Midwest Holiday.

[Music] e well Mr Bennett I I saved all your mail for you thanks I'll pick it up on my way out hello Dale here you're going to be around here for a while you better check your sources hello Mr Bennett you can go ride in Mr Craig's expecting you [Applause] thanks well Dale glad to see you have a good vacation wonderful fine fine sit down here have a cigar no thanks well now the last time I saw you you were a pretty angry guy I sure was I was ready to quit that's what I thought how would you feel if you were me I'd worked hard enough to get into that Paris office and I'd worked hard to get good news sources in Europe I was all set then you pull me back here for your own good because you'd forgotten to be a reporter you were writing editorials not news stories we want to know what other people think that's why I told you to take a vacation you needed to get back to the Grassroots get a little closer to people what have you got there this is my vacation in pictures that's really what I want to talk to you about I want you to have first crack at it shoot okay you told me to take a vacation and think it over when I left here I just threw some camping gear into a station wagon and took off for nowhere a few miles out of the city I got an idea there was Lake Michigan looking cool and inviting I thought why not and man that old Lake felt [Music] good I was a new man when I came out got to watching a beach car scooting along and then I stumbled right into something really ATT trct well hello let go of me why don't you look where you're going gee I'm sorry clumsy look what you've done it was almost finished oh well here let me help you don't touch it haven't you any sense at all just go away please you know you're mighty pretty when you're mad she was plenty mad I tried to think of some way to make things right but no luck oh [Music] well as I drove North I couldn't get that gal out of my mind then at a town along the way I stopped to get some gas and maybe learned something about the local Scenic spots a funny thing happened I guess I had luck on my side because right there was the same painting of the lake in the Dooms where'd you get that I just bought it you think it's any good yeah I kind of liked it maybe I just like the G who painted it geez she was pretty say how about selling that to me it's more than I paid for it okay it's all [Music] yours do you know her no but I'd like to kind of interesting driving around with her father in an old car and trailer they just left here about a half hour ago which way they go going north thanks so am I so I started to keep an eye out for a car with a trailer and a few miles up the road there they were obviously in some kind of trouble I stopped but of course I would have stopped anyway because there was the same gal up on a nearby Hillside hello young fell want to buy a painting no thanks game of Cribbage no a lot of people play cribbage end up buying a painting whole back ends full of them know anything about engines some that seems to be the trouble have a look if it isn't one thing it's another engines brakes here I'll show you dog gone battery better let me give you a push hope you would [Applause] [Music] just wanted to say thank you not at all but I'd do something about that car of yours if I were you I don't think it's safe she's all we had have to make our last well hey look it's moving [Music] I never felt so sorry for any two people in my life her name was Connie her father was retired on a little pension and she managed to sell enough paintings to just keep going then the whole thing went up in smoke what did you do I had a car wasn't going anywhere what could I do so I hooked my station wagon to their trailer and we drove off together and frankly I wasn't at all sorry to do it my vacation was turning out a lot better than I'd expected what Connie felt she kept to herself and her dad well it was hard to tell what he thought too we headed for interlocking pulled into a pretty Grove of pines and made ourselves comfortable then I heard [Music] music [Music] hundreds of youngsters come to Interlocken every summer come from all over the country to play Sing dance and study It's a Wonderful spot [Music] well I think I'll see if I can turn up a game of Cribbage anything I can do no thanks you know it's awfully nice of you to pull us around I don't feel right about it ah it's about time I get around to see in the midle West anyway I just love it for years I've wanted to travel around and paint these beautiful scenes Ted thinks I'm a little foolish Ted who's he Ted new we've known each other since kindergarten he thinks they ought to give it up mhm get married settle down I'm not ready to give up yet maybe he's right my paintings don't sell very well don't let that buy you baby well think of all the great painters I had to die before their stuff began to sell take San Goan fanc I think two years in Paris can make people awfully [Music] patronizing [Music] uhoh the things there are to see in this middle West Spring Mill State Park in Indiana takes you back there's an old water wheel there still running just as it did when our forefathers built it more than 100 years [Music] ago everybody seemed to be in a holiday mood we drove over to New Salem in Illinois where Abraham Lincoln lived as a Young Man the Old Log buildings have been carefully restored as a monument to his [Music] memory I don't know about you but a place like this makes me feel a shadow of History yeah I get a whale of a kick out of places like this you bet a mighty big chunk of History got started right here from rail splitter to president but life must have been pretty rough in those days how'd you like to travel around behind a pair of auction we swung West to the Mississippi and turned North we were looking at some barges and a River tug when Dad summed it up once upon a time these Rivers were our only highways today we have highways all over the country we drive our own cars we get on a train a plane go from one end of the country to another and nobody says we can't farther up the river we cross the bridge that leads into Hannibal Missouri Mark Twain's Hometown the whole world has come to know and love it through his books you can still see settings that come to life in his books like Mark Twain's home and Tom Sawyer's famous white fence not far away is a statue to Tom and his friend Huck Finn the first St you ever put up in America to people out of a book from there we rolled across Missouri to Kansas City where we saw one of the most beautiful War memorials in this country from there you get a fine view of the city itself talk about handsome buildings you ought to see the state capital of Lincoln right in the Corn Belt of Nebraska and then Kansas we stopped in Dodge City to see famous old Boot Hill they really died with their boots on in those days nearby is a monument to the frontier days a couple of longhorns which reminded us how much progress we've made in beef cattle Oklahoma City is something entirely different you just look around and you can see oil dcks right up on the lawn of the state capital the first we saw of the Rocky Mountains was the summit of Pikes Peak way off in the distance you don't realize how big this country is did he get around and see it then we left the planes and began climbing up into Rocky Mountain National [Music] Park there are plenty of mountains all right you keep climbing higher and higher for miles on Trail Ridge Road you can actually see the timber line below you you're riding right on the top of the world [Music] then we got into the grand Tea Time Country of Wyoming that scenery is so dog gone beautiful we just had to stop for a few days and soak it up by this time I knew I was serious about Connie she was was friendly enough but most of the time she kept busy with her [Music] painting will you tell me something sure what's the matter with me I don't knows anything your son you got your heart set on getting over the other side of the ocean and covering the big stories and of course you're thinking about Connie I've been thinking a lot about Connie what kind of a guy is this Ted new oh Ted's all right kind of opinionated about some things but he's solid I see does Connie oh I'm not taking any sides in this thing Connie and I kept right on talking about the scenery the falls on the Yellowstone River and they are pretty spectacular lots of color and action out there and right on schedule Old Faithful blew her top I got to looking at the people and especially at their cars dad said as many as 70 million of us jump in our cars in the summer and and just go [Music] places then we took a big swing s through Montana they say out here youngsters learn to walk almost as soon as they can ride this is real vacation [Music] country we got into the lowlands of Montana in time for the wheat [Music] Harvest another thing I'd always wanted to see was the Mount Rushmore Memorial in South Dakota there they are Washington Jefferson Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln so big they had to sculp him out with dynamite old mother nature did some sculping of her own in South Dakota's bat lands but you know they have a kind of eerie Beauty all their own and talk about contrasts in North Dakota we ran into the wheat harvests again from there we drove over to itasa park in Minnesota where the trees grow green and tall and every Breeze makes its own kind of poetry in the Treetops [Music] that's where the Mississippi begins there it's so narrow you can walk across then there's the great Missi range where so much of our iron or has come from it's like a Giant's playground way down there the big equipment the trucks and the men look like so many toys for children duth on Lake Superior is one of the leading Freight ports of the world most of us don't realize how much traffic they [Music] handle as you drive down from Minnesota into Wisconsin son you're in another Perfect Vacation land a land of trees and [Music] lakes it was beside one of those Wisconsin lakes that I finally made up my mind to speak to Connie hi Dale I was just fixing my hair isn't that view something yes it is but I'd rather look at you you're beautiful Connie you know all the way from Michigan I've been wondering just what I was doing go you've been wonderful both dad and I appreciate it Connie how'd you like to spend a honeymoon in Paris I De Paris in the spring is pretty wonderful will you marry me Connie Deo marriage is a lot more than Paris in the spring all right then summer fall winter that's just it you and I are a th000 miles apart well don't say no Connie won't you at least think about it anyway she didn't say no then we drove down along the Wolf River headed for the Wisconsin [Music] Dells years ago lumbermen used to float their logs Downstream through here on the way to the Sawmills we saw the sights of the Dells Stand Rock the weird rock [Music] formations of course Wisconsin isn't all lakes and gorges and forests they have some of the richest dairy land in the country fine big herds I was enjoying it so much I hated to see the trip end I tried to stretch it out as long as I could for instance we drove back West a ways to take in the is EST State Fair you know I'd never been to a fair like that before and I'd missed something dad took off to the trotting races Connie and I well we just had fun for a day I forgot all about Paris and my job there and I hoped Connie was forgetting about her Ted [Music] new having fun is part of a state fair but there's another side all over the country people get together at fairs like this to compare livestock and to exchange new ideas about farming well it was quite a vacation but like all good things it finally came to an end Connie and her father lived in a pleasant small town with a town square and a band stand they had a comfortable White House on a shaded Street and it was on their front porch that I finally met Ted Newell so you're D Bennett I've had so many letters from consant about you I feel as if I knew you mighty nice of you to pull them around it was nice for me and I wanted consant to try out this notion of hers you know painting things trying to sell them a lot of fun but no way to live well now frankly I hope she has it out of her system I want her to keep on painting of course you know as a hobby but we have other plans which seem to me to be well just a little bit more important well I've got to run see you [Music] later you know no don't say it the paintings haven't sold too well but some people like them and a friend of Ted has promised me an art gallery show hey wait a minute I've got a better idea will you let me pick out a few of them and take them with me but yes but why I'd like to try something I'll let you know what happens D thanks for everything and good luck in Paris I wish you could be around here for a while so do I but I can't explain what I'm trying to say very well but if you could be here next Saturday afternoon for instance for the band concert well that's the story I think her paintings are too good to be looked at by a few people I think she has something to say about places and people that Millions ought to see and think about it's something that millions of people feel right here even though they may not say much about it it's the same thing that Ernie pile saw when he traveled around the Grassroots the real heart and hope of America maybe of the whole world let me show you go [Applause] ahead why look you can see it right in the face of this boy with his prize-winning cat it's as big as our whole country but it's alive in this scene of a sheep herder off all by himself alone but a part and a mighty important part of the way we work together it's right there in the face of this RAB about in a new oil field it's in the faces of all these people but it starts right close to the earth look at this small town then add our Farms our cities and our industry and you discover the real secret of America right here in the middle west don't you see what I mean think about printing one of these pictures every Sunday let millions of newspaper readers see them and maybe understand this country a little better I like them better yet I like what you say about them you give me an article in each painting d the way you're talking now and it's a deal then we can talk about when you go back to Paris back to Paris take this new point of view back with you give me this kind of story about the people over there the places over there warm human stuff give me the same thing from Europe but it isn't the same people are people around the world yes but what I'm talking about what I've seen in the faces of these people what's in their life lives their hearts their hopes their opportunities that's something alive right here in the middle west why I just suddenly realize that this is the only place in this world today where I can find the things I want to talk about this is a wonderful place for a vacation sure but more than that this is where I want to put my roots down to work and live I've just talked myself out of the Paris job haven't I what's the matter with you you've been fighting to get back to the Paris office okay the job's yours take it no sir I got a better idea I've got a date a date yeah a date for The Band [Music] Stand Connie [Music] [Applause] la