The Perfect gift for someone who needs a lift. (Don’t we all?) A book about the best of us. Stories of seemingly ordinary people who have found solutions to problems we all face.
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Thanks for keeping the storytelling flame burning!
Bob Dotson
Recently Posted American Stories
Old West Humor
Old West Humor
The west of legend has so captured our imagination that the real west is often overlooked. For nearly 30 years cowboy cartoonist Ace Reid gave voice to people we thought we know, but never asked. His cartoon series “Cowpokes” was read in Gobblers Knob, Utah and Fishtail, Montana, hundreds of small towns where cowboys still challenge a hardscrabble land.
Pole Ferry
Pole Ferry
Growing up, I spent my summers in farm country — Kansas — with a grandfather who loved to tell stories. Perhaps that’s why I got into the storytelling business.
My grandfather told me that when he was 18, he was what used to be called “all hat and no cattle,” a kid with little money and no property.
“One of my biggest thrills,” he said, “was loading my buggy and best girl on a river ferry. That was like a ride at Disneyland. The ferryman would push us across with a pole and an encyclopedic knowledge of the currents. Quite an adventure in 1903!”
Grandpa would have loved Ashley Pillar, one of the last of those old-time river ferrymen.
Little Dead School House
Little Dead School House
The road out of town is the only way the road seems to go. So few families remained in McLeod, North Dakota, Jan Herbranson ran out of kids at the old one-room school. Normally, that would spell the end of a place like McLeod. The school closed in 1986. But in this village of 50, four babies born. When they grew up, children returned to her little dead school house and so did Jan Herbranson.
“These are remarkable and poignant stories that need to be told.”
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KEN BURNS
“Those of us who know and work with Bob Dotson stand in awe of his gifts as a writer. Like the work so many viewers have come to love on NBC, this collection of stories captivates and inspires.”
- SAVANNAH GUTHRIE
“Throughout his remarkable career Bob Dotson has searched for the real essence of America – not by interviewing the so-called famous but by seeking out those unnoticed people we pass by every day. Dotson is a national treasure for caring enough to listen.”
- MEREDITH VIERA
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