Music

And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.

Neil King Jr. earned a reputation as one of America's finest journalists during a career that spanned continents and decades.

In 20 years at the Wall Street Journal, he covered post-Cold War Europe and later in Washington, terrorism, intelligence and global economics.

But about with a deadly cancer caused him to reorder his priorities.

And a 330-mile walk from Washington DC to New York City gave him new perspectives on his life and our country.

It also gave root to a splendid new book, American Rambler, a walk of memory and renewal.

I spoke with Neil King this week about that journey and the longer arc of his fascinating life. Here's that conversation.

Neil King, it is great to see you, my friend, and we should stipulate right at the beginning that we are old friends.

But you're not here just because you're my old friend, you're here because you wrote this magnificent book, American Rambler, a walk of memory and renewal.

And it's an extraordinary book because we experience with you this 26-day walk you took 330 miles from Washington DC to New York City.

And it was a walk laden with meaning and we will get to it. But as is our habit here, I have a few questions for you before we get to that.

And I want to start with your family. You are a fourth generation Colorado. Don't live there anymore, but you're a fourth generation Colorado.

Tell me about your family because they're deeply embedded in the Rockies there.

Yeah, you know, my great grandfather on my father's side. It's one of those interesting moments in American history when you're talking about the 1870s.

He went to what became Northwestern law school. He headed west from a farm basically in Illinois. And became a founder of a town, they say a town of Delta, which is on the western slope of the Rockies.

And you know, I went there years ago, you can see his initials on the original plat deeds when they laid out the town.

And he was kind of a town burger. He was a first mayor of one of the early mayors of that town. He became a judge.

And he then went and was on the Colorado State Appeals Court. Court of Appeals, yeah.

Court of Appeals and Alfred Rufus King. And my grandfather then was the dean of the Colorado School of Law at the University of Colorado for a long time.

I think the longest serving dean of the law of that law school. My dad was a lawyer and turn in Boulder, Colorado for years and years.

Boulder City attorney at one point. He was. Well, you've done your homework.

...