We have all enjoyed hearing Charles Kuralt take us on a journey around the country, meeting the American people.  This book visits many people and places briefly around this country and lets us see a bit of its backbone from past history to the present. These are very short glimpses (ninely-second-long broadcasts) of America.  Among the people presented were a Vernonter splitting his winter wood, a Tennessee cotton-candy maker, a cable-car driver in San Francisco, a totem pole carver in Alaska, a mailman on the Magnolia River in Alabama, the caretaker of Grant’s Tomb in New York, a whirligig maker in Maine, a basket weaver in South Carolina, and a lady who repairs treadle sewing machines in Massachusetts.  Some of the places and things viewed were:  the Wisconsin home of Ringling Brothers Circus, the New Jersey U.S. flag-making factory, the home of buffalo wings in Buffalo, New York, a toothpick factory in Maine, the home of the Pony Express in St. Joseph, Missouri, a covered bridge in Oregon, sequoias in California, the small key deer in the Florida Keys, stone gargoyles on New York buildings, stained glass windows begun by Tiffany, and a lightbulb that has been glowing since 1901.  There are many, many more parts of our country’s history moments, some of which are still going on, and some just remembered well – all important in their own way in the life of our country.