My old high school English teacher walked across America this year. He wanted to find out if the news was telling the truth. Mr. Hashimoto is 71. He taught English in Tokyo for 38 years. Every spring, some kid in the back row asked him the same question. "Sensei, what are Americans really like?" Every spring, he gave the same answer. "I don't know. I've never met one." For 38 years, he taught a country he had never seen. When he retired, he started watching American news every night. Shouting. Anger. A country that looked like it hated itself. One night, he turned off the TV and told his wife, "I don't believe it. I'm going to go see." She packed him three months of pickled plums and one sentence: "If the news is right, come home. If it's wrong, come home anyway." In March, he started walking from Los Angeles. A backpack. A small cart. A notebook. In October, he reached the Atlantic. 214 days. 2,814 miles. 13 states. He counted everything. People who stopped to offer him a ride: 1,206. People who asked if he was lost: "All of them." Families who gave him a bed: 37. Pastors who prayed for him: 22. He didn't understand the words. He understood. Dogs that followed him for more than a mile: 4. One of them, for forty. People who were rude to him: 3. One came back an hour later with a sandwich. In the Arizona desert, gallon jugs of water started appearing by the road. On every one, in marker: "HASHIMOTO :)" He never found out who left them. Truckers put him on the CB radio. "Little Japanese fella, westbound shoulder. Give him a honk." For three weeks, America honked at him. He crossed Texas in nine days. Every Texan he met told him that didn't count. In Kansas, the dog that followed him for forty miles belonged to a farmer. The farmer drove up the highway to get it back. Then he put Mr. Hashimoto in his truck and drove him forty miles back to where the dog had found him. "You walk every mile," he said. "Otherwise it don't count." In Missouri, he almost quit. Rain for six days. His feet were bleeding. That night, in a cheap motel, the TV was shouting again. He looked up flights home. At 7 a.m., somebody knocked. It was a woman he had passed on the road the day before. She was holding a paper bag. Inside were six pairs of wool socks and a note: "Saw your feet. Don't you dare quit. — A Missouri mom" He wore those socks all the way to the ocean. In Ohio, a high school football team was in the middle of August practice. The coach saw him on the road and blew the whistle. Fifty boys in full pads walked one mile down the highway with a 71-year-old stranger. In 90 degrees. When they turned back, the coach told them, "Boys, that's what tough looks like." And in Indiana, at a gas station, at night, a girl named Kaylee asked him a question. She was thirteen. She was buying milk for her little brother. "Mister," she said. "My dad says the country's falling apart. Do you think we're still good people?" He didn't have the English to answer her. So he said, "I will tell you at the ocean." She wrote her address in his notebook. In October, at sunrise, on a beach in New York, he sat in the sand and wrote her a postcard. "Dear Kaylee, You asked me if Americans are still good. I am at the ocean now. Here is my answer. In Arizona, strangers left water for a man they would never meet. In Missouri, a mother I did not know would not let me quit. In Kansas, a man drove eighty miles so I would not skip forty. In Ohio, fifty boys walked through the heat with an old man for no reason at all. And in your town, a thirteen-year-old girl was worried about whether her country was still good. That is how I know it is. Bad people do not worry about that. Yes, Kaylee. Yes. Hashimoto" Two weeks ago, a letter came back from Indiana. "My dad read your postcard. He didn't say anything. He just put it on the fridge. He's been nicer to everybody. — Kaylee P.S. You walked all of Texas. Don't let them tell you different." Last week, his old school invited him to speak to the students. A boy in the back row raised his hand. "Sensei, what are Americans really like?" For the first time in 38 years, he knew. "They are people who worry about whether they are still good," he said. "And then they go bring a stranger socks." So, America. The news shows you from the sky. He saw you from the shoulder of the road. If you've been asking yourself Kaylee's question lately, late at night, when the news is loud — The fact that you're asking is the answer.