In a time in U.S. history when American flags hang prominently on porch steps and anti-American rhetoric is hard to come by, patriotic fervor seems to be at an all-time high.

But once upon a time, there was a town in Nebraska that represented “the best America there ever was,” Tribune columnist Bob Greene said Monday night at the Evanston Public Library.

Greene spoke about his recent book, “Once Upon a Town,” the story of North Platte, Neb., whose citizens established a canteen to serve the World War II soldiers who traveled by train through North Platte on their way to war.

“What happened in North Platte is a miracle,” Greene told a crowd of about 100 people. “It was a love story between a country and its sons.”

Greene spent a year in North Platte reporting for his book by tracking down soldiers and volunteers who visited the canteen. He said interviewing women tended to be easier than interviewing former soldiers.

“Men would fall silent and begin to cry,” Greene said. He said the way people in North Platte treated soldiers “was the kindest they were treated in all of World War II.”

The canteen provided food and entertainment to young soldiers on their way to Europe or the Pacific Ocean. Greene emphasized the canteen was funded solely by residents of North Platte and 125 other Nebraska communities. In addition to money and food, people donated their extra gas and sugar rations, Greene said. The only federal funds provided was $5 from President Roosevelt, who wanted to help the canteen.

Greene said the story of North Platte was a particularly easy one to research.

“As a reporter, I’m accustomed to calling people up and having them not want to talk,” he said. “But for the book, all it took was three words: North Platte canteen. People still wanted to say, ‘Thank you.'”

World War II soldiers and volunteers were not the only ones who wanted their story told, current North Platte residents did too. Greene said the owner of the local photocopy store donated his copy machine to help with Greene’s research at the local historical society.

“They want this story told,” Greene said of the town’s residents. “The monument (to the North Platte canteen) is their voices.”

Greene said his book is a comparison between the North Platte of today and the North Platte of 60 years ago. Both, he said, are small towns that sit beside major transportation routes. Although the tracks that carried soldiers through the town were the lifeblood of the North Platte of World War II, America has changed. Wal-Mart is now the center of the town, Greene said, representing an evolution of small town life that has been taking place over the past half-century.

“The question is not ‘Could a town today do the same thing as North Platte did?'” Greene said. “The question today is, ‘What is a town?'”

Greene first heard of the canteen when a Nebraska museum requested his help raising funds for a tribute to the canteen 10 years ago. He said he was moved by the story and always kept the canteen in the back of his mind.

“It was an honor to tell the story of this remarkable place,” Greene said. “It’s history, it’s in the past, but so many people are still there. You can meet these people.”

The town is merely a “ghost” of what it once was, which makes the story all the more intriguing, Greene said.

“It’s more emotional not to have anything there,” he said. “You can still hear the trains coming in.”

Evanston resident Helen Burczak said Greene’s talk reminded her of the difference between the World War II era and today.

“It’s a different kind of place now,” said Burczak, whose husband spent three years overseas during the war. “People are more spread apart. It’s not like the small towns like it used to be.”

But the spirit of North Platte still remains in America, Burczak said.

“When it comes to a real emergency, I think people will still pull together,” Burczak said.