The Alicia Patterson Foundation in New York selected my proposal in 1975 to fund a year of traveling America during the bicentennial year where I'd regularly plug in my electric typewriter and create dispatches for 34 daily papers about the nation and its people.
I still sometimes wonder why the judges voted for a young Arkansas journalist as one of five fellowship recipients. The judges included established national journalists the likes of the late Ben Bradlee and Helen Thomas. Also at the table were authors Gloria Steinem and Francis Fitzgerald. I suspect all viewed me as a hillbilly editor with enough youthful promise to warrant salvaging.
So in 1976, with 5-year-old son Brandon in tow, we set out in a 24-foot Coachman motor home pulling a Honda Civic for what would become a 23,000-mile odyssey not unlike that undertaken by the late author John Steinbeck with his poodle Charley, which I referred to in my proposal. The author and Charley in 1960 traveled America in a camper to capture the spirit of America. I also had cited war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who had made a similar foray.
Before departing the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record, where I was then the editor, Bradlee, who was executive editor of The Washington Post three years removed from Watergate, sent a lengthy personal letter. He said he hoped the journey would broaden my "narrow horizons" and cautioned care because I could be "mugged" roaming this wild nation.
Turns out Bradlee should have held his critique until 2020 when a divided country began turning on itself to shame and mug the character of its fellow citizens. Many of the name-callers valued only their largely radical views. In contrast, in 1976, most every civilized adult I met would likely fight to the death to defend my right to believe as I did.
In working alongside Black field hands in a North Carolina tobacco field, sitting on the sidewalk to interview a legless pencil peddler in downtown San Francisco, edging the motor coach through the seedy Bowery section of New York City, and venturing 2,000 feet beneath the earth with Cajun salt miners in Avery, La., I had not a single negative experience.
That proved what I'd believed: To earn respect, one must give it to others. In reflecting on that year, it's shocking how far our country has fallen, especially in the ways we treat each other.
Forty-five years ago the national mood I discovered along the highways was primarily one of hopeful pursuit of the American dream. Strangers never asked my political leanings. They didn't care about such personal matters any more than I did about theirs. We were simply thankful to be liberty-loving Americans blessed with freedom of speech and expression.
To put that era in historical context: Elvis Presley gave his final performance before passing away. The U.S. Department of Energy was formed, San Francisco elected the nation's first openly gay city supervisor.
"Star Wars" premiered. Apple and Microsoft incorporated. There were no laptops, cell phones or violent video games. All cameras used film. America began the transfer of ownership and control of the Panama Canal to Panama. Gasoline cost less than 50 cents a gallon (which mattered with a 50-gallon tank and a $17,000 budget from the Patterson folks).
Investigative reporter Don Bolles of the Arizona Republic was slain in a car bombing in downtown Phoenix. Ten years later, I would fill his position.
Wonder what I'd find in the country today where a once-objective national media willfully chooses partisan sides; familiar cartoon characters, plastic toys, traditional food names, statues and parts of our history are summarily erased from society; public cameras routinely capture our comings and goings; and biological males are allowed to compete athletically against females.
I'm certain of one thing: The mood of the people--having endured radical social and cultural changes, 9/11 and terrorism, the ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts, mass shootings, hostilities roiling our national politics, virtually everyone wrongly labeled racists, the crippling pandemic, our immigration crises, a dangerous push toward socialism and government control over freedoms, all along with a tragically ineffective public educational system--undoubtedly would reveal a far different nation than the one I wrote about almost a half-century ago.
Adult-minded American citizens in 2021 would be well-served to consider the cultural damage we're inflicting on this once-gleaming City on a Hill that has provided its citizens and the world boundless freedoms and shared prosperity.
What of enduring value are we leaving for our generations to follow?
Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at [email protected].