Robert Dolezal

I certainly haven't had a formal education in American folklore, but simply growing up in America and attending school has exposed me to all manner of stories pertaining to this country. I was surprised by how many I recognized. A popular example is George Washington cutting down the cherry tree ("I cannot tell a lie"). But there were far more stories I'd never even heard of. This coffee table-sized book is hundreds of pages and is comprised dense text and photos so you can expect to find here pretty much EVERY story from American folklore.

I would supplement this book with another more recent book called Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books by Jess McHugh. Both volumes delve into how we, as Americans, see ourselves as compared to the stories we share. That whole notion of Americans being victims of their own overconfidence? That's rooted in our national identity. I would take it further and say all of the westward expansion from the founding to the present was the product of the restless explorer-wannabe seeking a better life elsewhere.

"Hardly anyone now alive can remember all the way back to the time when technology and the mass media had not yet begun to dominated our way of life."

The above quote appears near the end of the book, a book published in 1978, and I did a double-take appreciating how true it was then and how much more true that statement is today.… (meer)

The geology, weather, and plants are pretty much the same, and most of the 22 "trips" for hiking or kayaking the waterways would be still there, but check locally for changes in the intervening years from re-routed highways, new additions to the park, and changes due to fires or floods. A loving narrative of the big trees, it remembers the indigenous peoples who lived there before the arrival of Europeans. This pioneering park incorporated both State and Federal lands in coordinated management, and led the way for similar designations elsewhere, notably in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, where state parks are inside the NRA boundary.… (meer)