I met Bill Holm at the library. His gaze was defiant, quizzical, perfervid. He had a florid complexion, penetrating eyes and a bushy beard.

He was staring out from the flyleaf of The Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland, his engaging travelogue published in 2007. I was preparing to go to Iceland; Bill would be my guide.

In this elemental land, sculpted by nature, I didn’t know where to go beyond Reykjavik, the capital, where some two-thirds of Icelanders live. The interior is largely impenetrable.

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Last week Britain laid to rest its last surviving soldier of the Great War. Harry Patch, machine gunner and Ypres veteran, was the United Kingdom’s final living link to a conflict that killed almost one million Britons and changed forever the course of human history.

As one would expect, the citizens and government of Great Britain observed Harry Patch¹s passing with the solemnity that such a watershed moment deserved. In addition to holding a moving ceremony at Wells Cathedral involving thousands of mourners, the U.K. government spent three years organizing an ambitious nation-wide day of commemoration that saw local communities and schools honour Britain’s last ”Tommy.”

The deep desire of the British to pay tribute to the service and sacrifice of Harry Patch and the generation of young men he fought with made me remember, with a keen sense of regret, the passing of Canada¹s last combat veteran of the Great War, Charles Clarence Laking.

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It is high summer. Parliament is in recess and television is in reruns. For a watchful media, though, there is no holiday; autumn is far away, yet it is open season on Michael Ignatieff.

Actually, the media has been stalking Ignatieff for months. The hounds picked up the scent after he published his book, True Patriot Love, in April. Now they’re in full howl.

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You cannot understand Walter Cronkite today unless you watched him every evening. You cannot imagine his impact and authority. Like the punch line that works only once, you had to be there.

On the night he died, CNN replayed the memorable moments over and over. For 19 years, he was the narrator of the American century who never faltered.

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In the Gilded Age, the aristocracy of America came to the Adirondack Mountains to flee the heat of summer. They wanted the woods, the water and the air, and they found it in the soft, green folds of the Empire State.

They would come by train, with steamer trunks and servants, and stay from Independence Day to Labor Day. If they were not coming here, they were going to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia or Mount Desert Island, Maine.

Summers were sacred. The patricians were called rusticators and they were city folk in search of simplicity and authenticity.

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One can’t but feel sorry for the legions of unionised workers who are out on strike or are being urged to picket lines by militant leaders. The challenge facing the unions today is far greater than trying to retain pre-recession job perks during the worst economic slump in a generation. As I write in my book Who We Are: A Citizen’s Manifesto the social forces threatening the existence of unions are on an order of magnitude many times larger than the outsourcing of goods and services in a globalised world.

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If you want to learn something of the story of America and the people who wrote it, come to the Midwest.

If you want to understand the arc of the Civil War and the burden of race and the ethic of self-reliance, amble through Illinois, Missouri and Iowa.

Bring your 13-year old son along. He studies the map, programs the navigator and patronizes every souvenir shop. He also holds forth on everything from the fortunes of the Hannibal Cavemen to the impulses of the Ice Age.

Leave the suburbs of big-shouldered Chicago and drive down Route 66. Much has been lost, though there is a movement to restore this storied road running through the national soul.

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