Showing Archived Posts

BYEW-tiful Beaufort

Posted October 16th, 2009 at 5:36 pm (UTC-4)
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Carol and I have visited Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, many times.  Sizeable yet quaint places, both of them, storied in history and full of old fortifications and photogenic magnolias (Charleston) and tidy squares filled with oak trees draped in Spanish moss (Savannah). Yet every time we go to either place or tell friends […]

Raining and Straining

Posted October 2nd, 2009 at 3:29 pm (UTC-4)
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Last time, while enjoying my way across South Dakota, I mentioned that my ultimate destination was Seattle, Washington.  Just as life is (hopefully) a marathon, not a sprint, my goal was to amble around all three of the Pacific Northwest states a bit in order to refresh my impressions of them.  Seattle was the finish […]

WisSCONsin

Posted September 9th, 2009 at 3:02 pm (UTC-4)
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On a just-completed cross-country trip, Carol and I drove, languidly and admiringly, through a tidy place full of cheery people, picture-postcard farms with bright-red barns, and white-fence towns with names like Oconomowoc and Ashwaubenon — Indian words that locals articulate as fluidly as they order a beer and a brat. That’s brat as in bratwurst […]

Hatred and Tranquility

Posted June 19th, 2009 at 7:39 pm (UTC-4)
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A week or so ago, when I heard that an 88-year-old virulent white supremacist had shot and killed a security guard at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum a few blocks away, my thoughts drifted to a serene spot — an almost eerily peaceful, contemplative patch of green — 2,200 kilometers (1,340 miles) away in […]

Remembering the War to End Wars

Posted May 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm (UTC-4)
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In 1917 and 1918, many ordinary Americans and most soldiers heading off to fight on the European Continent in World War I crossed the country by rail. And those who passed through Kansas City – once a brawling cowtown on the wide Missouri River that had grown into a brash city of a quarter-million people […]

San Francisco Treat

Posted May 8th, 2009 at 4:24 pm (UTC-4)
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In Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck, the great American novelist, wrote, “San Francisco put on a show for me.” And it is still true much of the time, though perhaps a little less predictably, for the countless visitors to California’s “City by the Bay” today. There are still plenty of geological and meteorological curiosities, examples […]

Airborne America

Posted May 1st, 2009 at 2:13 pm (UTC-4)
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I’m writing from crisp, clear, cool San Francisco, after a day’s slog by air ─ yes, as you’ll see, it is possible to slog via airplane ─ from muggy, cloudy, hot Washington, D.C. Once I’ve poked around a bit and reacquainted myself with the distinctive “City by the Bay,” I’ll give you a report and […]

Sad Times in Slavic Village

Posted April 17th, 2009 at 1:46 pm (UTC-4)
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If you’ve been with me from the start of Ted Landphair’s America, you’ll remember that I began with some memories of a pleasant childhood in the first suburb to the west of bustling Cleveland, Ohio. When I was a lad of 8 in 1950, the big city next door was at its apogee – pushing […]

Lots of Odds; Fewer Ends

Posted February 27th, 2009 at 8:22 pm (UTC-4)
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Those of us who write for the internationally targeted Voice of America have learned to keep a few things in mind: Not all homes in America look like this. In fact, not very many do One is that our reality is not the reality of many places to which we communicate. We need to be […]

Chicago, Chicago – Obamanin’ Town

Posted January 23rd, 2009 at 9:09 pm (UTC-4)
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A week or so before the change of U.S. administrations, I happened to see a brief television interview with a man – a professed Democrat – in what looked like a feed store in the southern state of Arkansas. He said he had voted for Republican presidential candidate John McCain rather than Democrat Barack Obama. […]

Ted Landphair

About

This is a far-ranging exploration of American life by a veteran Voice of America “Americana” reporter and essayist.

Ted writes about the thousands of places he has visited and written about as a broadcaster and book author. Ted Landphair’s America often showcases the work of his wife and traveling companion, renowned American photographer Carol M. Highsmith.

Ted welcomes feedback, questions, and ideas. View Ted’s profile. Watch a video about Ted and Carol by VOA’s Nico Colombant.

Photos by Carol M. Highsmith

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