If novelist and essayist Sam Graham-Felsen thought that following the example of Theodore Roosevelt's "strenuous life" in the North Dakota badlands would rub off on his 8-year-old son Saul, well, he was half right.
TR's flight from tragedy and his experiences as a bullied child served as early inspiration, but in the end, so did an unlikely bow-tied hero.
Listen to Graham-Felsen's conversation with Prairie Public's Erik Deatherage above to hear about their father-son trip to the Badlands, and what he learned about parenting along the way.
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Read Sam Graham-Felsen's article in the New York Times Magazine about the trip: "I Tried to Toughen Up My Son. It Didn't Go As Planned."