Gettysburg Address vis-a-vis 20 years in Afghanistan, and I don't think I'm going to get it. I don't think it's coming. You're not going to get it. You're right. It was incredibly quick.

The battle of Gettysburg was July, first, second, and third. They left the battlefield, Lee and Mead, going their separate ways on the 4th of July, cold, rainy 4th of July, after searing heat the first three days of the battle. To understand what Gettysburg looked like after that battle, I mean, there were piles of horses. There were bodies everywhere. The stench was overwhelming. And this is a small little farm community and middle of Adams County, Pennsylvania. There was never more than nothing than a crossroads.

And the people in this town rose to the occasion. They buried the horses. They buried the horses. They buried the horses. They buried the bodies, including the Confederates immediately. And Wills was at the heart of this. began painstakingly identifying every single soldier, union or Confederate. And the Confederates came and picked up the bodies of their fallen soldiers,

and then they put them in the cemetery. And then November is a commemoration. I mean, boom, they really did it fast. I mean, what you just described, I think, is part of the rules of engagement, at least the way they used to exist. And I don't know if this is good or bad. I don't really even have a point. I'm just kind of riffing on this idea that, okay, on these three days,

we are each going to pray to the same God for guidance and strength, and we are going to wage just a merciless war against each other, but not entirely without rules. We're going to do a bunch of things that are expected of us, and then when it's over, we're going to very quickly allow the other side to come in and pick up their pieces. and there's just so much protocol. It's almost like manners, Salina.

Yes. Right? Yeah. And so I think my question might be, since you invoked the First World War and obviously the one that followed that and Korea and Vietnam and so forth and so on. And now here we are looking at the Mideast.

And there don't appear to be rule. I mean, whatever rules existed are so long gone. Yeah. I really don't know what to make of it because part of me keeps thinking of, I guess it was Sherman, right? War is all held. And I ain't to bring it to the people for the simple fact that doing so will end it faster than any other tactic. Yeah, I mean, Sherman and Grant were at the point where we're just going to cut them off and we're just going to burn it all down because there's no other way to end this war. I want to make a point that you were talking about manners. There's this great story of this Confederate soldier who was hit in the shoulder with a bullet. He may not have died because of the wound, but he would have died had that wound not been

attended. And he was laying on Culp's Hill, and he was bleeding. And there was a union soldier there from Pennsylvania who saw him, grabbed him, under fire, dragged him to his safe spot, and made sure that he was cared for. And then he was taken off to go to the prisoner of war camp, I think, then it would be Winchester, Virginia. But there is this reunion that happens. It's the 75th reunion. Both of these men are 90 years old. It's 1923.

Both the Confederate and Union soldiers, the ones that were left and it was only a handful, go to Gettysburg. And the Confederate guy sees the Union soldier and said, my God, look at you. It's Hugh. He saved my life. I would not be here if we're not for you.

And then there's this beautiful photo of these two elderly men dressed in their uniforms embracing. And it's that sort of manners that you are talking about that I think that is missing from the horror that we see today over in the Middle East. It's surely missing. I just don't know how to feel about it. Do manners, civility, the Geneva Convention, and so forth and so forth. so on, do these attitudes and so forth, do they enable the conflict? Do they allow it to last longer than it otherwise would, since we're all being so terribly proper about how to behave like gentlemen as we disembow one another and burn our piles of dead horses? It's difficult to know

how to think about that today. For me, anyway. No, for me too. Look, if you've read about what the film shows you from that day on October 7th. If you've talked to anybody who have seen it, there are no rules. There are no manners. It's horrific. It's horrible. And I can understand why the Israelis want to respond in kind or even worse. Because what happened there was not in any rules of engagement.

It was barbaric. and what guts me, and I'm not afraid to say this, what guts me is watching these young people out there on the streets without, it has to be that they have no in-depth knowledge of understanding what happened in the 1930s and 40s and what happened on October 7th for them to be protesting against Israel. You know, I mean, since we're going there, yeah, let's just... Sorry.

No, no, no. You don't have to come with me. I don't mind being there all by myself, but I'm there. You're not all by yourself. I mean, 100,000 people showed up to March for Israel just a week or so ago. And personally, I was thrilled to see that. I was true. Because it was...

I mean, look, there are different kinds of protests. By the way, is there one happening over there? Is someone trying to kick your door in as we speak? I am curious if we're on the verge of a great battle. You know what's great about this, Mike, is that right before we started, Selena goes, let me tell the workman to be quiet. I didn't hear any banging at all when we were testing. There wasn't any.

Let's break this up a little with some comedic moment. My dad, I love dearly, was talked into taking down his big train platform that he has had since he was a boy. by, I'm not quite sure who. But he took it down, and he gave it to me. It's massive. It's this huge trading platform, all these trains.

And trains that he has had since the 40s and 50s. Beautiful. And I'm like, I have to preserve this. I have to do something with this. So I'm going to surprise him. Clearly, I can't let him watch this. I'm going to surprise him by building, a little room to put the platform on, and when he comes over for Christmas, he will see his

train platform. Because he's been very sad since he took his trade platformed on. And so that's my Christmas present to him. Unfortunately, they're all being a little noisy. That's okay. How old is he? E7. Okay. I can live with it now, Chuck. The sound of banging in the background is the result of workers building a room so Selena can put the train platform back so where 87-year-old dad can reconnect with something that was special to him as a boy. Do you want me to go down and tell them to, or are you good? At this point, I think we're committed to it. Years ago, when Chuck first threatened to throw himself off a building as a result of this

format, we were in the middle of some conversation, and there was a guy with a leaf blower. and it was amazingly distracting. Like the leaf blower and the car alarm, I think, are the two great urban farts of the 21st century, right? And this thing was just going, I mean, never really, I mean, for whatever good a leafblower does, it's so completely overwhelmed by the sound, the unnecessary sound that it makes.

It just drones on and on constantly, like me. Yeah, it just gets right in your soul. Yes, so there is a beautiful train room being built just for my dad's train platform and that's his Christmas present. He's going to come here. We do the Feast of the Seven Fish at my house. I make seven different kinds of fish for Christmas along with a million other things because that's his birthday. And when he comes here, would you buy someone that's 87 that has everything that they ever wanted? Not because he has a lot, but he has what you Rosebud.

Right. Rosebud. Rosebud. You get him something from their childhood. Of course. So I am recreating his entire platform and I'm also painting a mural on it. I'll send you pictures. And hopefully he will be as moved as I am even talking about it.

Do do do do do do do do. Dumb. Well, people are still raving, raving. I tell you about my mother's performance in the latest pure talk. talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy Roe gently criticizing her oldest son for his longstanding and well-established commitment issues, you'll learn about the latest offer from Pure Talk, which includes unlimited talk, text,

and data for just $3499 a month with no contracts and no commitments of any kind. You can see why I love these guys. If, on the other hand, you have better things to do with your time, then watch my mom and me be impossibly charming together, then allow me to remind you, here, without all the cleverness and charm, that unlimited talk, text, and data on a blazing fast network for just 3499 a month really is an unmitigated bargain from an American wireless company that keeps all their customer service in this country,

supports our veterans in a meaningful way, as well as the MicroWorks Foundation, and allows me to exploit my own mother in a national advertising campaign. Do what my mom did. Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just $34.99 a month at puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. And you're right. It's so much more cheerful than this thing in the Mideast, which we'll circle back to.

but let's just stay on trains for a minute. Yeah, let's segue right in there from a train platform. Well, can I ask a question? Yes. Did your dad have like a Christmas garden? Like people would make a, you know, the trains that go around the tree and you set up little houses or whatever. People did that for Christmas when I was a kid.

So he built this massive platform. I have it now. There's being a room being built around it. I mean, it had like the entire village. Right. with like working little merry-go-round and a little steel mill. Like, it is beautiful. And he packed it up meticulously and handed it to me.

And I can't not put it up, right? I feel... But I mean, is it a specific Christmas thing? Or was it something that he had all year round? It was up all year round. But it was most meaningful at Christmas. I mean, as soon as my grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, And every time they go over for Sunday dinner, Papa, Papa, let's go see the trains.

They were so heartbroken when they were gone. And he was heartbroken. It was not pretty. There was a lot of weeping, old and young. So I was like, I have to do this. How do you explain it? I mean, what is it about a train set like that that would still, I get the kids. I get that.

But as a grown man, why would something from your youth get bigger? bigger as you get older and older instead of smaller and smaller as you get further away from it, not unlike the Gettysburg Address and the relevance that it ultimately held for people decades down the line and not the day of. What is that? It's an attachment to place. It's an emotion that you cannot capture sometimes in the moment, but it is an emotion that goes inside of you and small things bring it up. It's that sense of place and purpose that influences that nostalgia.

And you want to, you know, especially when the world's gone crazy, right? You want to find something that makes you, that gives you purpose, that takes you away from that. What do you have, Mike, besides whiskey? That's it. That's it.

And enormous quantities of it. You know what I have? I have music. There you go. Music is my delivery system to a time that I either fondly remember or more often than not. A time I didn't actually experience, but nevertheless feel connected to vis-a-vis the German expression, Verchmaltz. Yeah. That weird mix of nostalgia and familiarity for a time you didn't actually live through.

That's what gets me there. But if you're saying a train set or these die cast model cars that a company named Erdle used to make in Iowa, that grown men still collect, right? Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. I get that. What era of music are you particularly attached to?

So when I hear a lot of the Tin Pan Alley stuff, a lot of the standards, I find, like, really evocative in that way. Chuck's heard me talk about this for a long time, but I'm really drawn to the old sad songs that were written primarily, I think, not to entertain, but to let some air out of the tire. How do you grieve for a dead child when dead kids were common? Well, there are songs written about essentially crib death. They're songs written. They're so intensely morbid. Kissing the fingerprints. Yes.

Fingerprints. I open wide the shutters to the long-forgotten room. The guy walks in six months earlier. His baby died in the crib, and he's just getting over it. And then he sees the handprint of the infant on the window pane. Oh, God. And Selena, he walks over, and he kisses them off. And this is the song.

This is the song. there's a song. Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas. There's a song that came out of Gettysburg. I'm going to cry. Yeah, I'm going to make you cry. I mean, assuming you can hear me over the banging and the rushing water and the crappy microphone situation, you'll weep.

The rotary dial-up. You know what? Next week, Chuck, we get two cans and some string. If there's rotary dial-up, I heard it. 20-24. You can put a man on the moon. There's a song that came out of, uh, Gettysburg, actually, it came out of the Civil War.

It was pretty famous back in the day. This is my answer to your question. The song was called The Vacant Chair. Have you ever heard it? Yes. Oh, my God. Like, what do you do when your brother doesn't come home? And it's Thanksgiving.

Yeah. And he was there, and now he's not. Yeah. You know, the Marines, to this day, set an empty table and they put a chair at it, right? Oh, yeah. This goes all the way back to civilians. We shall meet. But we shall miss him.

There will be one vacant chair. We will linger to caress him as we sing our evening prayer. It was a year ago we gathered. There was something joy in his mild blue eye, but a golden cord was severed. Now our thoughts in ruined life. Just impossibly maudlin. I wrote about this.

Get out of here. No. Really? I did. The table's called it. It's the missing chair. the table, the soldier table, the missing man, but I quoted, I have to send it to you, I quoted that song. That was years ago. I did it when I covered Iraq and Afghanistan, but also,

I don't know if you remember this happening. I think we all were chatting at this point, but in August 27th of 2021, when those 13 soldiers went down in Afghanistan, there were 13 chairs all across the country. I literally drove across the country and found them everywhere. High school stadiums, town squares, in front of churches, in people's yards. It was everywhere.

So when people say that people don't care and they do, they absolutely do, but it's so wonderful that you brought that song up because I'm very familiar with it. You know, I was just saying to Chuck earlier, If I had a sister, I think in a lot of ways, I like to think she'd be you. Yeah. Because if I were a journalist, I'd like to think I'd be doing precisely what you've done for the last couple of decades and what you're doing right now.

Because you're so spot on about reminding people of what the consensus really is. You know, I'd just talk to a guy you would like named Todd Rose, who runs a think tank called Populus. And he... Oh, I know Todd. Oh, well, he's, you know, he's only brilliant. Yeah. Basically brilliant. Graduated high school with a 0.9 GPA and wound up teaching at Harvard.

Yep. You know. Love him. You don't see that very often. Not a lot. But I think the reason your work is so important today, Selena, is because on Twitter, 80% of all the information is curated by 10% of the people on the platform. Yeah. And so as you scroll through and as you read, it's really easy to make assumptions about what the majority of people think.

But that's not what the majority of people think. The majority of people, to your point, set 13 empty chairs up in firehouses and auditoriums and schools all over the country. And their hearts broke for those people. And it just wasn't covered for shit. Pardon me, but it's a disgrace. It wasn't covered. And I remember people laughing at me when I wrote that story. But, you know, I took photos from all the, I went from Missouri backwards.

It was in Missouri when it happened. And I went from Missouri all across the middle of the country to Philadelphia, where the last place, I think I was like outside of Philly. There was a bar there that did it. It was profoundly, profoundly moving. And I think those moments really show our character what we see on X or Twitter or whatever you're calling it this week is not reflective of who we are. I think it's the conversations that we have between each other that are. And I don't think you and I talked for that story last week about, you know, I was just sitting there thinking, well, there goes Harvard, which I taught at. and there goes Columbia and there goes whatever, you know, school that cost $80,000 a year to attend.

What are they doing at the trade schools and the community colleges where a lot of trade, skilled trade courses are taught? Just so people know, Selena, you observed quite accurately, I thought, that there were no protests going on at trade schools in community college vis-a-vis this nightmare in the Mideast. And you and I connected on that. And I said, you know, the same thing occurred to me about seven, eight years ago when everybody was burning flags. And there were lots and lots and lots of protests around speech and various other things, inconvenient guests and so forth at a variety of universities. And I just casually mentioned one day on the Facebooks. Isn't it weird that nobody ever burns a flag at a trade school? Yeah.

Why is that? Man, oh, man, did I kick a hornet's nest? And you did too with that article, thank you very much. But it has to be said. It's the symbology that I want you to talk about. It's the metaphor. Like the metaphor of 13 empty chairs, a burning flag, these images, as much as I love words, metaphors are more powerful than words.

And that's why I think Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg is so unforgettable. It didn't rely on but 272 words. Everett needed 14,000. Nobody remembers Everett. Everybody remembers Lincoln. So when you write and when you travel and when you talk to regular folks, how does the metaphor, how does symbology and iconography, how do images work in your brain and how do you turn those in to prose in a way that pleases you? Well, I think the most profound images I have of people, as you know, I don't fly, not because I'm afraid, but because if I'm going to go tell a story, half the story usually happens between the place I left and the place I'm going to. And I don't take interstates or highways. I only take back roads. So all of a sudden, as these images of our country and people and homes, and homes, and churches and buildings and schoolyards,

as I pass them, they actually do deeply impact the questions I'm going to ask to the people wherever I get to. Because whether it is decay or whether it is an upsurge in a community, seeing what's around the people in the places that they are is the imagery that drives stories for me. and then, of course, the imagery of the people. I don't know if I'm stating that with as much clarity as it deserves,

but it really is place and people in the moment that helps me tell a story. Well, as you talk about the backroads, I saw it in my mind. I saw the road less traveled. I even saw the road not taken. You know, it's like that scene in Castaway at the end when Tom Hanks delivers the FedEx package. and he's there at the crossroads, and it's just these nameless roads, really, going to actual places. Yeah.

That's the metaphor that I'm actually talking about. Yeah. You get it. I think the first time you and I talked, there's a thing that I'm always struck by called the frontage road, you know? Yes. Frontage roads are wherever larger roads or interstates came in. And it's not like they built the frontage road as a feeder road. That thing was there first.

And that's where you find your Benegins and your Motel Sixes today. And it's just like, and then a step beyond that, you get into the roads that you take. Yeah. That's where the people are, the actual people. Yeah. The Lincoln Highway would be considered a frontage road today when it was built. And that was, again, part of this rebirth of Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. It was named the Lincoln Highway because Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address is all of a sudden,

become significant in our culture in 1913, you take some of those roads and then you look at an interstate and you see what happens to a lot of these roads, they either, to your point, become the home of Motel 6 or everything is decayed and gone. I really commend and love writing about the places that have held on and not let that happen to the community, where the community has fought to make sure that their town has stayed significant, not gotten bigger, not gotten larger, not gotten a target, but has been able to stay significant and prosperous that meets that population. They aren't driven by, you know, gaining population.

I wrote a story. couple years ago. There's this lovely town in West Virginia, Tucker County, West Virginia. The town is called Tucker, and it lost population, and they didn't care. They liked the way their town was. As long as their little businesses were still going, as long as everyone was sort of still visiting and enjoying the glorious mountains and the fly fishing and enjoying the little general stores, they're like maybe we weren't supposed to be bigger. Maybe this is as big as we're supposed to get. And maybe that's okay, as long as we can keep going. A lot of small towns say, why do we have to be larger? Why do we have to get bigger? If we can thrive and survive in our size, then we're doing okay.

And I see a lot of towns like that. There are other places that just didn't survive. But there are small towns that are across this country that have survived because of understanding this is what we're supposed to be and not thinking larger than they are. I was in the town, I write about this on Sunday, the town of Madora, North Dakota, population 120. It is at the entrance to what is going to be the brand new President Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. Wow. And then that town was awesome.

There was a hotel that's been there since Teddy Roosevelt first came there in 1883. I mean, it's just like an old-fashioned gunsling in town, and it's doing okay. If you had to guess, how many towns like that do you think? are in this country. Thousands and thousands. All you have to do is look on the blue highways on the map and just drive through them. There's more doing okay, not fantastic, but doing okay than falling apart. That doesn't mean there aren't places that aren't falling apart.

There are times when I have pulled over the side of the road and just been gutted by seeing a town and what it used to be. and people clinging to the hope that it comes back, but not having the wherewithal to make that happen. And it's heartbreaking. Now, you and I talk about place all the time, like there are the placed people who are rooted, either only in their generation or for several generations back, and then there are the place less.

Those are the people that are very transient. Those are the people that don't have attachments. and are more attached to things like climate change or, you know, whatever the moment is, hysteria of the moment is, right? Right. And so I think those are the stories I love writing. Well, maybe it's a trap, you know, like the idea that we can only extract real meaning from places or people or ideas. I think there's probably a very ecclesiastes kind of approach to this, which is to everything, there's a season. You know, my parents have never lived anywhere, really, in my life anyhow, but for Baltimore. And I went through a period in my life where I was like, you know, that's a shame.

Why are you so rooted to this place? Why are you so, you know, almost stuck? Stubborn. You know, stubborn. But, of course, today I look at it and I envy it. I think, wow, that was great that you committed to this place. I've been to every state half a dozen times. And for a while, I thought that may be terribly urban and sophisticated, but it doesn't.

This makes you kind of tired after a while. It makes you worldly to a point. So how do you find the balance in your life? Because you live on the road. You travel every week. How do you get back to a sense of personal place? where you feel like home. And please tell me the answer, to some degree,

involves Fiestaware. I mean, I can show you a picture if you want. But I feel like we've done that a lot. But I wait a minute. Can. I think I can. Oh, wait, wait, there's more. Oh, gosh.

This is filled with Fiestaware. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, dear. And that was the last we ever saw of Selena. Well, look, if this is a video and you're still watching, you can see what happened. There, she's back, just like that.

Wow. With no sound, okay. Can you imagine? I mean, if Selena could handle a podcast as well as she writes, we'd win awards. Yeah. We really would. We're not going to win any awards.

No. There'll be no awards for this one. Oh, you fixed it. You fixed it. How was my pants of mine? It looked pretty great. One of my better moments. Don't you guys just love me?

We do, but I'm going to recommend from now on, maybe just not moving the camera to show us the Fiestaware. We can just imagine the Fiestaware that you have, and we've seen it before, and we're good with it. I love you, Chuck. I love you, too, Selena. That's sweet. That's sweet. And we love all of you for still listening, honestly.

This, you know, we've been beset with problems, but look, at the risk of self-praise, I think we're making a pretty interesting point, because whether it's Fiestaware, or a train set, reimagined for your dad, or a fond recollection of one of the shortest speeches ever written. I think we're talking about something that's potentially interesting vis-a-vis symbology, iconography, the words we choose, and the sounds of construction that really are the soundtrack of my life, Selena. I want you to sing that song for me. Which one? I feel like that was the empty chair. We shall meet, but we shall miss his.

There will be one vacant chair We will linger to caress him as we sing our evening prayer T'was a year ago we gathered Joy was in his mild blue eye But a golden cord was severed Now our thoughts in ruin lie. We shall meet, but we shall miss him. There will be one vacant chair.

We will linger to caress him as we sing our evening prayer. That was beautiful. As you were singing that, all I could see are all those 13 chairs all along the road. Just those images kept coming back. Do you feel sometimes like we're on a wheel, the wheel of Fortuna, and it spins, and it spins, and we get through the Civil War, and we learn a bunch of stuff, and we commemorate a cemetery, and we write some speeches, and then the war to end all wars, except it did. didn't, and then the second one and so forth.

And now, you know, to kind of circle back with where we started, how are we supposed to make sense of the headlines you deal with every single day when the wheel just keeps spinning round and round the way it does? That's really rough. I can remember after 9-11 and how much we came together. And we did for a while. It wasn't brief. And it's something that it's a phenomenon.

this happens after every conflict. It happened after World War II. Not Vietnam because that was just a complete different story. But World War I, the Civil War, all these conflicts, we had this sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves. The thing that keeps me up at night is that I don't know that we can get there on a national platform and still, I mean, One-on-one, regular people, yeah.

But that swelling sense of being together that used to come from leaders in our country and used to come from doers in our country, that's what keeps me up at night. I worry that we can't get there. Right, because it's hard to know. It's not like you want, you know a giant existential threat

will get our attention because that's what 9-11 did. Something so awful happened. that for a time we were galvanized. So you don't want to hope for a 9-11. No. I mean, so what do you do? You kind of hope for an alien invasion.

You hope for some sort of galactic thing that might make us all go, oh, wait a second, here's something big. So yeah, it's hard to know what to hope for, hard to know what to pray for. You just watch the wheel spin. That's very true. And I thought about this a lot.

It's the only time we have seemed to come together is during a great threat. Other times in between those times, we were always a mess, right? We always had fights and people didn't like each other and whatever the case may be. But, you know, when we had these moments, we did come together and you don't want that thing to happen. But yet there's also this worry like, will we come together? Can't we? You know what I've noticed that's kind of interesting?

I went down in Salt Tucker. last week in in Florida. And we had a nice chat. Hadn't seen him since the dust up, you know. The dust up, that's a very interesting way to put it. That's a great way to put it. The dust up. Well, there's nothing left to do, Chuck, but overstate or understate everything.

And at this point, I think dust up, you know, there's a dust up in the Middle East, Selena. Maybe you've heard. Yes. Yeah. He said, you're going to see a giant. revival. You're going to see people turning to God in record numbers. That's something he predicted. I think later that night, and really ever since, flicking around, I'm struck by how many,

I'm seeing the guy at hallow.com pop up and say, hey, real quick, pray with me. I know. And I pray as soon as he does it. And there he is. I'm like, there's Billy Graham Jr. And then there's Samaritan's purse. And then there are a bunch of people I've never heard of before talking very, very pointedly. Yes. So I wonder. I wonder if there's some, like, if that's part of the vacant chair, if that's part of the reversion, the Gettysburg speech, your dad's train set, these talismans and these things that tug us back to something familiar. It just seems to be happening all around us, and that's got to be a sign of the times.

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don't take a chance on a foreign ranch. Get good ranchers now. A-ha. Yes, I actually just wrote about this a couple weeks ago. You take all my ideas and write about them. I'm so sorry, my brother. Tell me, what'd you write about? I wrote about.

I was in the city and I was taking a walk along Point State Park. It's evening. And I see a bunch of boats come up. And then I see also a bunch. It's all young people. Like young people, every race, right? But they're all young. They're all starting to converge over on the shoreline of the Allegheny River.

Then this band shows up. And then they started singing and praising God. And then they got baptized in the river. I'm like, Allegheny River. Wow. Whoa. And so I, of course, interviewed them and talked to them about it.

Wow, was that unbelievable. Like, it was just, I felt like I was supposed to see that, right? It just gives me chills even talking about that. The baptism was spontaneous. They were a part of a church group, but a loosely formed church group. They were going down to celebrate God with music. and one of the kids said, I really want to be baptized.

And then the next thing you know, everyone's in the river. It was pretty amazing. And I went down to the Kentucky and covered that revival. But there have been a lot of revivals across our small little colleges across the country

that really don't get a lot of attention. And I think to your point, there is something going on. There is an awakening. brewing. And I don't know, I'll be really honest, I don't know that my profession would cover it in the way that it deserves or would cover it at all. And that is not surprising, but deeply disappointing because faith is something that is incredibly profound and meaningful in people's lives that is often covered by my profession as though,

oh, they're freaks, or there's something wrong with them, or aren't they weird? Right. And I think when I was writing this story, I went to Pew and got some data to look at faith with young people. And while it showed young people don't care as much, or aren't as wedded to larger churches, they consider themselves nuns, N-O-N-E-S.

Right. Now, people think that means they don't have faith. They're wrong. They just go to these non-denominal churches, like that non-denominational churches is the one I was just describing, and their faith is large and huge. Isn't that interesting?

My mom and I just had this exact conversation yesterday. She's still going to the same church where I was raised, and the church has not evolved. It has not pivoted. It has not grown. And so the congregation is now small and old. And you've seen this happen in towns that don't pivot or evolve. It's a very tricky thing. That was her point.

She's like, you know, we have so many friends. There's the Episcopalian church up the street, and there's the Reform Presbyterian. then there's the United Presbyterian, then you got your Baptist, so. But the big churches, the big non-denominational churches are, I think, bigger than they've ever been. Boom. So what does that mean vis-a-vis labels and distinctions and lanes and all of that stuff? Is that starting to be less important to people? Yeah, I think we have seen over the past decade all large institutions,

whether it is government or corporations, but also churches. People have little trust in them, but they're more willing to be part of something that isn't overly heavily structured and sort of has this hierarchy that feels almost omnipresent as opposed to meaningful. So that's why, you know, I have read so many stories saying about faith is dying. Faith is dying among young people. Look at all of these nuns. And I'm like, do you know what nuns are? Meaning N-O-N-E-S, not, you know, those ladies in habits that taught me and beat me with a roller as a child. Not the greatest commercial for Catholicism, is it? None. I'm still a Catholic, practicing one. But nuns don't mean no faith. They just, you know, they just. mean we're doing it a different way, y'all? Like freelancers. You know, it doesn't mean I'm opposed to work.

It means I serve no boss, no specific boss. I'll do the job and move on to the next one. Look, it makes sense. If we have a gig economy, why isn't it where we have a gig faith? Right. And how interesting that the gig economy, at least here in California, is under a full on assault. Our elected officials do not want freelancers. They want employees.

Our unions, God bless them. They don't want freelancers. They want members. Look at, you know, we've done it again. We've actually gotten to a really interesting point. This pressure, on the one hand, to get people into their categories. An employee equals a W2. That's good.

A freelancer equals a 1099. That's bad. So the governor of California wants to get rid of 1099s, wants to get rid of them. Meanwhile, you've got this thing that you've discovered as you Forrest Gump your way through the middle of the country where you're seeing people, they don't want to be in a category. They don't want to be in any category. No, not at all. And I wrote about, I have an entire chapter about this in my book. We are in an age of disruption.

And what began the disruption is this. Yeah. The cell phone. And we don't need to wait for the Sears catalog to get to our house and to go through every page and then call up Sears catalog and get what we want. Amazon disrupted Sears, right? The same way that FedEx disrupted the mail system. Do you remember the slogan for FedEx when it first came out? When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight.

I used to say that about my old girl. friend. It's another story. Don't. But that's a disruptor. Yeah. Yeah. And we are living in a heightened age of disruption, not much different than the age of the industrial revolution. We're just having a technological revolution. And we haven't quite figured out what is going to be aware when the dust has settled. Because all categories have been shattered, whether it is faith, whether it is politics. I mean, even look at the NFL. What does the NFL now

have where you're not loyal to one team, right? Fancy football. All of a sudden, you're loyal to a whole bunch of teams. Everything's shattered. We're in an age that we haven't wrapped our arms about around in the terms of we don't know where we're going to land. We're still sort of free falling. You know, maybe, I mean, the NFL is a pretty good metaphor to kind of suck a lot of this into because sports teams are rooted to their fans. Fans are rooted by loyalty. Loyalty used to be attached to a place. The Orioles were always Baltimore. The Colts were always Baltimore until they were Indianapolis.

You know, the Browns were always Cleveland until they were the Colts and so forth and so forth. And so it's the Packers, right? Green Bay is owned by the city and rooted to the place. And so the people who are the fans there have a sense of attachment. Yeah. And I think is very, very different than fans all over the place waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under them. I think that's exactly what's happening in our country in a thousand different ways. The citizenry have been prepped to expect the rug to be yanked out from under them. and something near and dear to them, like a sports team.

But it could be anything. It could be anything. It's going to be removed. It's going to be removed. And we don't know what and we don't know when. And it's creating a bit of anxiety, I dare say. Yes. There is a reason, speaking of the football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, right?

The Pittsburgh Steelers first started winning because we never won before the 70s. Pittsburgh was at its lowest point. That is when we had 19%. unemployment, higher than the Great Depression. And the only thing that kept us together was that team. And then everyone had to move away. So while the team stayed and the people that didn't stay, do you know that there are 4,132 steelers across the country? Why? Because so many people were displaced, but they were still root to your point, rooted to the steel. That was their identity.

So they took that tradition and that rootedness to where they had to find a job and they'd go to a Steer's bar every Sunday. Well, there it is. That's what's happening in our country, whether it's a literal connection to a sports team or something metaphorical to your school or to just this weird confusion, this bullia base, this amalgam of what you believe. where you formed those beliefs and the people who you were with

when those beliefs were formed. All that stuff jams together in a way that makes us remember a speech like the one Lincoln gave in Gettysburg and forget the one that the rock star gave. Yeah. The man who was hired to transform that event into something unforgettable

has himself become largely forgotten along with the text and the 14,000, however many words. he wrote. It's so weird, Selena, because we don't get to decide in the moment what any of it means. No. But when you said earlier that you worry that your industry isn't going to be able to accurately report a lot of the good news that you see day to day, I just couldn't agree more because I think your industry sees itself as people whose job is to get the statues down, Get the speeches forgotten.

Uphend the metaphor. Don't wave the flag. Burn the flag. Everything is upside down. Yeah. And it's hard for a regular Jane or Joe to make heads or tails of that craziness. It's incredibly hard to make. I'm sure generations past have said that.

However, it's not an arrogance in the moment of saying this time is the worst. But even as someone who studies history, I don't think there was a worst time. Are you familiar with the turning or whatever, the 80-year cycle of like, I mean, eight years ago? Yeah, it was World War II, 80 years before that as a Civil War, 80 years before that as a revolutionary war. It feels like we're in a time at that moment again.

And I think a lot of people, you know, you mentioned revivals before. I know that a lot of people, what's very popular now with books and stuff is people reading about the end times. Oh, yeah. Like it's coming to vogue because the wheels seem to have come off the wagon globally a bit. Do you feel that that is true? Oh, yeah.

My daughter, you know, in her 30s, smart, bright, very successful. Her and her peers have started a Bible study. Every week they meet at one of their homes. So I think these movements are starting below the range. are and I think it's palpable because people are searching for something they need to feel something again that thing that's the center of who we are aspiration part of something bigger than

ourselves we have just been talking about not us now but this past decade has just been the me you know these are called the 70s the me generation or the 60s they've got nothing on today. I pine for the 70s. No, it's true because now we have the tools to build little monuments to ourselves really effectively. You know, we can curate our profiles. We can curate our own pages. It takes no time at all. And, you know, in the same way that you can unfriend a person or dislike a thing, isn't that what's happening with the statues that are getting pulled down and desperate attempts to rewrite history, to teach it differently, to do all these different things? I'm not judging one way or the other.

I'm just thinking it's... I am. Well... Sorry about that. No, no, I mean, you're not just judging, though. You have opinions, obviously, and so do I. I'm trying, to the degree I can. Look, I'm guilty of building my own little.

monuments to me. I got a podcast with my name in it and a Facebook page and a TV show and books. That's what we're doing. But I think at least in a Kierkegaardian way, we're self-aware enough to stare into our own belly buttons and say, I think this is why I'm doing it. I think this is why it matters as opposed to maybe, I don't know. Go ahead. Say something smart. There is this saying, this quote by John Freeman, who like Edward Everett, lost. to history. He said it makes a difference to all eternity, whether you choose to do right or wrong today. That might not sound like it's profound, but it really is. Whatever you're doing in the moment, the ripple effect of the people that you imprint an impact is enormous. What we're sitting here doing

today might impact someone's life going forward. And so while you say you're building your own statue, I think you're actually doing the hard part by making a difference. Well, thanks. No, I think it's really important to inform and engage and communicate with people. And you don't sit here and talk about Mike, Roe. You sit here and talk about and debate, even more importantly, debate this thing that's so missing in our society, you debate what's going on and you intersect it with what happened before, the lessons that we can learn. So I wouldn't consider yourself what you do as a monument. It's actually work, but it's also impactful. Well, thanks. I mean, really, what I meant to say is you don't have any control over what happens as a result of the

excellent columns you write, but you write them anyway. Sometimes I feel. Like I'm shouting into the wind and nobody's reading them. But you also know that's not true. A lot of people read them and a lot of people listen to this podcast and Chuck gets overwhelmed by comments every time you come on because people do your earlier point, right? The intelligentsia, the glitterati might not be aware of those 13 empty chairs and bars and auditoriums across the country. But many, many, many, many, many people are.

And so I'm only saying in this life, we don't get to decide what our work is going to do. We don't always get to see the impact that it might have. And so what we're left with is, you know, if you're you, you have to write the stories that please you, the stories that amuse you, the stories that nourish you. And that has to be enough because you might be the only one to read them. happily we know that's not the case. But most people, in my view, need to think that way, just to stay sane. And so, you know, I got my little monuments. And if nobody looks at him and if nothing happens as a result of microworks or anything else I'm working on, I can at least look at myself at the end of the day and go, well, you know what? I gave it a shot. I know why I did it. But like the pitcher who lets go with the ball, it's out of your hands now. You put it out there and hope that 40 years down the road, Maybe you're remembered more like Lincoln than Everett. And maybe no one tears your statue down.

And maybe 40 years down the road, one of those kids that got one of your scholarships is now running a company that's making a difference in the world. Well, that would make me cry in public. That's exactly why we do it. That's what you do it. But you don't know. That's why you're doing it. You don't know.

That's the ripple effect, yeah. That's the butterfly effect. You put it out there. Abraham Lincoln put it out there. To your point, he didn't write it on a train, and he didn't write it the night before on the back of an envelope in Willis's house. He wrote it two weeks earlier in the White House.

He knew what he wanted to say. He crafted it, and he put it out there in his squeaky, reedy voice, he was speaking into the wind, not knowing if his words would land. even though Everett called him or called on him what it's like two days later

and said something like hit me with the quote it's terrific I'm going to totally screw the quote up and considering the amount of things I screwed up today you don't want me to do it

then I'll do it it was something along the lines of had I the good fortune to do in two hours what you did in two minutes I would be much gratified Yeah. So he knew.

Yeah. He knew that the opening act ate his lunch, right? He knew really what was happening there. It took us, right? It took we the people 40 years to get the memo. So, you know, great lessons in that. Yeah. Everett had a huge ego.

So for him to say that was kind of a big deal. All right, here's how I'm going to sum it up. We haven't solved anything at all. The wheel keeps spinning. But in times like this, there is a certain logic, maybe comfort in a sad song, or some fiestaware, or the sounds of construction in the adjoining room of a daughter. Now he's gone, okay? But the soundtrack of this podcast has been the reconstruction of a room for a train station,

a train display. we go back to the past to make sense of the present, I guess. Yeah, that's why I'm sure you find yourself humming the song sometimes when you're looking or searching for something. Isn't that the truth? Yeah. Isn't it weird the way those earworms get stuck in your brain like a splinter in your mind, man? Isn't it funny?

Yeah. Chuck, are you going to forgive me for today? You're already forgiven. Yeah, it's no problem. It's my editor who's not going to forgive me. but, you know, what are you going to do? The question, actually, Selena, should be directed to me, and that is, can we expect to see Chuck again next week on the podcast, given his willful ignorance and stubborn refusal to get you on the phone before we begin this thing to do the most rudimentary kind of testing?

To determine, for instance, are we in a construction zone today? Or does Selena have a microphone? Or is she operating an iOS system that was rolled out in 1962 or something? I have my rotary phone right beside me, okay? And it's plugged in. Well, I just don't understand why you didn't page me to let me know that a pageer choice. I was using Morris phone. Of course.

And there's a carrier pigeon outside your window. Perfect. Hit me with the obvious stuff, Selena. Where do people go to read your prescient prose? And then go to selina zito.com. That's S-A-L-E-N-A-Z-I-T-O. That's where all my work is. And if they want to sign up for the emails, they're free.

They're fun and they're not fattening. But everything I'm making right now is very battening. Well, tis the season. I'd show you with the phone. Yeah, right. Don't start showing me stuff again. Thank you for making the time. Have a great holiday season.

And we'll all be reading your stuff. I promise I'll have a new computer by the time I come back on again if Chuck ever invites me back. Well, it is Christmas. Maybe someone will get you a present, Selena. Maybe someone will drag you into 2024, kicking and screaming. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, you guys. Love you guys.

Good luck with the feast of the seven fishes. Yes, all the fishes. Oh, I would talk to you before that. Here's to no vacant chairs. No vacant chairs. Amen. There's no podcast without a sponsor. Thank them for pay.

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