- [...]
They
packed
as
if
they
had
misunderstood
the
purpose
of
the
trip.
They
found
room
for
sundials
and
candle
snuffers,
a
drum,
a
trumpet,
and
a
complete
history
of
Turkey.
One
William
Mullins
packed
126
pairs
of
shoes
and
13
pairs
of
boots.
Yet
between
them
they
failed
to
bring
a
single
cow
or
horse
or
plough
or
fishing
line.
[Bryson's
ref:
Vernon
Heaton,
The
Mayflower,
1980,
p. 80]
[Chapter 1,
The
Mayflower
and
Before,
p. 5]
- The
one
word
that
Newfoundland
has
given
the
world
is
penguin.
No
one
has
any
idea
what
inspired
it.
[Chapter 1,
The
Mayflower
and
Before,
footnote
p. 6]
- Before
long
[...]
the
Pilgrims
were
thriving,
and
Indians
and
settlers
were
sitting
down
to
a
cordial
Thanksgiving
meal.
[...]
A
question
that
naturally
arises
in
how
they
managed
this.
Algonquian,
the
language
of
the
eastern
tribes,
is
an
extraordinarily
complex
and
agglomerative
tongue
(or
more
accurately
family
of
tongues),
full
of
formidable
consonant
clusters
[...]
The
answer
[...]
is
that
the
Pilgrims
didn't
have
to
learn
Algonquian
for
the
happy
and
convenient
reason
that
Samoset
and
Squanto
spoke
English.
[...]
The
fact
is
that
in
1620
the
New
World
wasn't
really
so
new
at
all.
[Chapter 1,
The
Mayflower
and
Before,
p. 6-7]
- The
endearingly
hopeless
Martin
Frobisher
explored
the
Arctic
region
of
Canada,
found
what
he
thought
was
gold
and
carried
1500
tons
of
it
home
on
a
dangerously
overloaded
boat
only
to
be
informed
it
was
worthless
iron
pyrite.
Undaunted,
Frobisher
returned
to
Canada,
found
another
source
of
gold,
carted
1300
tons
of
it
back
and
was
informed,
no
doubt
with
a
certain
weariness
on
the
part
of
the
royal
assayer,
that
it
was
the
same
stuff.
After
that,
we
hear
no
more
of
Martin
Frobisher.
[Chapter 1,
The
Mayflower
and
Before,
p. 11]
- We
no
longer
use
[...]
ye
for
the.
And
that,
incidentally,
is
all
ye
ever
was
-
another
way
of
writing
the.
It
was
a
convenience
for
scribes
and
printers,
a
device
that
made
it
easier
to
justify
lines.
It
was
not
pronounced
'yee'.
[...]
The
early
[European]
colonists
[of
North
America]
[...]
were
among
the
first
to
employ
the
more
democratic
forms
ye
and
you
in
preference
to
the
traditional
thee,
thy
and
thou
[...]
This
ye
[...]
is
etymologically
distinct
from
the
ye
used
as
an
alternative
for
the.
As
a
pronoun
ye
was
used
for
one
person
and
you
for
more
than
one.
Gradually
this
useful
distinction
fell
out
of
use
[...]
But
we
kept
the
odd
practice
of
associating
[you]
with
a
plural
verb,
which
is
why
we
address
a
single
person
with
"you
are"
when
logically
we
ought
to
say
"you
is".
In
fact,
until
about
1760
"you
is"
and
"you
was"
were
wholly
unexeceptionable.
[Chapter 2,
Becoming
Americans,
p. 17,22]
- [The
first
colonists]
brought
many
words
with
them
that
have
not
survived
in
either
America
or
Britain,
to
the
lexical
impoverishment
of
both:
flight
for
a
dusting
of
snow,
fribble
for
a
frivolous
person,
bossloper
for
a
hermit,
spong
for
a
parcel
of
land,
bantling
for
an
infant,
sooterkin
for
a
sweetheart,
gurnet
for
a
protective
sandbar,
and
the
much-missed
slobberchops
for
a
messy
eater.
[Chapter 2,
Becoming
Americans,
p. 25]
- Servants
were
called
indentured,
incidentally,
because
their
contract
was
indented,
or
folded,
along
an
irregular
line
and
torn
in
two,
master
and
servant
each
keeping
one
half.
[Bryson's
ref:
Samuel
Eliot
Morison,
The
Oxford
History
of
the
American
People,
OUP,
1995,
p. 41]
[Chapter 2,
Becoming
Americans,
p. 35]
- In
1739
the
Spanish
gave
[the
British
and
excuse
to
throw
their
weight
around]
when
they
made
manifest
their
long
and
wholly
understandable
exasperation
with
British
privateers
by
cutting
off
the
ear
of
an
English
smuggler
named
Edward
Jenkins.
Never
mind
that
Jenkins
was
little
more
than
a
common
criminal.
The
British
responded
by
launching
possibly
the
only
interesting-sounding
conflict
in
history,
the
War
of
Jenkin's
Ear.
[Chapter 2,
Becoming
Americans,
p. 35]
- Jefferson's
draft
of
the
Declaration
[of
Independence]
contains
several
spellings
and
usages
that
strike
us
today
[...]
as
irregular.
For
one
thing,
Jefferson
always
wrote
it's
for
the
possessive
form
of
it,
a
practice
that
looks
decidedly
illiterate
today.
In
fact,
there
was
some
logic
to
it.
As
a
possessive
form,
the
argument
went,
its
required
an
apostrophe
in
precisely
the
same
way
as
did
words
like
children's
or
men's.
Others
contended,
however,
that
in
certain
common
words
like
ours
and
yours
it
was
customary
to
dispense
with
the
apostrophe,
and
that
its
belonged
to
this
camp.
By
about
1815,
the
non-apostrophists
had
their
way
almost
everywhere,
but
in
1776
it
was
a
fine
point,
and
one
to
which
Jefferson
clearly
did
not
subscribe.
[Bryson's
ref:
William
Saffire,
Coming
to
terms,
Doubleday,
1991,
p. 140]
[Chapter 3,
A
'Democratical
Phrenzy':
America
in
the
Age
of
Revolution,
p. 53]
- David
Simpson
observers
in
The
Politics
of
American
English
[OUP,
1986,
p. 23]:
"Except
for
Samuel
Johnson,
no
one
in
1776,
on
either
side
of
the
ocean,
seems
to
show
much
concern
for
a
standard
spelling
practice."
[...]
To
begin
with,
such
a
statement
contains
the
implied
conceit
that
modern
English
is
today
somehow
uniform
in
its
spellings,
which
is
far
from
true.
In
1972
a
scholar
named
Lee
C.
Deighton
undertook
the
considerable
task
of
comparing
the
spellings
of
every
word
in
four
leading
American
dictionaries
and
found
there
are
no
fewer
than
1,770
common
words
in
modern
English
in
which
there
is
no
general
agreement
on
the
preferred
spelling.
[...]
The
dictionaries
are
equally
-
we
might
fairly
say
hopelessly
-
split
on
whether
to
write
discussible
or
discussable,
eyeopener,
eye
opener
or,
eye-opener,
dumfound
or,
dumbfound,
gladiolus
(for
the
plural),
gladioli
or,
gladioluses,
gobbledegook
or,
gobbledygook,
licenceable
or,
licensable,
and
many
hundreds
of
others.
The
champion
of
orthographic
uncertainty
appears
to
be
panatela,
which
can
also
pass
muster
as
panatella,
panetela
or
panetella.
[Chapter 3,
A
'Democratical
Phrenzy':
America
in
the
Age
of
Revolution,
p. 53-54]
- Just
a
month
after
the
completion
of
the
Declaration
of
Independence,
at
a
time
when
the
delegates
[to
the
second
Continental
Congress]
might
have
been
expected
to
occupy
themselves
with
more
pressing
concerns
-
like
how
they
were
going
to
win
the
war
and
escape
hanging
-
Congress
quite
extraordinarily
found
time
to
debate
the
business
of
a
motto
for
the
new
nation.
Their
choice,
E
Pluribus
Unum,
"One
From
Many",
was
taken
from,
of
all
places,
a
recipe
for
salad
in
an
early
poem
by
Virgil.
[Chapter 3,
A
'Democratical
Phrenzy':
America
in
the
Age
of
Revolution,
p. 55]
- Typical
of
the
age
was
Charles
Goodyear,
the
man
who
gave
the
world
vulcanised
rubber.
Goodyear
personified
most
of
the
qualities
of
the
classic
American
Inventor
-
total
belief
in
the
product,
years
of
sacrifice,
blind
devotion
to
an
idea
-
but
with
one
engaging
difference.
He
didn't
have
the
faintest
idea
what
he
was
doing.
Described
by
one
biographer
as
a
"gentle
lunatic",
Goodyear
in
1834
became
fascinated
with
rubber.
It
was
a
wonderfully
promising
material
-
pliant,
waterproof,
rugged
and
durable
-
but
it
had
many
intractable
shortcomings.
For
one
thing,
it
had
a
low
melting-point.
Boots
made
of
rubber
were
fine
in
winter,
but
at
the
first
sign
of
warm
weather
they
would
gooily
decompose
and
begin
to
stink.
Goodyear
decided
to
make
it
his
life's
work
to
solve
these
problems.
To
say
that
he
became
obsessed
only
begins
to
hint
at
the
degree
of
his
commitment.
Over
the
next
nine
years,
he
sold
or
pawned
everything
he
owned,
raced
through
his
friends'
and
family's
money,
occasionally
resorted
to
begging,
and
generally
inflicted
loving
but
untold
hardship
on
his
long-suffering
wife
and
numerous
children.
He
turned
the
family
kitchen
into
a
laboratory
and,
with
only
the
most
basic
understanding
of
the
chemistry
involved,
frequently
filled
the
house
with
noxious
gases
and
at
least
once
nearly
asphyxiated
himself.
Nothing
he
tried
worked.
To
demonstrate
the
material's
versatility,
he
took
to
wearing
a
suit
made
entirely
of
rubber,
but
this
merely
underlined
its
acute
malodorousness
and
its
owner's
faltering
grip
on
reality.
Amazingly,
everyone
stood
by
him.
His
wife
did
whatever
he
asked
of
her
and
relatives
gladly
handed
him
their
fortunes.
One
brother-in-law
parted
with
$46,000
and
never
whimpered
when
all
it
resulted
in
was
tubs
of
noisome
slop.
With
implacable
resolve
Goodyear
churned
out
one
product
after
another
-
rubber,
mailbags,
life-preservers,
boots,
rainwear
-
that
proved
disastrously
ineffective.
Even
with
the
lavish
support
of
friends
and
relatives,
Goodyear
several
times
ended
up
in
debtors'
prisons.
In
1840,
when
his
two-year-old
son
died,
the
family
couldn't
even
afford
a
coffin.
Finally
in
1843,
entirely
by
accident,
he
had
his
breakthrough.
He
spilled
some
India
rubber
and
sulphur
on
the
top
of
his
stove
and
in
so
doing
discovered
the
secret
of
producing
a
rubber
that
was
waterproof,
pliant,
resistant
to
extremes
of
heat
and
cold,
made
an
ideal
insulator,
didn't
break
when
dropped
or
struck,
and,
above
all,
was
practically
odourless.
Goodyear
hastily
secured
a
patent
and
formed
the
Naugatuck
India-Rubber
Company.
At
long
last
he
and
his
family
were
poised
for
the
fame
and
fortune
that
their
years
of
sacrifice
so
clearly
warranted.
It
was
not
to
be.
Goodyear's
process
was
so
easily
duplicated
that
other
manufacturers
simply
stole
it.
Even
the
name
by
which
the
process
became
known,
vulcanization,
was
coined
by
an
English
pirate.
Goodyear
had
endless
problems
protecting
his
patents.
The
French
gave
him
a
patent
but
then
withdrew
it
on
a
technicality,
and
when
he
travelled
to
France
to
protest
the
matter,
he
found
himself
tossed
yet
again
into
a
debtors'
prison.
He
made
more
money
from
his
autobiography
-
a
book
with
the
slightly
less
than
compelling
title
Gum-Elastic
-
than
he
ever
did
from
his
invention.
When
he
died
in
1860,
he
left
his
family
saddled
with
debts.
The
company
that
proudly
bears
his
name,
the
Goodyear
Tire
&
Rubber
Company,
had
nothing
to
do
with
him
or
his
descendants.
It
was
named
Goodyear
by
two
brothers
in
Akron,
Ohio,
Frank
and
Charles
Sieberling,
who
simply
admired
him.
[Chapter 6,
We're
in
the
Money:
The
Age
of
Invention,
p. 107-108]
- At
first
people
were
not
sure
what
to
say
in
response
to
a
ringing
phone.
Edison
thought
callers
should
answer
with
a
jaunty
"Ahoy!"
and
that
was
the
word
habitually
used
by
the
first
telephone
operator,
one
George
Coy
of
New
Haven.
(Only
male
operators
were
employed
at
first.
As
so
often
happens
with
new
technologies,
women
weren't
allowed
anywhere
near
it
until
the
novelty
had
worn
off.)
Others
said,
"Yes!"
or
"What?"
and
many
merely
picked
up
the
receiver
and
listened
hopefully.
The
problem
was
such
that
magazines
ran
long
articles
explaining
the
etiquette
of
phone
use.
Today,
America
is
the
most
phone-dependent
nation
on
earth.
Ninety-three
percent
of
American
homes
have
a
phone
and
almost
70
per
cent
have
two
phones,
a
level
of
penetration
no
other
nation
but
Canada
comes
anywhere
near
equalling,
and
each
household
makes
or
receives
on
average
3,516
calls
per
year,
a
figure
astonishing
to
almost
all
other
people
in
the
world.
[Chapter 6,
We're
in
the
Money:
The
Age
of
Invention,
p. 113-114]
- Curiously,
although
everyone
refers
to
the
object
as
a
light
bulb,
few
dictionaries
do.
The
American
Heritage
(first
edition)
has
[...]
no
light
bulb.
If
you
wish
to
know
what
that
object
is,
you
must
look
under
incandescent
light,
electric
light
or
electric
lamp.
Funk
&
Wagnalls
Revised
Standard
Dictionary
devotes
6,500
words
to
light
and
its
derivatives,
but
again
makes
no
mention
of
light
bulb.
Webster's
Second
New
International
similarly
makes
no
mention
of
light
bulb.
The
third
edition
does
-
although
it
has
just
this
to
say:
"light
bulb
n:
incandescent
lamp".
[...]
[Chapter 6,
We're
in
the
Money:
The
Age
of
Invention,
p. 118]
- Soon
after
the
Milwaukee
Railroad
began
laying
track
across
Washington
state
in
the
1870s,
a
vice-president
of
the
company
was
given
the
task
of
naming
thirty-two
new
communities
that
were
to
be
built
along
the
line.
Evidently
not
a
man
with
poetry
in
his
soul,
he
appears
to
have
selected
the
names
by
wandering
through
his
house
and
choosing
whatever
objects
his
eye
happened
to
light
on.
He
named
the
towns
after
everything
from
poets
[...]
and
plays
[...]
to
common
household
foods
(Ralston
and
Purina)
[...]
[...]
The
is
almost
nothing,
it
would
appear,
that
hasn't
inspired
an
American
place
name
at
some
time
or
other.
In
addition
to
breakfast
foods
and
Shakespearean
plays,
Americans
have
had
towns
named
for
radio
programmers
(Truth
or
Consequences,
New
Mexico),
[...]
tows
that
you
may
give
thanks
you
don't
come
from
(Toad
Suck,
Arkansas,
and
Idiotville,
Oregon,
spring
to
mind)
[...]
and
thousands
upon
thousands
with
more
prosaic
or
boring
etymologies
(not
forgetting
Boring,
Maryland).
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 122-123]
- [...]
Probably
the
liveliest
diversity
of
spellings
belongs
to
Chicago,
which
in
its
early
days
was
rendered
as
Shuerkaigo,
Psceschaggo,
Shikkago,
Tsckakko,
Ztschaggo,
Shecago,
Shekakko,
Stkachango
and
almost
any
other
remotely
similar
combination
you
could
think
of.
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 124]
- Indian
names
frequently
evolved
into
forms
that
disguised
their
native
origins.
[...]
Moskitu-auke
became,
almost
inevitably,
Mosquito
Hawk.
[...]
No
Man's
Land
island
in
Massachusetts
commemorates
not
some
forgotten
incident,
but
is
taken
from
an
Indian
chief
named
Tequenoman.
The
list
goes
on
and
on.
Ticklenaked,
Smackover,
Phomoonshine,
Poo
Run,
Zilly
Boy
and
countless
others
are
the
result
of
the
confusion
or
the
comic
adaptability
of
early
colonial
settlers.
Non-Indian
names
likewise
sometimes
underwent
a
kind
of
folk
evolution
[...]
Newport
News
has
nothing
to
do
with
news;
it
was
originally
New
Port
Newce
and
named
for
the
Newce
family
that
settled
there.
[Bryson's
source:
George
R.
Stewart,
Names
on
the
Land:
A
Historical
Account
of
Place-Naming
in
the
United
States,
1945,
p. 64]
[...]
Often
Americans
arrived
in
a
place
to
find
it
already
named.
The
process
began
with
the
names
the
Dutch
left
behind
when
they
gave
up
their
hold
on
Nieuw
Amsterdam.
[...]
Vlissingen
was
transformed
into
Flushing
[...]
Deutel
Bogt
begat
Turtle
Bay,
Vlachte
Bosch
became
Flatbush
[...]
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 124-125,127]
- [...]
Iowa
began
life
as
the
somewhat
formidable
Ouaouiatonon.
[...]
[...]
Chicago
appears
to
be
from
an
Indian
word
meaning
"place
that
stinks
of
onions"
[...]
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 128]
- Often
[...]
these
names
left
behind
by
the
French
and
Spanish
had
to
be
shortened,
re-spelled,
or
otherwise
modified
to
make
them
sit
more
comfortably
on
English-speaking
tongues.
Thus
L'Eau
Froid
("cold
water"),
a
lake
in
Arkansas,
was
turned
into
Low
Freight.
[...]
Les
Mont
Verts
became
Lemon
Fair.
[...]
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 129]
- [...]
oddball
names
know
no
geographical
bounds,
as
a
brief
sampling
shows:
- Who'd
A
Thought
It,
Alabama
[...]
- Greasy
Corner,
Toad
Suck
and
Turkey
Scratch,
Arkansas
[...]
- Tightwad,
Peculiar
and
Jerk
Tail,
Missouri
[...]
- Brainy
Boro
and
Cheesequake,
New
Jersey
- Rabbit
Shuffle,
Stiffknee
Knob
and
Shoofly,
North
Carolina
[...]
- Yell,
Bugscuffle,
Gizzards
Cove
and
Zu
Zu,
Tennessee
- Lick
Skillet,
Bugtussle,
Chocolate
Bayou,
Ding
Dong,
Looneyville,
Jot
'Em
Down,
and
Cut
and
Shoot,
Texas
- Lick
Fork,
Unthanks
and
Tizzle
Flats,
Virginia
[...]
- Superior
Bottom,
West
Virginia
- Embarrass,
Wisconsin
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 131]
- Changing
their
names
is
something
that
towns
do
more
often
than
you
might
think.
[..]
Scranton,
Pennsylvania,
has
gone
through
no
fewer
than
eight
names,
the
most
notable
of
which
was
its
first:
Skunk's
Misery.
Mellifluousness
is
generally
given
priority
over
etymological
considerations,
as
with
Glendale,
California,
a
name
that
combines
the
Scottish-Gaelic
glen
with
the
northern
English
dale
to
form
a
name
that
means
"valley-valley".
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 132]
- Vermont
was
called
generally
New
Connecticut
until
the
inhabitants
came
up
with
the
contrived,
and
inescapably
nonsensical,
name
Vermont.
If,
as
is
apparent,
their
intention
was
to
name
it
for
the
Green
Mountains,
they
should
have
called
it
Les
Monts
Verts.
As
it
is,
in
so
far
as
it
means
anything
at
all,
it
means
"worm-mountain".
[Bryson's
source:
George
R.
Stewart,
Names
on
the
Land:
A
Historical
Account
of
Place-Naming
in
the
United
States,
1945,
p. 166-167]
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 134-135]
- Mencken
quotes
a
tale
from
Samuel
Pepys's
diary
about
a
Dr
Levy
who
had
petitioned
a
court
to
let
him
change
his
name
to
Sullivan
and
then
a
month
later
sought
permission
to
change
it
against
to
Kilpatrick.
"On
request
for
the
reason,
he
telleth
ye
court
that
ye
patients
continually
ask
of
him,
'What
was
your
name
before?'
If
granted
ye
change,
he
shall
then
tell
them
'Sullivan'."
[Bryson's
source:
H.
L.
Mencken,
The
American
Language,
supplement
2,
1948,
p. 597]
[Chapter 7,
Names,
p. 142-143]
- Yet
relatively
few
of
[Lewis
and
Clark's]
geographic
names
survived.
They
gave
the
noble
name
Philanthropy
River
to
a
tributary
of
the
Missouri,
but
it
didn't
stick.
Later
passers-by
renamed
it
Stinking
Water.
[Chapter 8,
"Manifest
Destiny":
Taming
the
West,
p. 147]
- Many
of
the
terms
we
most
closely
associate
with
cowboys
and
life
amid
the
purple
sage
didn't
appear
in
the
West
until
much
later,
if
at
all.
Dogy,
a
motherless
calf
[...]
has
not
been
found
earlier
than
1903.
Hoosegow,
for
a
jail,
didn't
enter
the
language
until
1920.
[...]
Bounty
hunter,
gunslinger,
and
to
have
an
itchy
trigger
finger
were
all
the
inventions
of
Hollywood
script
writers.
[Bryson's
source:
Washington
Post,
8
December
1989,
p. C5]
[...]
[...]
Often
these
[Spanish]
words
had
to
be
wrestled
into
shape.
Wrangler
comes
from
caballerangero.
Vamos
became
vamoose
and
then
mosey.
Vaquero,
literally
"cow
handler",
went
through
any
number
of
variations
[...]
before
finally
settling
into
English
as
buckaroo.
The
ten-gallon
hat
is
named
not
for
its
capacity
to
hold
liquids
(it
would
have
to
be
the
size
of
a
bath-tub
for
that)
but
for
the
braid
with
which
it
was
decorated,
the
Spanish
for
braid
is
galón.
[...]
Many
other
terms
that
are
sometimes
lumped
in
with
Spanish
expressions
brought
into
English
by
cowboys
and
ranchers
actually
entered
English
much
earlier
[...]
the
[Spanish]
el
lagarto,
"the
lizard",
[...]
became
naturalised
in
English
as
alligator.
[Chapter 8,
"Manifest
Destiny":
Taming
the
West,
p. 158-160]
- [...]
Among
other
similar
words
[for
unsophisticated
rustics]
were
hayseed,
bumpkin,
rube
(from
Reuben),
country
jake
and
jay,
which
eventually
gave
us
the
term
jaywalker
-
that
is,
an
innocent
who
doesn't
know
how
to
cross
a
city
street.
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 190]
- [...]
An
unusual
feature
of
Conestoga
wagons
was
that
they
were
built
with
their
brakes
and
"lazy
boards"
-
a
kind
of
extendible
running-board
-
on
the
left-hand
side.
If
there
was
a
particular
reason
for
putting
them
there,
it
has
since
been
forgotten.
With
drivers
compelled
to
sit
on
the
left,
they
tended
to
drive
on
the
right
so
that
they
were
positioned
near
the
centre
of
the
road,
which
is
why,
it
appears,
Americans
abandoned
the
British
custom
of
driving
on
the
left.
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 191]
- From
virtually
nothing
in
1830,
the
mileage
of
American
railroads
rose
to
30,000
by
1860
-
that
is,
more
than
all
the
rest
of
the
world
put
together
-
and
to
a
staggering
200,000
by
1890.
[Bryson's
source:
James
M.
McPherson,
Battle
Cry
of
Freedom:
The
American
Civil
War,
OUP,
1990,
New
York,
1986,
p. 37]
Rail
travel
so
dominated
American
travel
that
for
four
generations
road
meant
railroad.
What
Americans
now
call
roads
were
more
generally
known
as
trails
[...]
[Bryson's
source:
Phil
Paton,
Open
Road:
A
Celebration
of
the
American
Highway,
Simon
&
Schuster,
1986,
p. 37]
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 193]
- Bum,
in
the
sense
of
a
tramp
appears
to
be
a
shortening
of
the
German
Bummler,
a
loafer
and
ne'er-do-well.
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 194]
- [...]
Between
1922
and
1932
the
number
of
streetcar
miles
in
America
almost
halved.
In
that
same
decade,
a
company
called
National
City
Lines
-
a
cartel
made
up
of
General
Motors
and
a
collection
of
oil
and
rubber
interests
-
began
buying
up
trolley
lines
and
converting
them
to
bus
routes.
By
1950
it
had
closed
down
the
streetcar
systems
of
more
than
a
hundred
cities,
including
those
of
Los
Angeles,
Philadelphia,
Baltimore
and
St
Louis.
Its
actions
were
unquestionably
illegal
and
the
company
was
eventually
taken
to
court
and
convicted
of
engaging
in
a
criminal
conspiracy.
The
fine:
just
$5,000,
less
than
the
cost
of
a
new
bus.
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 196]
- Although
the
early
technological
developments
were
almost
exclusively
German,
it
was
the
French
who
became
the
first
big
manufacturers
of
cars
and
thus
gave
us
many
of
the
words
associated
with
motoring
-
chassis,
garage,
chauffeur,
carburettor,
coupé,
limousine
and
of
course
automobile.
Chauffeur
was
a
term
for
a
ship's
stoker
and
as
such
was
applied
to
drivers
of
cars
in
at
least
a
mildly
sarcastic
sense.
Limousine
was
originally
a
heavy
shepherd's
cloak
from
the
Limousin
region
of
France.
The
first
chauffeurs,
forced
to
sit
in
the
open
air,
adopted
this
coat
and
gradually
the
word
was
transferred
itself
from
the
driver
to
the
vehicle.
By
1902
it
was
part
of
the
English
language.
[Bryson's
source:
Craig
M.
Carver,
A
History
of
English
in
Its
Own
Words,
HarperCollins,
1982,
p. 243]
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 198]
- An
exciting
new
vocabulary
emerged.
Not
everyone
could
yet
afford
to
go
autobubbling
(dated
to
1900,
a
racy
if
short-lived
term
for
a
pleasure
spin),
but
soon
people
were
bandying
about
terms
like
road-hog
(a
term
originally
applied
to
bicyclists
in
1893),
[...]
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 201]
- In
1924
a
[drive-in
chain]
called
A&W
[...]
opened
for
business.
Its
main
contribution
to
American
culture
was
the
invention
of
"tray
girls",
who
brought
the
food
to
patrons'
cars,
saving
them
the
emotional
upheaval
of
having
to
be
parted
even
briefly
from
their
surrogate
wombs.
[Bryson's
source:
Chester
H.
Liebs,
Main
Street
to
Miracle
Mile:
American
Roadside
Architecture,
1985,
p. 208]
[...]
the
Cozy
Dog
Drive-In
[...]
whose
proud
boast
it
was
to
have
invented
corn
dogs
in
1949,
though
it
called
them
"crusty
curs".
[Chapter 10,
When
the
Going
was
Good:
Travel
in
America,
p. 206]
- the
Pilgrims
showed
a
grim
reluctance
to
eat
anything
that
did
not
come
from
their
dwindling
stockpile
of
salt
pork
(which
they
called
"salt
horse"),
salt
fish
and
salt
beef,
hard
tack
(a
kind
of
biscuit
backed
so
hard
that
it
became
more
or
less
impervious
to
mould,
weevils
and
human
teeth)
[...]
[Chapter 11,
What's
Cooking?
Eating
in
America,
p. 215]
- A
similar
linguistic
misunderstanding
obtained
with
another
native
American
food,
the
Jerusalem
artichoke,
which
is
not
an
artichoke
at
all
-
indeed
it
doesn't
even
look
like
an
artichoke
-
but
rather
is
the
root
of
the
sunflower
Helianthus
tuberosus.
Jerusalem
is
merely
a
corruption
of
the
Italian
word
for
sunflower,
girasole.
[...]
[in]
1796,
the
first
American
cookbook
-
a
slender
volume
with
the
dauntingly
all-embracing
title
of
American
Cookery,
or
the
Art
of
Dressing
Viands,
Fish,
Poultry
and
Vegetables,
and
the
Best
Modes
of
Making
Pâtés,
Puffs,
Pies,
Tarts,
Puddings,
Custards
and
Preserves
and
All
Kinds
of
Cakes,
from
the
Imperial
Plumb
to
Plain
Cake,
Adapted
to
this
Country
and
All
Grades
of
Life,
by
Amelia
Simmons:
An
American
Orphan
[...]
[...]
The
principal
repast
was
taken
at
midday
and
called
dinner.
Supper,
a
word
related
to
soup
[...]
was
often
just
that
-
a
little
soup
with
perhaps
a
piece
of
bread
-
and
was
consumed
in
the
evening
shortly
before
retiring.
Lunch
was
a
concept
yet
unknown,
as
was
the
idea
of
a
snack.
To
the
early
colonists,
"snack"
meant
the
bite
of
a
dog.
[...]
The
Pilgrims
naturally
brought
many
Old
World
dishes
with
them,
among
them
flummery
(a
sweet
dish
made
of
flour
or
cornstarch,
sufficiently
insipid
to
still
be
eaten
in
England,
where
it
is
called
blancmange)
[...]
[Chapter 11,
What's
Cooking?
Eating
in
America,
p. 219-220]
- Gradually
even
poorer
Americans
became
acquainted
with
a
wider
variety
of
fruits
and
vegetables,
though
the
linguistic
evidence
shows
that
they
weren't
always
quite
sure
what
to
make
of
them.
For
the
potato
alone,
the
Dictionary
of
American
English
on
Historical
Principles
records
such
arresting
nineteenth-century
concoctions
as
potato
custard,
potato
chowder,
potato
pone,
potato
pudding
and
even
potato
coffee.
We
can
assume
that
most
of
these
were
consumed
in
a
spirit
of
experimentation
or
desperation
and
that
most
didn't
survive
long
in
the
native
diet.
[Chapter 11,
What's
Cooking?
Eating
in
America,
p. 224]
- The
word
[cafeteria]
came
from
Cuban
Spanish
[...]
Cafeterias
proved
so
popular
that
they
spawned
a
huge,
if
mercifully
short-lived,
vogue
for
words
of
a
similar
form:
washeteria,
groceteria,
caketeria,
drugeteria,
bobateria
(a
place
where
hair
was
bobbed),
beauteria,
chocolateria,
shaveteria,
smoketeria,
hardware-ateria,
garmenteria,
furnitureteria
-
even
casketeria
for
a
funeral
home
and
the
somewhat
redundant
restauranteria.
[Chapter 11,
What's
Cooking?
Eating
in
America,
p. 227]
- Fleischmann's
Yeast
not
only
soothed
frayed
nerves
and
loosed
the
bowels,
but
also
dealt
vigorously
with
indigestion,
skin
disorders,
tooth
decay,
obesity
and
a
vague
but
ominous-sounding
disorder
called
"fallen
stomach".
Fleischmann's
kept
up
these
sweeping
claims
-
occasionally
added
to
them
-
until
ordered
to
desist
by
the
Federal
Trade
Commission
in
1938
on
the
grounds
that
there
wasn't
a
shred
of
evidence
to
support
any
of
them.
[Bryson's
source:
Harvey
A.
Levenstein,
Revolution
at
the
Table:
The
Transformation
of
the
American
Diet,
OUP,
1988,
p. 198-199]
[Chapter 11,
What's
Cooking?
Eating
in
America,
p. 231]
- Among
the
many
hundreds
of
other
candy
bars
loosed
on
a
willing
nation
during
[the
1920s
was]
the
intriguing
Vegetable
Sandwich.
Made
of
chocolate-covered
vegetables
it
was
sold
with
the
solemn
assurance
that
"it
will
not
constipate".
As
might
have
been
predicted,
constipation
was
not
a
compelling
consideration
among
America's
children
and
the
Vegetable
Sandwich
soon
disappeared
from
the
scene.
[...]
Curiously,
none
of
these
products
was
known
as
a
candy
bar.
The
term
is
not
recorded
in
print
until
1943.
[...]
[Double
Bubble
Gum]
was
invented
[in
1928]
by
Frank
H.
Fleer,
whose
earlier
gum,
Blibber-Blubber,
was
something
of
a
failure
-
it
tended
to
dissolve
in
the
mouth
but
to
stick
tenaciously
to
everything
else,
including
Junior's
face
[...]
[Chapter 11,
What's
Cooking?
Eating
in
America,
p. 233-234]
- Cock
ale
was
never
a
popular
drink
-
even
in
that
adventurous
age
few
thought
of
chicken
soup
as
a
distinguished
addition
to
the
punch
bowl
[...]
[Chapter 11,
What's
Cooking?
Eating
in
America,
p. 238]
- The
widespread
American
habit
of
chewing
tobacco
and
disposing
of
the
excess
juice
by
expectorating
in
the
approximate
direction
of
a
brass
spittoon
also
excited
much
comment.
Both
houses
of
Congress,
Dickens
recorded
in
American
Notes,
"are
handsomely
carpeted;
but
the
state
to
which
these
carpets
are
reduced
by
the
universal
disregard
of
the
spittoon
with
which
every
honourable
member
is
accommodated,
and
the
extraordinary
improvements
on
the
pattern
which
are
squirted
and
dabbled
upon
it
in
every
direction,
do
not
admit
of
being
described."
[Chapter 13,
Domestic
Matters,
p. 260]
- Almost
overnight
America
became
the
most
illuminated
country
in
the
world.
By
the
1890s
Boradway
was
already
being
described
as
"the
Great
White
Way"
because
of
its
dazzling
lights
(almost
all
of
them
advertising
products).
People
came
from
all
over
just
to
see
the
lights,
which
included
the
world's
first
flashing
sign,
for
Manhattan
Beach
and
its
hotels.
Standing
50
feet
high
and
80
feet
wide,
the
sign
would
light
up
line
by
line
and
then
flash
rhythmically
before
starting
the
cycle
over
again.
It
seemed
a
wonder
of
modern
technology.
In
fact
it
was
manually
operated
by
a
man
in
a
rooftop
shack.
In
1920
Broadway
got
a
sign
that
was
a
wonder
of
electrical
engineering.
Rising
the
equivalent
of
seven
storeys
above
the
rooftop
of
the
Hotel
Normandie
and
incorporating
20,000
coloured
light-bulbs,
it
offered
in
intricate
detail
the
illusion
of
a
30-second
chariot
race,
complete
with
cracking
whips
and
flying
dust.
People
were
so
agog
that
squads
of
police
had
to
be
assigned
to
the
area
to
keep
pedestrians
and
traffic
moving
lest
the
whole
of
Manhattan
grind
to
a
halt.
[Bryson's
source:
David
E.
Nye,
Electrifying
America:
Social
Meanings
of
a
New
Technology,
MIT
Press,
1990,
p. 52]
Almost
as
arresting
were
the
lights
of
Luna
Park
on
Coney
Island.
Two
hundred
thousand
bulbs
picked
out
ornamental
patterns
and
the
outlines
of
the
towers
and
minarets
at
the
amusement
park,
turning
it
literally
into
a
night-time
wonderland.
[Bryson's
source:
American
Heritage,
November
1979,
p. 78]
Even
now
it
looks
quite
wonderful
in
pictures.
[Chapter 13,
Domestic
Matters,
p. 265]
- The
idea
of
the
refrigerator
might
have
been
new
but
the
word
wasn't.
It
had
existed
in
English
since
1611,
and
had
been
used
as
a
synonym
for
icebox
since
1824.
[Chapter 13,
Domestic
Matters,
p. 266]
- [...]
Almost
all
[of
the
early
TV
quiz
shows]
relied
on
the
formula
of
ending
the
shows
with
the
winning
contestant
having
to
defer
until
the
following
week
to
take
his
or
her
winnings
or
press
on
at
the
risk
of
losing
all,
thereby
ensuring
a
supply
of
eagerly
returning
viewers.
The
difficulty
was
that
contestants
had
an
exasperating
tendency
to
blow
an
answer
late
in
the
programme,
thus
precluding
the
possibility
of
an
even
more
exciting
return
performance
the
following
week.
To
get
around
the
problem
the
producers
of
several
shows
hit
simultaneously
on
a
simple
expedient.
They
cheated.
Each
week
they
supplied
selected
contestants
-
among
them
a
respected
minister
from
New
Jersey
-
with
the
correct
answers,
which
made
the
results
rather
easier
to
forecast.
Unfortunately
they
failed
to
consider
that
some
contestants,
having
got
a
taste
of
success,
would
grow
miffed
when
the
producers
decided
that
their
reign
should
end.
A
contestant
named
Herbert
Stempel
blew
the
whistle
on
Twenty-One
when
its
producers
told
him
to
"take
a
dive",
and
soon
contestants
from
several
other
quiz
shows
were
sheepishly
admitting
that
they
too
had
been
supplied
with
answers.
[Chapter 13,
Domestic
Matters,
p. 272-273]
- [In
1954]
another
durable
household
appliance
entered
the
world:
the
microwave
oven.
The
first
was
called
the
Radarange.
It
was
large
and
bulky
-
it
weighed
over
700lb.
[318kg]
-
required
a
lot
of
complicated
cooling
apparatus
and
didn't
cook
food
very
well.
[...]
[Chapter 13,
Domestic
Matters,
p. 273]
- Leisure
in
any
meaningful
sense
is
actually
quite
a
modern
concept.
[...]
For
millions
of
people
a
vacation
was
a
once-in-a-lifetime
indulgence
that
they
experienced
only
on
their
honeymoon,
or
bridal
tour,
as
it
was
often
called
until
about
1900.
Honeymoon
has
existed
in
English
since
1546,
but
originally
signified
only
the
first
month
of
marriage.
It
didn't
become
associated
with
a
trip
away
from
home
until
about
the
middle
of
the
nineteenth
century.
Weekend
is
an
even
more
recent
concept.
The
word
was
coined
in
1879
in
England,
but
didn't
become
part
of
the
average
American's
vocabulary
until
as
recently
as
the
1930s.
Well
into
the
1900s
most
people
worked
a
sixty-hour,
six-day
week
[...]
Today,
according
to
some
studies,
Americans
work
[...]
longer
than
at
any
time
since
the
forty-hour
week
became
standard.
[...]
people
have
been
driven
to
seek
overtime,
take
second
jobs
or
simply
show
a
zealous
commitment
to
the
workplace
lest
they
find
themselves
the
victims
of
restructuring,
premature
retirement,
coerced
transition,
constructive
dismissal,
skill
mix
redeployment
or
any
of
the
other
forty
or
so
euphemisms
for
being
laid
off
that
the
managing
director
of
Executive
Recruiter
News
reported
in
1991.
[Bryson's
ref:
Utica
Observer,
NY,
4
March
1991]
Of
which
Digital
Equipment
Corporation's
involuntary
methodologies
was
perhaps
the
most
chillingly
recondite.
Across
the
economy
as
a
whole,
it
has
been
estimated,
the
average
American
works
163
hours
more
per
year
today
than
two
decades
ago.
[...]
[Chapter 13,
Domestic
Matters,
p. 274-275]
- Very
early
on,
advertisers
discovered
the
importance
of
a
good
slogan.
[...]
Heinz's
"57
varieties"
[dates
from
1896].
Morton
Salt's
"when
it
rains,
it
pours"
dates
from
1911.
[..]
The
great
thing
about
a
slogan
was
that
it
didn't
have
to
be
accurate
to
be
effective.
Heinz
never
actually
had
"57
varieties"
of
anything.
The
catch-phrase
arose
because
H.J.
Heinz,
the
company's
founder,
decided
he
liked
the
sound
of
the
number.
Undeterred
by
considerations
of
verity,
he
had
the
slogans
slapped
on
every
one
of
the
products
he
produced,
which
in
1896
was
already
far
more
than
fifty-seven.
[...]
[...]
Typical
of
the
genre
[of
giveaways]
was
a
turn-of-the-century
tome
called
The
Vital
Question
Cook
Book,
which
was
promoted
as
an
aid
to
livelier
meals,
but
which
proved
upon
receipt
to
contain
112
pages
of
recipes
all
involving
the
use
of
Shredded
Wheat.
Many
of
these
had
a
certain
air
of
desperation
about
them,
notably
the
"Shredded
Wheat
Biscuit
Jellied
Apple
Sandwich"
and
the
"Creamed
Spinach
on
Shredded
Wheat
Biscuit
Toast".
Almost
all
in
fact
involved
nothing
more
than
spooning
some
everyday
food
on
to
a
piece
of
shredded
wheat
and
giving
it
an
inflated
name.
[Chapter 14,
The
Hard
Sell:
Advertising
in
America,
p. 282-283]
- Where
commercial
products
of
the
late
1940s
had
scientific-sounding
names,
those
of
the
1950s
relied
on
increasingly
secret
ingredients.
Gleem
toothpaste
contained
a
mysterious
piece
of
alchemy
called
GL-70.
Consumers
were
never
given
the
slightest
hint
of
what
GL-70
was,
but
it
would,
according
to
the
advertising,
not
only
rout
odour-causing
bacteria,
but
"wipe
out
their
enzymes!"
For
purposes
of
research,
I
wrote
to
Proctor
&
Gamble,
Gleem's
manufacturer,
asking
what
GL-70
was,
but
the
public
relations
department
evidently
thought
it
eccentric
of
me
to
wonder
what
I
had
been
putting
in
my
mouth
all
through
childhood
and
declined
to
reply.
[Chapter 14,
The
Hard
Sell:
Advertising
in
America,
p. 291]
- Truth
has
seldom
been
a
particularly
visible
feature
of
American
advertising.
In
the
early
1970s,
Chevrolet
ran
a
series
of
ads
for
the
Chevelle,
boasting
that
the
car
had
"109
advantages
to
keep
it
from
becoming
old
before
its
time".
When
looked
into,
it
turned
out
that
these
109
vaunted
features
included
such
items
as
rear-view
mirrors,
reversing
lights,
balanced
wheels
and
many
other
such
items
that
were
considered
pretty
well
basic
to
any
car.
[...]
At
about
the
same
time,
Ford,
not
to
be
outdone,
introduced
a
"limited
edition
Mercury
Monarch
at
$250
below
the
normal
list
price.
It
achieved
this
by
taking
$250
worth
of
equipment
off
the
standard
Monarch.
[Bryson's
source:
Jeffrey
Schrank,
Snap,
Crackle
and
Popular
Taste:
The
Illusion
of
Free
Choice
in
America,
1977,
p. 101]
And
has
all
this
deviousness
led
to
a
tightening
of
the
rules
concerning
what
is
allowable
in
advertising?
Hardly.
In
1986,
as
William
Lutz
relates
in
Doublespeak
[1989],
the
insurance
company
John
Hancock
launched
an
ad
campaign
in
which
"real
people
in
real
situations"
discussed
their
financial
predicaments
with
remarkable
candour.
When
a
journalist
asked
to
speak
to
these
real
people,
a
company
spokesman
conceded
thay
they
were
actors
and
"in
that
sense
they
are
not
real
people"
[Lutz,
p. 82].
During
the
1982
presidential
election
campaign,
the
Republican
National
Committee
ran
a
television
advertisement
praising
President
Reagan
for
providing
cost-of-living
pay
increases
to
federal
workers
"in
spite
of
those
sticks-in-the-mud
who
tried
to
keep
him
doing
from
what
we
elected
him
to
do".
When
it
was
pointed
out
that
the
increases
had
in
fact
been
mandated
by
law
since
1975
and
that
Reagan
had
in
any
case
three
times
tried
to
block
them,
a
Republican
official
responded:
"Since
when
is
a
commercial
supposed
to
be
accurate?"
[Lutz,
p. 16-17]
Quite.
[...]
Spanish
is
a
particular
problem
[for
advertising]
In
mainstream
Spanish
bichos
means
insects,
but
in
Puerto
Rico
it
means
testicles,
so
when
a
pesticide
maker
promised
to
bring
death
to
the
bichos
Puerto
Rican
consumers
were
at
least
bemused,
if
not
alarmed.
[Chapter 14,
The
Hard
Sell:
Advertising
in
America,
p. 292-293]
- It
would
be
putting
it
mildly
to
say
that
[Samuel]
Goldwyn
never
entirely
mastered
the
nuances
of
English.
Though
many
of
the
expressions
attributed
to
him
are
apocryphal
[...]
he
did
actually
say
"I
was
on
the
brink
of
an
abscess",
"Gentlemen,
include
me
out",
and
"You've
bitten
the
hand
of
the
goose
that
laid
the
golden
egg".
Warned
that
a
Broadway
production
to
which
he
had
acquired
rights
was
"a
very
caustic
play",
he
shot
back:
"I
don't
give
a
damn
how
much
it
costs."
And
a
close
friend
swore
that
once
when
they
were
walking
on
a
beach
and
the
friend
said,
"Look
at
the
gulls,"
Goldwyn
stopped
in
his
tracks
and
replied
in
all
seriousness
"How
do
you
know
they're
not
boys?"
[Chapter 15,
The
Movies,
p. 303-304]
- [...]
The
ultimate
in
screen
credits,
though,
was
almost
certainly
the
1929
production
of
The
Taming
of
the
Shrew,
[...]
which
contained
the
memorable
line:
"By
William
Shakespeare,
with
additional
dialogue
by
Sam
Taylor."
[The
Economist,
2
October
1993,
p. 108]
Possibly
the
most
choleric
credit
line
appeared
on
the
1974
movie
The
Taking
of
Pelham
123,
which
concerned
the
hijacking
of
a
New
York
subway
train
and
finished
with
the
closing
line:
"Made
without
any
help
whatsoever
from
the
New
York
Transport
Authority."
[Chapter 15,
The
Movies,
p. 308-309]
- [...]
Christmas
as
now
celebrated
is
a
mongrel
accumulation
of
practices
from
many
lands.
Gift-giving,
which
has
no
intrinsic
connection
with
Christmas,
was
borrowed
from
Holland.
From
the
Middle
Ages,
the
Dutch
had
made
a
custom
of
giving
presents
to
children
on
6
December,
St
Nicholas's
Day.
St
Nicholas
was
a
shadowy
figure
from
Asia
Minor
whose
many
kindly
deeds
included
bestowing
bags
of
gold
on
three
young
women
who
otherwise
faced
a
life
of
prostitution.
Over
times
those
three
bags
evolved
into
three
golden
balls
and
became,
by
some
complicated
leap
of
logic,
the
three
balls
associated
with
pawnbroking.
[...]
The
Christmas
tree
and
the
practice
of
sending
greeting
cards
arrived
from
Germany
[...]
The
first
mention
of
a
Christmas
tree
in
America
in
in
1846.
Carols,
mistletoe,
holly
and
the
yule
log
all
come
from
Britain,
mostly
as
survivors
of
a
pre-Christian
past.
(Yule
itself
is
pre-Saxon
Germanic
and
evidently
commemorates
a
forgotten
pagan
festival).
[...]
It
may
come
as
a
surprise
to
learn
that
there
are
no
official
holidays
in
America.
One
of
the
rights
reserved
to
the
states
was
the
prerogative
to
declare
holidays.
The
President
can,
with
the
assent
of
Congress,
declare
"legal
public
holidays",
but
these
apply
only
to
the
District
of
Columbia
and
federal
employees.
They
have
no
formal
sanction
elsewhere.
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 318-319]
- [...]
faro,
a
[card]
game
first
mentioned
in
Britain
in
1713.
Corrupted
from
pharaoh
(a
pharaoh
was
pictured
on
one
of
the
cards
in
a
faro
deck;
it
later
evolved
into
the
king
of
hearts),
faro
was
a
dauntingly
complicated
game
in
terms
of
equipment,
scoring,
betting
and
vocabulary.
Each
card
dealt
had
a
name
of
obscure
significance.
The
first
was
the
soda
card,
the
second
the
loser,
and
so
on
to
the
final
card,
the
hock.
Scoring
was
kept
track
of
on
an
abacus-like
device
called
a
case,
from
which
is
said
to
come
the
expression
an
open
and
shut
case.
To
break
even
and
to
play
both
ends
against
the
middle
also
originated
in
faro,
as
did
the
practice
of
referring
to
counters
as
chips
(previously
they
had
been
called
checks).
Thus
most
of
the
many
expressions
involving
chips
-
to
cash
in
one's
chips,
to
be
in
the
chips,
a
blue-chip
investment
-
owe
their
origins
to
this
now
forgotten
game.
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 318-319]
- [...]
Jackpot
is
of
uncertain
provenance.
The
jack
may
refer
to
the
card
of
that
name
or
to
the
slang
term
for
money,
or
possibly
it
may
be
simply
another
instance
of
the
largely
inexplicable
popularity
of
jack
as
a
component
with
which
to
build
words:
jackhammer,
jackknife,
jackboot,
jackass,
jackass,
jack-in-the-box,
jack-o'-lantern,
jack-of-all-trades,
jackrabbit,
jackstraw,
jackdaw,
jackdaw,
jackanapes,
lumberjack
and
car
jack.
In
none
of
these,
so
far
as
is
known,
does
jack
contain
any
particular
significance.
People
clearly
just
liked
the
sound
of
it.
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 319]
- In
New
Orleans
the
game
the
English
called
hazzard
became
known
as
crabs,
which
mutated
over
time
into
craps.
It
has
no
etymological
connection
to
the
slang
term
for
faeces.
The
French
were
also
ultimately
responsible
for
keno
(from
quine,
"a
set
of
five"),
an
early
form
of
bingo
that
was
once
very
popular
[...]
[...]
[the
card
game]
bridge.
which
arrived
[in
America]
from
Russia
and
the
Middle
East
in
the
early
1890s.
The
word
is
unrelated
to
the
type
of
bridge
that
spans
a
river.
It
comes
from
the
Russian
birich,
the
title
of
a
town
crier.
Among
the
expressions
that
have
passed
from
the
bridge
table
to
the
world
at
large
are
bid,
to
follow
suit,
in
spades,
long
suit
and
renege.
[Bryson's
source:
J.
L.
Dillard,
American
Talk:
Where
Our
Words
Come
From,
1977,
p. 74]
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 322]
- [...]
Before
an
Englishman
named
J.
I.
Stassen
coined
the
term
bicycle
in
1869,
two-wheeled
vehicles
had
gone
by
a
variety
of
names:
velocipedes,
dandy
horses,
draisines
and
boneshakers.
[...]
[...]
Cycling
quickly
developed
its
own
complex
terminology.
The
more
energetic
adherents
went
in
for
scorching
or
freewheeling
[...]
Scorchers
who
showed
a
selfish
disregard
of
others
were
known
as
road
hogs.
Such
was
their
capacity
to
startle
or
surprise
other
road
users
[...]
that
in
some
places
laws
were
passed
requiring
cyclists
not
simply
to
slow
down
and
dismount
when
approaching
a
horse,
but
to
lead
it
to
safety
before
continuing.
[Bryson's
source:
John
B.
Rae,
The
Road
and
the
Car
in
American
Life,
MIT
Press,
1971,
p. 29]
[...]
A
large
part
of
bicycling's
popularity
was
that
it
was
one
of
the
few
exhilarating
enjoyments
permitted
to
women,
though
some
authorities
worried
that
perhaps
it
was
too
exhilarating.
The
Georgia
Journal
of
Medicine
and
Surgery
for
one
believed
that
cycling
was
unsuitable
for
females
because
the
movements
of
the
legs
and
the
pressure
on
the
pelvis
of
the
saddle
were
bound
to
arouse
"feelings
hitherto
unrealized
by
the
young
maiden".
[Bryson's
source:
Robert
Atwan,
Donald
McQuade
&
John
W.
Wright:
Edsels,
Luckies
and
Frigidaires:
Advertising
the
American
Way,
The
Road
and
the
Car
in
American
Life,
1979,
p. 151-152]
The
Wheelman
magazine
defended
bicycling
as
a
healthy
pursuit
for
women,
but
added
this
ominous
warning
to
its
female
readers:
"Do
not
think
of
sitting
down
to
table
until
you
have
changed
your
underclothing."
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 325-326]
- [In
1903]
Henry
Chadwick,
editor
of
the
respected
Baseball
Guide,
wrote
a
short
history
of
the
game
in
which
he
traced
its
probable
origins
to
rounders
and
cricket.
The
patriotic
[Albert
Goodwill]
Spalding
[former
outstanding
ball
player,
and
by
1903
a
very
wealthy
man
and
a
figure
of
godlike
authority
among
baseball
followers]
was
mortified
at
the
thought
that
baseball
might
not
be
an
all-American
invention.
After
stewing
over
the
matter
for
two
years,
in
1903
he
appointed
a
six-man
commission
to
look
into
the
question.
The
commission
was
guided
by
A.
G.
Mills,
president
of
the
National
[Baseball]
League
and,
it
so
happened,
a
friend
for
thirty
years
of
the
recently
deceased
[Abner]
Doubleday.
In
1907
the
commission
issued
a
report
in
which
it
stated
without
substantiation
that
the
game
was
created
by
Doubleday
at
Coopertown,
New
York,
in
1839.
When
pressed
for
details,
Mills
revealed
that
he
had
heard
the
story
from
"a
reputable
gentleman"
named
Albert
Graces,
whose
word
he
had
accepted
without
question.
(Graves
would
shortly
end
up
in
a
lunatic
asylum).
To
anyone
who
looked
into
the
matter
even
slightly,
it
was
obvious
that
the
story
didn't
hold
water.
[...]
At
his
death,
Doubleday
had
left
sixty-seven
diaries
and
not
once
in
any
of
them
did
he
mention
baseball.
Finally,
if
Mill's
story
is
to
be
believed,
never
in
their
thirty
years
of
close
friendship
had
Doubleday
thought
to
mention
to
Mills
that
he
had
invented
the
game
from
which
Mills
was
making
his
living.
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 329-330]
- Umpire,
incidentally,
is
one
of
those
many
words
in
which
an
initial
n
became
attached,
like
a
charged
particle,
to
the
preceding
indefinite
article.
In
Middle
English,
one
was
"a
noumpere",
just
as
an
apron
was
at
first
"a
napron".
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 330]
- A
raincheck
[first
recorded
use
in
1884]
was
-
indeed
still
is
-
another
name
for
a
ticket
stub.
If
the
[baseball]
game
was
rained
out
in
the
first
five
innings,
the
customer
could
gain
free
admission
to
any
later
match
by
presenting
his
raincheck.
Hence,
the
use
of
the
term
in
the
general
sense
of
a
deferred
get-together.
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 333]
- [In
the
1920s]
golf
became
associated
with
two
rather
odd
items
of
clothing.
The
first
was
knickerbockers,
a
nonce
word
coined
by
Washington
Irving
in
1809
[...]
By
means
that
escape
rational
explanation,
the
word
attached
itself
first
to
women's
underwear
(which
are
to
this
day
called
knickers
almost
everywhere
in
the
English-speaking
world
but
North
America0,
and
then,
but
a
further
dazzling
flight,
to
the
shorted
trousers
favoured
by
golfers
in
the
1920s,
and
whose
continued
existence
appears
to
be
the
odd
and,
I
would
have
thought,
little-encouraged
quest
of
Mr
Payne
Stewart.
Golf
knickers
further
begat
another
short-lived
item
of
apparel,
the
plus
fours,
so
called
because
they
were
four
inches
longer
than
knickers.
[Bryson's
source:
Alfred
H.
Holt,
Phrase
and
Word
Origins,
Dover,
1961,
p. 154]
[Chapter 16,
The
Pursuit
of
Pleasure:
Sport
and
Play,
p. 338]
- Caucus,
from
an
Algonquian
word
for
counsellor,
dates
from
the
early
seventeenth
century,
and
as
such
is
one
of
the
oldest
surviving
Americanisms.
Mugwump
(at
first
often
spelled
mugquomp),
another
Algonquianism,
[...]
made
its
first
recorded
appearance
in
1643.
For
two
hundred
years
it
retained
its
original
sense
of
a
chief
or
leader
before
abruptly
shifting
in
the
1880s
to
describe
a
political
maverick.
(The
oft
quoted
definition
is
that
a
mugwump
is
someone
who
sits
with
his
mug
on
one
side
of
the
fence
and
his
wump
on
the
other.)
[Chapter 17,
Of
Bombs
and
Bunkum:
Politics
and
War,
p. 340]
- The
oddest
and
certainly
the
most
historically
complicated
borrowing
is
filibuster.
It
began
as
the
Dutch
vrijbuiter,
a
pirate.
To
English
speakers
vrijbuiter
naturally
yielded
freebooter.
But
vrijbuiter
was
beyond
the
command
of
Spanish
tongues.
They
converted
the
word
to
filibustero.
The
French
then
borrowed
it
as
filibustier.
Thus
by
1585
vrijbuiter
had
given
English
two
words
with
the
same
meaning.
Freebooter
went
no
further,
but
filibuster
had
a
busy
career
ahead
of
it
in
American
politics.
First,
still
bearing
something
of
its
original
sense,
it
came
to
describe
Americans
who
formed
private
armies
with
a
view
to
taking
over
Central
American
countries,
for
which
there
was
a
short
but
persistent
fashion
in
the
1850s
(the
idea
of
manifest
destiny
rather
going
to
some
people's
heads).
[...]
By
the
mid-1850s
[filibuster]
was
being
used
in
Congress
to
describe
any
vaguely
disruptive
debating
tactic,
and
by
the
1880s
had
settled
into
its
present
sense
of
a
willful
delaying
action
designed
to
thwart
the
passage
of
a
bill.
[Chapter 17,
Of
Bombs
and
Bunkum:
Politics
and
War,
p. 342-343]
- We
have
been
conditioned
by
Hollywood
to
think
of
Union
soldiers
dressed
identically
in
blue
and
Confederate
troops
in
grey.
In
fact,
for
the
first
year
or
so
of
[the
American
Civil
War]
most
soldiers
wore
the
uniforms
of
their
state
militias,
which
came
in
any
number
of
colours
[...]
leading
to
endless
confusion
on
the
battlefield.
[...]
the
War
Department
rushed
into
production
of
thousands
of
standard
uniforms.
These
were
manufactured
with
an
old
process
employing
recycled
woollen
fibres
and
known
as
shoddy.
Because
the
uniforms
were
poorly
made
easily
came
unstitched,
shoddy
came
to
denote
any
article
of
inferior
quality.
The
system
of
producing
uniforms
en
masse
also
led,
incidentally,
to
the
introduction
of
standard
graduated
sizes,
a
process
that
was
carried
over
to
civilian
life
after
the
war.
[Bryson's
source:
James
M.
McPherson,
Battle
Cry
of
Freedom:
The
American
Civil
War,
OUP,
1990,
New
York,
1986,
p. 323-325]
[Chapter 17,
Of
Bombs
and
Bunkum:
Politics
and
War,
p. 349-350]
- A
final,
incidental
linguistic
legacy
of
the
war
between
the
states
was
the
term
sideburns,
named
for
the
Union
command
Ambrose
E.
Burnside,
whose
distinctive
mutton-chop
whiskers
inspired
a
fashion
and
became
known
as
burnsides.
Within
a
decade
the
syllables
had
been
transposed,
but
quite
how
or
why
is
anyone's
guess.
[...]
But
the
outbreak
of
[...]
World
War
I
prompted
an
outpouring
of
new
terms
[...]
From
France,
meanwhile,
came
[...]
camouflage
(rather
oddly
from
camouflet,
meaning
"to
blow
smoke
up
someone's
nose",
a
pastime
that
appears
on
the
linguistic
evidence
to
be
specific
to
the
French)
[...]
[Chapter 17,
Of
Bombs
and
Bunkum:
Politics
and
War,
p. 350-351]
- [In
1951
...]
With
the
eyes
of
America
one
him,
Judge
Andrew
Doyle
ruled
that
as
art
the
photograph
[of
a
nude
woman
view
from
the
back]
was
perfectly
acceptable,
but
that
as
a
bar-room
decoration
it
was
"unquestionably
obscene".
He
suggested
-
apparently
seriously
-
that
one
of
the
city's
art
galleries
might
like
to
take
it
over.
In
other
words,
if
displayed
in
a
darkened
bar
where
it
would
be
seen
by
no
one
but
grown-up
drinkers,
the
picture
was
held
to
be
salacious
and
corrupting.
But
if
placed
in
a
public
forum
where
anyone
of
any
age
could
view
it,
it
could
be
regarded
as
a
local
treasure.
I
bring
this
up
here
to
make
the
point
that
America's
attitudes
towards
questions
of
public
and
private
morality
have
long
been
a
trifle
confused.
[Chapter 18,
Sex
and
Other
Distractions,
p. 359]
- The
Puritan
age
was,
to
be
sure,
one
in
which
even
the
smallest
of
transgressions
-
or
even
sometimes
no
transgressions
at
all
-
could
be
met
with
the
severest
of
penalties.
Adultery,
illegitimacy
and
masturbation
were
all
at
times
capital
offences
in
New
England.
[...]
[...]
When
a
one-eyed
pig
was
born
in
[New
Haven],
the
magistrates
cast
around
for
an
explanation
and
lighted
on
the
hapless
[George]
Spencer,
who
also
had
but
one
eye.
Questioned
as
to
the
possibility
of
bestiality,
the
frightened
Spencer
confessed,
but
then
recanted.
Under
Connecticut
law
to
convince
Spencer
of
bestiality
required
the
testimony
of
two
witnesses.
So
keen
were
the
magistrates
to
hand
him
that
they
admitted
the
pig
as
one
witness
and
his
retracted
confession
as
another.
[Bryson's
source:
David
Hackett
Fischer,
Albion's
Seed:
Four
British
Folkways
in
America,
OUP,
1989,
p. 92]
[Chapter 18,
Sex
and
Other
Distractions,
p. 360]
- [...]
It
was
not
enough
in
America
to
merely
avoid
mentioning
an
object.
A
word
had
to
be
found
that
would
not
even
hint
at
its
actual
function.
Unable
to
bring
themselves
to
say
chamber-pot
or
even
commode,
Americans
began
to
refer
to
the
vessel
as
a
looking
glass,
with
obvious
scope
for
confusion
[...]
[...
Francis
Trollope]
discussed
how
a
rakish
young
man
tried
to
tease
from
a
seamstress
the
name
of
the
article
of
attire
she
was
working
on.
Blushing
hotly,
the
young
lady
announced
that
it
was
a
frock,
but
when
the
young
man
pointed
out
that
there
wasn't
nearly
enough
material
for
a
frock
she
asserted
it
was
an
apron.
Pressed
further,
she
claimed
it
was
a
pillowcase.
Eventually,
she
fled
the
room
in
shame
and
tears,
unable
to
name
the
object.
It
was
in
fact
a
blouse,
but
to
have
uttered
the
word
to
a
man
would
have
been
"a
symptom
of
absolute
depravity".
For
women
in
particular,
this
rhetorical
fastidiousness
was
not
just
absurd
but
dangerous.
For
much
of
the
nineteenth
century,
ankles
denoted
the
whole
of
a
woman's
body
below
the
waist,
while
stomach
did
similar
service
for
everything
between
the
waist
and
head.
It
thus
became
impossible
to
inform
a
doctor
of
almost
any
serious
medical
complaint.
[Chapter 18,
Sex
and
Other
Distractions,
p. 364]
- If
by
some
miracle
a
woman
managed
to
acquire
a
little
learning,
she
was
not
expected
to
share
it
with
the
world.
[...]
When
in
1828
Fannie
Wright
gave
a
series
of
public
lectures,
the
nation's
press
was
at
first
shocked
and
then
outraged.
A
newspaper
in
Louisville
accused
her
of
committing
"an
act
against
nature".
The
New
York
Free
Enquirer
declared
that
she
had
"with
ruthless
violence
broken
loose
from
the
restraints
of
decorum".
The
New
York
American
decided
that
she
had
"ceased
to
be
a
woman"
by
her
actions.
[Bryson's
source:
Kenneth
Cmiel,
Democratic
Eloquence:
The
Fight
Over
Popular
Speech
in
Nineteenth-Century
America,
1990,
p. 162]
No
one
objected
to
the
content
of
the
lectures,
you
understand,
merely
that
it
was
issuing
from
the
mouth
of
a
female.
[Chapter 18,
Sex
and
Other
Distractions,
p. 367]
- [...]
Most
states
have
laws
against
fornication
and
even
masturbation
lying
somewhere
on
their
books,
though
you
would
hardly
know
it,
such
is
the
evasive
language
with
which
the
laws
are
phrased.
One
of
the
most
popular
phrases
is
"crime
against
nature"
(though
in
California
it
is
"the
infamous
crime
against
nature"
and
in
Indiana
"the
abominable
and
detestable
crime
against
nature"),
but
almost
never
to
they
specify
what
a
crime
against
nature
is.
An
innocent
observer
could
be
excused
for
concluding
that
it
means
chopping
down
trees
or
walking
on
the
grass.
[Chapter 18,
Sex
and
Other
Distractions,
p. 373]
- The
difficulty
of
course
is
that
acceptable
behaviour,
not
just
in
sex
but
in
all
things,
is
a
constantly
changing
concept.
Just
consider
the
matter
of
beards.
In
1840,
Americans
had
been
beardless
for
so
long
-
about
two
hundred
years
-
that
when
an
eccentric
character
in
Framingham,
Massachusetts,
grew
a
beard
he
was
attacked
by
a
crowd
and
dragged
off
to
jail.
Yet
by
the
mid-1850s,
just
a
decade
and
a
half
later,
there
was
scarcely
a
beardless
man
in
America.
From
1860
to
1897
every
American
president
was
bearded.
Or
consider
hemlines.
In
1921,
when
hemlines
began
to
climb
to
mid-calf,
Utah
considered
imprisoning
-
not
fining,
but
imprisoning
-
women
who
wore
skirts
more
than
three
inches
above
the
ankle.
[Chapter 18,
Sex
and
Other
Distractions,
p. 374]
- [...
The
word]
fucking
appeared
in
a
novel
called
Strange
Fruit
as
early
as
1945,
and
was
banned
in
Massachusetts
as
a
result.
The
publishers
took
the
case
to
court,
but
the
case
fell
apart
when
then
defence
attourney
arguing
for
its
sake
was
unable
to
bring
himself
to
utter
the
objectionable
word
in
court,
in
effect
conceding
that
it
was
too
filthy
for
public
consumption.
[Bryson's
source:
Morris
L.
Ernst
&
Alan
U.
Schwartz
,
Censorship:
The
Search
for
the
Obscene,
1964,
p. 95]
[Chapter 18,
Sex
and
Other
Distractions,
p. 378]
- That
the
most
successful
commercial
aircraft
in
history
should
be
named
after
a
circus
elephant
is
an
obvious
oddity.
People
are
sometimes
surprised
to
learn
that
Jumbo
the
elephant
wasn't
called
that
because
he
was
big,
but
rather
that
big
things
are
called
jumbo
because
of
him.
[...]
Most
Americans
became
familiar
with
Jumbo
when
P.
T.
Barnum,
the
circus
impresario,
bought
the
elephant
from
London
Zoo
in
1994,
a
scandal
that
outraged
millions
of
Britons,
and
began
exhibiting
him
all
over
America.
[...]
[...]
Jumbo's
American
career
was
unfortunately
short-lived.
One
night
in
September
1885,
after
Jumbo
had
been
on
the
road
for
only
about
a
year,
he
was
being
led
to
his
specially
built
boxcar
after
an
evening
performance
in
St.
Thomas,
Ontario,
when
an
express
train
arrived
unexpectedly
and
ploughed
into
him,
with
irreversible
consequences
to
both
elephant
and
train.
It
took
160
men
to
haul
him
of
the
track.
Never
one
to
miss
a
chance,
Barnum
had
Jumbo's
skin
and
bones
separately
mounted,
and
thereafter
was
able
to
exhibit
the
world's
largest
elephant
to
two
audiences
at
once,
without
any
of
the
costs
of
care
or
feeding.
He
made
far
more
money
out
of
Jumbo
dead
than
alive.
[Chapter 19,
The
Road
from
Kittyhawk,
p. 395-396]
- Of
necessity,
most
people
in
colonial
America
lived
densely
packed
together
in
cities
-
in
1715
Borton's
15,000
inhabitants
shared
just
700
acres
of
land
-
and
went
almost
everywhere
on
foot.
Walking
was
such
an
unquestioned
feature
of
everyday
life
that
until
1791,
when
William
Wordsworth
coined
the
term
pedestrian,
there
was
no
special
word
to
describe
someone
on
foot.
[I
would
have
thought
walker
--
Fred]
(Interestingly,
pedestrian
in
the
sense
of
dull
or
unimaginative
is
significantly
older,
having
been
coined
in
1716).
[Chapter 20,
Welcome
to
the
Space
Age:
The
1950s
and
Beyond,
p. 406]
- To
qualify
as
an
[edge
city
as
defined
in
Joel
Garreau's
book
Edge
City],
a
community
must
have
5
million
square
feet
of
office
space,
600,000
square
feet
of
shopping,
and
more
people
working
there
than
living
there.
America
now
has
more
than
200
edge
cities.
Los
Angeles
and
New
York
have
about
two
dozen
each.
Almost
all
have
been
created
since
1960,
and
almost
always
they
are
soulless,
impersonal
places,
unfocused
collections
of
shopping
malls
and
office
complexes
that
are
ruthlessly
unsympathetic
to
non-motorists.
Many
have
no
pavements
or
pedestrian
crossings,
and
only
rarely
do
they
offer
any
but
the
most
skeletal
public
transport
links
to
the
nearby
metropolis,
effectively
denying
job
opportunities
to
many
of
those
left
behind
in
the
declining
inner
cities.
About
one
third
of
all
Americans
now
live
in
edge
cities,
and
up
to
two-thirds
of
Americans
work
in
them.
[Bryson's
source:
Independent
on
Sunday,
15
November
1992,
p. 8]
[Chapter 20,
Welcome
to
the
Space
Age:
The
1950s
and
Beyond,
p. 408-409]
- I
quickly
realised
that
everything
about
the
bus
[to
Hammerfest]
was
designed
for
discomfort.
[...]
The
seats
were
designed
by
a
dwarf
seeking
revenge
on
full-sized
people;
there
was
no
other
explanation.
[...]
In
the
long,
exciting
weeks
preceding
the
flight
I
had
sustained
myself,
I
confess,
with
a
series
of
bedroom-ceiling
fastasies
that
generally
involved
finding
myself
seated
next
to
a
panting
young
beauty
being
sent
by
her
father
against
her
wishes
to
the
Lausanne
Institute
for
Nymphomanical
Disorders
[...]
In
the
event,
my
seatmate
turned
out
to
be
an
acned
stringbean
with
[...]
a
line-up
of
plastic
ball-point
pens
clipped
to
a
protective
plastic
case
in
his
shirt
pocket.
The
plastic
case
said
"Gruber's
Tru-Valu
Hardware,
Flagellation,
Oklahoma.
If
we
don't
got
it,
you
don't
need
it",
or
something
like
that.
[Chapter 1,
To
the
North,
p. 11,13]
- The
driver
[in
Luxembourg]
was
very
friendly.
He
spoke
good
English
and
shouted
at
me
over
the
lawnmower
roar
of
the
engine
that
he
worked
as
a
travelling
shoe
salesman
and
his
wife
was
a
clerk
in
a
Luxembourg
bank
and
that
they
lived
just
over
the
border
in
Arlon.
He
kept
turning
round
to
rearrange
things
on
the
back
seat
to
give
me
more
space
[...]
at
the
same
time
he
was
driving
with
one
hand
at
seventy
miles
an
hour
in
heavy
traffic.
Every
few
seconds
his
wife
would
shriek
as
the
back
of
a
lorry
loomed
up
and
filled
the
windscreen,
and
he
would
attend
to
the
road
for
perhaps
two
and
a
half
seconds
before
returning
his
attention
to
my
comfort.
[...]
I
have
seldom
been
more
certain
that
I
was
about
to
die.
The
man
drove
as
if
we
were
in
an
arcade
game.
[...]
[Chapter 1,
To
the
North,
p. 16-17]
- It
was
New
Year's
Eve
[in
Hammerfest],
after
all.
But
the
bar
was
like
a
funeral
parlour
with
a
beverage
service.
[Chapter 2,
Hammerfest,
p. 30]
- There
is
only
one
[television]
network
in
Norway
and
it
is
stupefyingly
bad.
It's
not
just
that
the
programmes
are
dull,
though
in
this
respect
they
could
win
awards,
but
that
the
whole
thing
is
so
wondrously
unpolished.
Films
finish
and
you
get
thirty
seconds
of
scratchy
white
circles
like
you
used
to
get
when
your
home
movies
ran
out
and
your
dad
didn't
get
to
the
projector
fast
enough,
and
then
suddenly
the
lights
come
up
on
the
day's
host,
looking
faintly
startled,
as
if
he
had
been
just
about
to
do
something
that
he
wouldn't
want
the
nation
to
see.
[...]
The
best
that
can
be
said
for
Norwegian
television
is
that
it
gives
you
the
sensation
of
a
coma
without
the
worry
and
inconvenience.
[Chapter 2,
Hammerfest,
p. 32]
- In
my
hotel
in
Oslo,
where
I
spent
four
days
after
returning
from
Hammerfest,
the
chambermaid
each
morning
left
me
a
packet
of
something
called
Bio
Tex
Blå,
a
"minipakke
for
ferie,
hybel
og
weekend",
according
to
the
instructions.
I
spent
many
happy
hours
sniffing
it
and
experimenting
with
it,
uncertain
of
whether
it
was
for
washing
out
clothes
or
gargling
or
cleaning
the
toilet
bowl.
In
the
end
I
dedided
it
was
for
washing
out
clothes
-
it
worked
a
treat
-
but
for
all
I
know
the
rest
of
the
weekend
everywhere
I
went
in
Oslo
people
were
saying
to
each
other,
"You
know,
that
man
smelled
like
toilet-bowl
cleaner."
[Chapter 3,
Oslo,
p. 40]
- I
wanted
to
wander
through
Europe,
to
see
movie
posters
for
films
that
would
never
come
to
Britain,
gaze
wonderingly
at
hoardings
and
shop
notices
full
of
exotic
umlauts
and
cedillas
and
No
Parking-sign
øs,
hear
pop
songs
that
could
not
by
even
the
most
charitable
stretch
of
the
imagination
be
a
hit
in
any
country
but
their
own,
encounter
people
whose
lives
would
never
again
intersect
with
mine,
be
hopelessly
unfamiliar
with
everything,
from
the
workings
of
a
phone
box
to
the
identity
of
a
foodstuff.
[Chapter 3,
Oslo,
p. 43-44]
- The
hotel
was
one
of
those
sterile,
modern
places
that
always
put
me
in
mind
of
a
BUPA
advertisement,
but
at
least
it
didn't
have
those
curious
timer
switches
that
used
to
be
a
feature
of
hotel
hallways
in
France.
These
were
a
revelation
to
me
when
I
first
arrived
from
America.
All
the
light
switches
in
the
hallways
were
timed
to
switch
off
after
ten
or
fifteen
seconds,
presumably
as
an
economy
measure.
This
wasn't
so
bad
if
your
room
was
next
to
the
elevator,
but
if
it
was
very
far
down
the
hall,
and
hotel
hallways
in
Paris
tend
to
wander
around
like
an
old
man
with
Alzheimer's,
you
would
generally
proceed
the
last
furlong
in
total
darkness,
feeling
your
way
along
the
walls
with
flattened
palms,
and
invariably
colliding
scrotally
with
the
corner
of
a
nineteenth-century
oak
table
put
there,
evidently,
for
that
purpose.
Occasionally
your
fingers
would
alight
on
something
soft
and
hairy,
which
you
would
recognise
after
a
moment
as
another
person,
and
if
he
spoke
English
you
could
exchange
tips.
You
soon
learned
to
have
your
key
out
and
to
sprint
like
billy-o
for
your
room.
But
the
trouble
was
that
when
eventually
you
re-emerged
it
was
to
total
blackness
once
more
and
to
a
complete
and
-
mark
this
-
intentional
absence
of
light
switches,
and
there
was
nothing
you
could
do
but
stumble
about
like
Boris
Karloff
in
The
Mummy,
and
hope
that
you
weren't
about
to
blunder
into
a
stairwell.
From
this
I
learned
one
very
important
lesson:
the
French
do
not
like
us.
That's
OK,
because
of
course
nobody
likes
them
much
either.
It
so
happens
that
I
had
just
seen
a
survey
in
a
British
paper
in
which
executives
had
been
asked
to
list
their
most
despised
things
in
the
whole
universe
and
the
top
three
ones
were,
in
this
order:
garden
gnomes,
fuzzy
dice
hanging
in
car
windows
and
the
French.
i
just
loved
that.
Of
all
the
things
to
despise
-
pestilence,
poverty,
tyrannical
governments,
Michael
Fish
-
they
chose
garden
gnomes,
fuzzy
dice
and
the
French.
I
think
that's
splendid.
[Chapter 4,
Paris,
p. 47-48]
- By
half-past
eight
Paris
is
a
terrible
place
for
walking.
There's
too
much
traffic.
A
blue
haze
of
uncombusted
diesel
hangs
over
every
boulevard.
I
know
Baron
Haussmann
made
Paris
a
grand
place
to
look
at,
but
the
man
had
no
concept
of
traffic
flow.
At
the
Arc
de
Triomphe
alone
thirteen
roads
come
together.
Can
you
imagine
that?
I
mean
to
say,
here
you
have
a
city
with
the
world's
most
pathologically
aggressive
drivers
-
drivers
who
in
other
circumstances
would
be
given
injections
of
thorazine
from
syringes
the
size
of
bicycle
pumps
and
confined
to
their
beds
with
leather
straps
-
and
you
give
them
an
open
space
where
they
can
all
try
to
go
in
any
of
thirteen
directions
at
once.
Is
that
asking
for
trouble
or
what?
It's
interesting
to
note
that
the
French
have
had
this
reputation
for
bad
driving
since
long
before
the
invention
of
the
internal
combustion
engine.
Even
in
the
eighteenth
century
British
travellers
to
Paris
were
remarking
on
what
lunatic
drivers
the
French
were,
on
"the
astonishing
speed
with
which
the
carriages
and
people
moved
through
the
streets
...
It
was
not
an
uncommon
sight
to
see
a
child
run
over
and
probably
killed."
I
quote
from
The
Grand
Tour
by
Christopher
Hibbert,
a
book
whose
great
virtue
is
in
pointing
out
that
the
peoples
of
Europe
have
for
at
least
300
years
been
living
up
to
their
stereotypes.
[...]
[Chapter 4,
Paris,
p. 52]
- The
French
were
remarkably
shameless
about
[jumping
queues].
[...]
In
New
York
[...]
the
queue
jumpers
would
have
been
seized
by
the
crowd
and
had
their
limbs
torn
from
their
sockets.
[...]
Even
in
London
the
miscreants
would
have
received
a
various
rebuke
-
"I
say,
kindly
take
your
place
at
the
back
of
the
queue,
there's
a
good
fellow"
-
but
here
there
was
not
a
peep
of
protest.
[Chapter 4,
Paris,
p. 54]
- [...]
I
just
hate
the
way
architects
and
city
planners
and
everyone
else
responsible
for
urban
life
seems
to
have
lost
sight
of
what
cities
are
for.
They
are
for
people.
That
seems
obvious
enough,
but
for
half
a
century
we
have
been
building
cities
that
are
for
almost
anything
else:
for
cars,
for
businesses,
for
developers,
for
people
with
money
and
bold
visions
who
refuse
to
see
cities
from
ground
level,
as
places
in
which
people
must
live
and
function
to
get
around.
Why
should
I
have
to
walk
through
a
damp
tunnel
and
negotiate
two
sets
of
stairs
to
get
across
a
busy
street?
Why
should
cars
be
given
priority
over
me?
How
can
we
be
so
rich
and
so
stupid
at
the
same
time?
It
is
the
curse
of
our
century
-
too
much
money,
too
little
sense
-
and
the
Pompidou
seems
to
me
a
kind
of
celebration
of
that
in
plastic.
[Chapter 4,
Paris,
p. 58]
- I
went
to
Bruges
for
a
day.
It's
only
thirty
miles
from
Brussels
and
so
beautiful,
so
deeply,
endlessly
gorgeous,
that
it's
hard
to
believe
it
could
be
in
the
same
country.
Everything
about
it
is
perfect
-
its
cobbled
streets,
its
placid,
bottle-green
canals,
its
steep-roofed
medieval
houses,
its
market
squares,
its
slumbering
parks,
everything.
No
city
has
been
better
favoured
by
decline.
For
200
years
Bruges
-
I
don't
know
why
we
persist
in
calling
it
this
because
to
the
locals
it's
spelled
Brugge
and
pronounced
"Brooguh"
-
was
the
most
prosperous
city
in
Europe,
but
the
silting
up
of
the
River
Zwyn
and
changing
political
circumstances
made
it
literally
a
backwater,
and
for
500
years,
while
other
cities
grew
and
were
endlessly
transformed,
Bruges
remained
forgotten
and
untouched.
When
Wordsworth
visited
in
the
nineteenth
century
he
found
grass
growing
in
the
streets.
Antwerp,
I've
been
told,
was
more
beautiful
still,
even
as
late
as
the
turn
of
this
century,
but
developers
moved
in
and
pulled
down
everything
they
could
get
their
hands
on,
which
was
pretty
much
everything.
Bruges
was
saved
by
its
obscurity.
It
is
a
rare
place.
I
walked
for
a
day
with
my
mouth
open.
[...]
I
[...]
never
once
saw
a
street
that
I
wouldn't
want
to
live
on,
a
pub
that
I
wouldn't
like
to
get
to
know,
a
view
I
wouldn't
wish
to
call
my
own.
It
was
hard
to
accept
that
it
was
real
-
that
people
came
home
to
these
houses
every
night
and
shopped
in
these
shops
and
went
through
life
thinking
that
this
is
the
way
of
the
world.
They
must
go
into
shock
when
they
first
see
Brussels.
An
insurance
claims
adjuster
I
got
talking
to
in
a
bar
on
St
Jacobstraat
told
me
sadly
that
Bruges
had
become
insufferable
for
eight
months
of
the
year
because
of
the
tourists
[...]
[Chapter 6
-
Belgium,
p. 72-73]
- The
brochures
[in
the
town
of
Spa]
were
all
for
places
with
non-nonsense
names
like
The
Professor
Henrijean
Hydrology
Institute
and
The
Spa
Therm
Institution's
Department
of
Radiology
and
Gastro-Enterology.
Between
them
they
offered
a
bewildering
array
of
treatments
that
ran
from
immersion
in
'natural
carbogazeous
baths'
and
slathering
in
hot
and
gooey
mudpacks,
to
being
connected
to
a
free-standing
electrical
sub-station
and
briskly
electrocuted,
or
so
it
looked
from
the
photograph.
These
treatments
were
guaranteed
to
do
a
number
of
things
I
didn't
realize
it
was
desirable
to
do
-
"dilate
the
dermal
vessels",
"further
the
repose
of
the
thermoregulatory
centres"
and
"ease
periarticular
contractures",
to
name
but
three.
I
decided
without
hesistation
that
my
thermoregulatory
centres
were
reposed
enough,
if
not
actually
deceased,
and
although
I
do
have
the
occasional
periarticular
contracture
and
pitch
forward
into
my
spaghetti,
I
decided
I
could
live
with
this
after
seeing
what
the
muscular,
white-coated
ladies
of
the
Spa
institutes
do
to
you
if
they
detect
so
much
as
a
twinge
in
your
particulars
or
suspect
any
backsliding
among
the
dermals.
The
photographs
showed
a
frankly
worried-looking
female
patient
being
variously
covered
in
tar,
blown
around
a
shower
stall
with
a
high-pressure
hose,
forced
to
recline
in
bubbling
copper
vats
and
otherwise
subjected
to
a
regimen
that
in
other
circumstances
would
bring
ineluctably
to
mind
the
expression
"war
crimes".
[...]
[Chapter 6
-
Belgium,
p. 75]
- It
wouldn't
bother
me
in
the
least
(and
I
realise
I
am
sounding
dangerously
like
Bernard
Levin
here,
which
God
forbid)
if
all
the
dogs
in
the
world
were
placed
in
a
sack
and
taken
to
some
distant
island
-
Greenland
springs
attractively
to
mind
-
where
they
could
romp
around
and
sniff
each
other's
anuses
to
their
hearts'
content
and
never
bother
or
terrorize
me
again.
The
only
kind
of
dog
I
would
excuse
from
this
round-up
is
the
poodle.
Poodles
I
would
shoot.
I
don't
like
most
animals,
to
tell
you
the
truth.
Even
goldfish
daunt
me.
Their
whole
existence
seems
a
kind
of
reproach.
"What's
it
all
about?"
they
seem
to
be
saying.
"I
swim
here,
I
swim
there.
What
for?"
I
can't
look
at
a
goldfish
for
more
than
ten
seconds
without
feeling
like
killing
myself,
or
at
least
reading
a
French
novel.
[Chapter 6
-
Belgium,
p. 79]
- It
should
have
been
written
into
the
armistice
treaty
at
the
end
of
the
[second
world]
war
that
the
Germans
would
be
required
to
lay
down
their
accordians
along
with
their
arms.
[Chapter 7
-
Aachen
and
Cologne,
p. 88]
- [...]
My
waitress
spoke
no
English
at
all
and
I
had
the
most
extraordinary
difficulty
getting
myself
understood.
I
asked
for
a
beer
and
she
looked
at
me
askance.
"Wass?
Tier?"
"Nein,
beer,"
I
said,
and
her
puzzlement
grew.
"Fear?
Steer?
Queer?
King
Leer?"
"Nein,
nein,
beer."
I
pointed
at
the
menu.
"Ah,
beer,"
she
said,
with
a
private
tut,
as
if
I
had
been
intentionally
misleading
her.
I
felt
abashed
for
not
speaking
German,
but
comforted
myself
with
the
thought
that
if
I
did
understand
the
language
I
would
know
what
the
pompous
man
at
the
next
table
was
boasting
about
to
his
wife
(or
possibly
mistress)
and
then
I
would
be
as
bored
as
she
clearly
was.
She
was
[...]
looking
with
undisguised
interest
at
all
the
men
in
the
room,
except
of
course
me
(I
am
invisible
to
everyone
but
dogs
and
Jehovah's
Wistnesses.)
Her
companion
didn't
notice
this.
He
was
too
busy
telling
her
how
he
had
just
sold
a
truckload
of
hoola
hoops
and
Leo
Sayer
albums
to
the
East
Germans,
and
basking
in
his
cunning.
[Chapter 7
-
Aachen
and
Cologne,
p. 89]
- The
lakeside
[in
Hamburg]
is
agreeably
lined
with
trees
and
benches,
overlooked
by
office
buildings
and
a
couple
of
hotels
of
the
old
school,
the
sort
of
places
where
the
doormen
are
dressed
like
Albanian
admirals
and
rich
old
ladies
in
furs
constantly
go
in
and
out
with
little
dogs
under
their
arms.
[Chapter 9
-
Hamburg,
p. 117]
- I
had
a
hangover
you
could
sell
to
science,
but
after
two
cups
of
strong
coffee
at
a
sunny
table
outside
the
Popp,
a
handful
of
aspirins,
two
cigarettes
and
a
cough
so
robust
that
I
tapped
into
two
new
seams
of
phlegm,
I
felt
tolerably
human
and
was
able
to
undertake
a
gentle
stroll
to
the
waterfront
through
the
dappled
sunshine
of
St
Pauli
Park.
[Chapter 9
-
Hamburg,
p. 118]
- The
whole
length
of
Nyhavn
was
lined
with
outdoor
tables,
with
young,
blond,
gorgeous
people
drinking,
eating
and
enjoying
the
unseasonably
warm
weather.
I
always
wonder
in
Copenhagen
what
they
do
with
their
old
people
-
they
must
put
them
in
cellars
or
send
them
to
Arizona
-
because
everyone,
without
exception,
is
youthful,
fresh-scrubbed,
healthy,
blond
and
immensely
good-looking.
You
could
cast
a
Pepsi
commercial
in
Copenhagen
in
fifteen
seconds.
And
they
all
look
so
happy.
[Chapter 10
-
Copenhagen,
p. 131]
- National
museums,
especially
in
small
countries,
are
often
feeble
affairs
[...]
But
the
Danish
National
Museum
is
both
vast
and
richly
endowed
[...]
Some
museums
have
great
treasures
but
are
dull
buildings
and
some
have
dull
treasures
but
are
great
buildings,
but
the
[Ny
Carlsberg]
Glypotek
succeeds
on
both
counts.
It
has
an
outstanding
collection
of
Roman
statuary
and
some
of
the
finest
Impressionist
paintings
to
be
seen
anywhere,
but
the
building
itself
is
a
joy
-
light,
airy,
impeccably
decorated,
with
a
warm
and
tranquil
palm
court
full
of
gently
dozing
old
people.
(So
that's
where
they
put
them!)
But
the
best
museum
I
saved
for
last
-
the
Hirschsprung
Collection
in
Østre
Anlaeg
Park.
Everything
about
it
is
wonderful.
It's
a
pleasant
and
gentle
stroll
from
the
city
centre
and
Østre
Anlaeg
is
the
best
park
in
the
city,
in
my
experience
(which
is
short
but
in
this
case
attentive),
for
seeing
secretaries
sunning
their
breasts,
but
even
without
these
huge
and
novel
inducements
it
is
worth
seeking
out
because
it
is
such
a
terrific
and
little-visited
museum.
It
contains
884
paintings,
assembled
over
forty
years
by
one
man,
almost
all
of
them
from
the
nineteenth-century
Skagen
school
of
Danish
painting,
and
all
packed
densely
into
twenty
or
so
small
rooms.
The
paintings
are
all
concerned
with
simple
themes
-
summer
landscapes,
friends
enjoying
a
casual
dinner,
a
view
of
the
sea
from
an
open
window,
a
woman
at
a
sink
-
but
the
effect
is
simply
enchanting,
and
you
come
away
feeling
as
if
you
have
spent
the
afternoon
in
some
kind
of
marvellous
and
refreshing
ionizer.
[Chapter 10
-
Copenhagen,
p. 135-136]
- [A
map
of]
Denmark
looks
like
a
plate
that
has
been
dropped
onto
a
hard
floor:
it
is
fractured
into
a
thousand
pieces,
forming
deep
bays
and
scorpion-tail
peninsulas
and
seas
within
seas.
The
villages
and
towns
sounded
inviting
-
Aerösköbing,
Skaerbaek,
Holsenbro,
the
intriguingly
specific
Middlefart
[...]
[Chapter 11
-
Gothenburg,
p. 142]
- [A
bistro
in
Stockholm
called
Matpalatset]
was
friendly
and
crowded
and
wonderfully
warm
and
snug,
but
the
food
was
the
worst
I
have
ever
had
outside
a
hospital
cafeteria
-
a
grey
salad
with
water
cucumber
and
mushrooms
that
tasted
of
old
newspaper,
and
a
lasagne
that
was
not
so
much
cooked
as
scorched.
Each
time
I
poked
it
with
my
knife
and
fork,
the
lasagne
recoiled
as
if
I
were
tormenting
it.
I
was
quietly
agog.
Nowhere
else
in
Europe
could
a
place
serve
food
this
bad
and
stay
in
business,
and
yet
people
were
queuing
at
the
door.
I
ate
it
all
because
I
was
hungry
and
because
it
was
costing
me
as
much
as
a
weekend
in
Brighton,
but
seldom
have
I
felt
more
as
if
I
were
engaged
in
a
simple
refuelling
exercise.
[Chapter 12
-
Stockholm,
p. 153-154]
- [...]
wandered
up
to
the
lofty
heights
of
the
Gianicolo,
where
the
views
across
the
city
were
sensational
and
where
young
couples
entwined
themselves
in
steamy
embraces
on
the
narrow
ledges.
The
Italians
appear
to
have
devised
a
way
of
having
sex
without
taking
their
clothes
off
and
they
were
going
at
it
hammer
and
tongs
up
here.
I
had
an
ice-cream
and
watched
to
see
how
many
of
them
tumbled
over
the
edge
to
dash
themselves
on
the
rocks
below,
but
none
did,
thank
goodness.
They
must
wear
suction
cups
on
their
backs.
For
a
week,
I
just
walked
and
walked.
[...]
And
when
I
tired
I
sat
with
a
coffee
or
sunned
myself
on
a
bench,
until
I
was
ready
to
walk
again.
Having
said
this,
Rome
is
not
an
especially
good
city
for
walking.
For
one
thing,
there
is
the
constant
danger
that
you
will
be
run
over.
Zebra
crossings
count
for
nothing
in
Rome,
which
is
not
unexpected
but
takes
some
getting
used
to.
It
is
a
shock
to
be
strolling
across
some
expansive
boulevard,
lost
in
an
idle
fantasy
involving
Ornella
Muti
and
a
vat
of
Jell-O,
when
suddenly
it
dawns
on
you
that
the
six
lanes
of
cars
bearing
down
on
you
have
no
intention
of
stopping.
It
isn't
that
they
want
to
hit
you,
as
they
do
in
Paris,
but
they
just
will
hit
you.
This
is
partly
because
Italian
drivers
pay
no
attention
to
anything
happening
on
the
road
ahead
of
them.
They
are
too
busy
tooting
their
horns,
gesticulating
wildly,
preventing
other
vehicles
from
cutting
into
their
lane,
making
love,
smacking
the
children
in
the
back
seat
and
eating
a
sandwich
the
size
of
a
baseball
bat,
often
all
at
once.
So
the
first
time
they
are
likely
to
notice
you
is
in
the
rear-view
mirror
as
something
lying
on
the
road
behind
them.
Even
if
they
do
see
you,
they
won't
stop.
There
is
nothing
personal
in
this.
It's
just
that
if
something
is
in
the
way
they
must
move
it,
whether
it
is
a
telephone
pole
or
a
visitor
from
the
Middle
West.
The
only
exception
to
this
is
nuns.
Even
Roman
drivers
won't
hit
a
nun
-
you
see
groups
of
them
breezing
across
eight-lane
arteries
with
the
most
amazing
impunity,
like
scraps
of
black
and
white
paper
borne
along
by
the
wind
-
so
if
you
wish
to
cross
some
busy
place
like
the
Piazza
Venezia
your
only
hope
is
to
wait
for
some
nuns
to
come
along
and
stick
to
them
like
a
sweaty
T-shirt.
I
love
the
way
Italians
park.
You
turn
any
street
corner
in
Rome
and
it
looks
as
though
you've
just
missed
a
parking
competition
for
blind
people.
[...]
Romans
park
their
cars
the
way
I
would
park
if
I
had
just
spilled
a
beaker
of
hydrochloric
acid
on
my
lap.
[...]
Italians
will
park
anywhere.
All
over
the
city
you
will
see
them
bullying
their
cars
into
spaces
about
the
size
of
a
sofa
cushion,
holding
up
traffic
and
prompting
every
driver
within
three
miles
to
lean
on
his
horn
and
give
a
passable
imitation
of
a
man
in
an
electric
chair.
If
the
opening
is
too
small
for
a
car,
Italians
will
decorate
it
with
litter
[...]
Italians
are
entirely
without
any
commitment
to
order.
They
live
their
lives
in
a
kind
of
pandemonium,
which
I
find
very
attractive.
They
don't
queue,
they
don't
pay
their
taxes,
they
don't
turn
up
for
appointments
on
time,
they
don't
undertake
any
sort
of
labour
without
a
small
bribe,
they
don't
believe
in
rules
at
all.
[...]
At
the
time
of
my
visit,
the
Italians
were
working
their
way
through
their
forty-eighth
government
in
forty-five
years.
The
country
has
the
social
structure
of
a
banana
republic,
yet
the
amazing
thing
is
that
it
thrives.
[Chapter 13
-
Rome,
p. 164-167]
- [...]
Eighty
per
cent
of
all
the
art
thefts
in
Europe
take
place
in
Italy.
This
casual
attitude
to
the
national
heritage
is
something
of
a
tradition
in
Rome.
For
a
thousand
years,
usually
with
the
blessings
of
the
Roman
Catholic
Church
(which
had
a
share
in
the
profits
and
a
lot
to
answer
for
generally,
if
you
ask
me),
builders
and
architects
looked
upon
the
city's
ancient
baths,
temples
and
other
timeless
monuments
as
quarries.
The
Colosseum
isn't
the
hulking
ruin
it
is
today
because
of
the
ravages
of
time,
but
because
for
hundreds
of
years
people
knocked
chunks
from
it
with
sledgehammers
and
carted
them
off
to
nearby
lime
kilns
to
turn
into
cement.
[...]
It
is
a
wonder
that
any
of
ancient
Rome
survives
at
all.
[Chapter 13
-
Rome,
p. 169]
- St
Peter's
doesn't
look
all
that
fabulous
from
the
outside,
not
at
least
from
the
piazza
at
its
foot,
but
step
inside
and
its
so
sensational
that
your
mouth
falls
open
whether
you
want
it
to
or
not.
It
is
a
marvel,
so
vast
and
beautiful
and
cool
and
filled
with
treasures
and
airy
heights
and
pale
beams
of
heavenly
light
that
you
don't
know
where
to
place
your
gaze.
It
is
the
only
building
I
have
ever
been
in
where
I
have
felt
like
sinking
to
my
knees,
clasping
my
hands
heavenward
and
crying,
"Take
me
home,
Lord."
No
structure
on
earth
would
ever
look
the
same
to
me
again.
[Chapter 13
-
Rome,
p. 171-172]
- On
my
final
morning
I
called
at
the
Capuchin
monks'
mausoleum
in
the
church
of
Santa
Maria
della
Concezione
on
the
busy
Piaza
Barberini.
This
I
cannot
recommend
highly
enough.
In
the
sixteenth
century
some
monk
had
the
inspired
idea
of
taking
the
bones
of
his
fellow
monks
when
they
died
and
using
them
to
decorate
the
place.
Is
that
rich
enough
for
you?
Half
a
dozen
gloomy
chambers
along
one
side
of
the
church
were
filled
with
such
attractions
as
an
altar
made
of
rib
cages,
shrines
meticulously
concocted
from
skulls
and
leg
bones,
ceilings
trimmed
with
forearms,
wall
rosettes
fashioned
form
vertebrae,
chandeliers
made
from
the
bones
of
hands
and
feet.
In
the
odd
corner
there
stood
a
complete
skeleton
of
a
Capuchin
monk
dressed
like
the
Grim
Reaper
in
his
hooded
robe,
and
ranged
along
the
other
wall
were
signs
in
six
languages
with
such
cheery
sentiments
as
"We
were
like
you.
You
will
be
like
us",
and
a
long
poem
engagingly
called
"My
Mother
Killed
Me!!".
[...]
Four
thousand
monks
contributed
to
the
display
between
1528
and
1870
when
the
practice
was
stopped
for
being
just
too
tacky
for
words.
No
one
knows
quite
why
or
by
whom
the
designs
were
made,
but
the
inescapable
impression
you
are
left
with
is
that
the
Capuchins
once
harboured
in
their
midst
a
half-mad
monk
with
time
on
his
hands
and
a
certain
passion
for
tidiness.
[...]
[Chapter 13
-
Rome,
p. 173-174]
- I
checked
out
of
my
hotel
and
walked
to
Roma-Termini.
It
was,
in
the
way
of
most
public
place
in
Italy,
a
madhouse.
At
every
ticket
window
customers
were
gesturing
wildly.
They
didn't
seem
so
much
to
be
buying
their
tickets
as
pouring
out
their
troubles
to
the
monumentally
indifferent
and
weary-looking
men
seated
behind
each
window.
It
is
amazing
how
much
emotion
the
Italians
invest
in
even
the
simplest
of
transactions.
I
had
to
wait
in
line
for
forty
minutes
while
a
series
of
people
ahead
of
me
tore
their
hair
and
bellowed
and
were
eventually
issued
with
a
ticket
and
came
away
looking
suddenly
happy.
[..]
You
need
a
pickaxe
to
keep
your
place
in
a
Roman
queue.
Finally,
about
a
minute
to
spare
before
my
train
left,
my
turn
came.
I
bought
a
second-class
ticket
to
Naples
-
it
was
easy;
I
don't
know
what
all
the
fuss
was
about
-
then
raced
around
the
corner
to
the
platform
and
did
something
I've
always
longed
to
do:
I
jumped
onto
a
moving
train
-
or,
to
be
slightly
more
precise,
fell
into
it,
like
a
mailbag
tossed
from
the
platform.
[Chapter 14
-
Naples,
Sorrento
and
Capri,
p. 175]
- The
citizens
of
Pozzuoli
[a
suburb
of
Naples]
enjoy
the
dubious
distinction
of
living
on
the
most
geologically
unstable
piece
of
land
on
the
planet,
the
terrestrial
equivalent
of
a
Vibro-Bed.
They
experience
up
to
4,000
earth
tremors
a
year,
sometimes
as
many
as
a
hundred
in
a
day.
People
in
Pozzuoli
are
so
used
to
having
pieces
of
plaster
fall
into
their
ragù
and
tumbling
chimney
blocks
knock
off
their
grannies
that
they
hardly
notice
it
any
more.
[Chapter 14
-
Naples,
Sorrento
and
Capri,
p. 181-182]
- Capri
town
was
gorgeous,
an
infinitely
charming
little
place
of
villas
and
tiny
lemon
groves
and
long
views
across
the
bay
to
Naples
and
Vesuvius.
The
heart
of
the
town
was
a
small
square,
the
Piazza
Umberto
I,
lined
with
cream-coloured
buildings
and
filled
with
tables
and
wicker
chairs
from
the
cafés
ranged
around
it.
At
one
end,
up
some
wide
steps,
stood
an
old
church,
dignified
and
white,
and
at
the
other
was
a
railinged
terrace
with
an
open
view
to
the
sea
far
below.
I
cannot
recall
a
more
beguiling
place
for
walking.
The
town
consisted
almost
entirely
of
a
complex
network
of
white-walled
lanes
and
passageways,
many
of
them
barely
wider
than
your
shoulders,
and
all
of
them
interconnected
in
a
wonderfully
bewildering
fashion,
so
that
I
would
constantly
find
myself
returning
unexpectedly
to
a
spot
I
had
departed
from
in
an
opposing
direction
ten
minutes
before.
Every
few
yards
an
iron
gate
would
be
set
on
the
wall
and
through
it
I
could
glimpse
a
white
cottage
in
a
jungle
of
flowery
shrubs
and,
usually,
a
quarry-tiled
terrace
overlooking
the
sea.
Every
few
yards
a
cross-passageway
would
plunge
off
down
the
hillside
or
a
set
of
steps
would
climb
half-way
to
the
clouds
to
a
scattering
of
villas
high
above.
I
wanted
every
house
I
saw.
There
were
no
roads
at
all,
apart
from
the
one
leading
from
the
harbour
to
the
town
and
onward
to
Anacapri,
on
the
far
side
of
the
island.
Everywhere
else
had
to
be
got
to
on
foot,
often
after
an
arduous
trek.
Capri
must
be
the
worst
place
in
the
world
to
be
a
washing-machine
delivery
man.
Most
of
the
shops
lay
beyond
the
church,
up
the
steps
from
the
central
piazza,
in
yet
another
series
of
lanes
and
little
squares
of
unutterable
charm.
They
all
had
names
like
Gucci
and
Yves
St
Laurent,
which
suggested
that
the
summertime
habitués
must
be
rich
and
insufferable,
but
mercifully
most
of
the
shops
were
not
open
and
there
was
no
sign
of
the
yachting-capped
assholes
and
bejewelled
crinkly
women
who
must
make
them
prosper
in
the
summer.
[...]
The
path
meandered
and
climbed,
so
much
so
that
I
grew
breathless
again
and
propelled
myself
onwards
by
pushing
my
hands
against
my
knees,
but
the
scenery
and
setting
were
so
fabulous
that
I
was
dragged
on,
as
if
by
magnets.
Near
the
top
of
the
hillside
the
path
levelled
out
and
ran
through
a
grove
of
pine
trees,
heaving
with
the
smell
of
rising
sap.
On
one
side
of
the
path
were
grand
villas
-
I
couldn't
imagine
by
what
method
they
got
the
furniture
there
when
people
moved
in
or
out
-
and
on
the
other
was
a
giddying
view
of
the
island:
white
villas
strewn
across
the
hillsides,
half
buried
in
hibiscus
and
bougainvillea
and
a
hundred
other
types
of
shrub.
It
was
nearly
dusk.
A
couple
of
hundred
yards
further
on
the
path
rounded
a
bend
through
the
trees
and
ended
suddenly,
breathtakingly,
in
a
viewing
platform
hanging
out
over
a
precipice
of
rock
-
a
little
patio
in
the
sky.
It
was
a
look-out
built
for
the
public,
but
I
had
the
feeling
that
no
one
had
been
there
for
years,
certainly
no
tourist.
It
was
the
sheerest
stroke
of
luck
that
I
had
stumbled
upon
it.
I
have
never
seen
anything
half
as
beautiful:
on
one
side
the
town
of
Capri
spilling
down
the
hillside,
on
the
other
the
twinkling
lights
of
the
cove
at
Anacapri
and
the
houses
gathered
around
it,
and
in
front
of
me
a
sheer
drop
of
-
what?
-
200
feet,
300
feet,
to
a
sea
of
the
lushest
aquamarine
washing
against
outcrops
of
jagged
rock.
The
sea
was
so
far
below
that
the
sound
of
breaking
waves
reached
me
as
the
faintest
of
whispers.
A
sliver
of
moon,
brilliantly
white,
hung
in
a
pale
blue
evening
sky,
a
warm
breeze
teased
my
hair
and
everywhere
there
was
the
smell
of
lemon,
honeysuckle
and
pine.
It
was
like
being
in
the
household-products
section
of
Sainsbury's.
Ahead
of
me
there
was
nothing
but
open
sea,
calm
and
seductive,
for
150
miles
to
Sicily.
[...]
[Chapter 14
-
Naples,
Sorrento
and
Capri,
p. 185-187]
- I
went
on
the
world's
slowest
train
to
Florence.
It
limped
across
the
landscape
like
a
runner
with
a
pulled
muscle,
and
it
had
no
buffet.
[...]
Every
two
or
three
miles
the
train
stopped
at
some
darkened
station
where
no
train
had
stopped
for
weeks,
where
grass
grew
on
the
platforms
and
where
no
one
got
on
and
no
one
got
off.
Sometimes
the
train
would
come
to
a
halt
in
the
middle
of
nowhere,
in
the
black
countryside,
and
just
sit.
It
would
sit
for
so
long
that
you
began
to
wonder
if
the
driver
had
gone
off
into
the
surrounding
fields
for
a
pee
and
fallen
down
a
well.
After
a
time
the
train
would
roll
backwards
for
perhaps
thirty
yards,
then
stop
and
sit
again.
Then
suddenly,
with
a
mighty
whomp
that
made
the
carriage
rock
and
the
windows
sound
as
if
they
were
about
to
implode,
a
train
on
the
parallel
line
would
fly
past.
Bright
lights
would
flash
by
-
you
could
see
people
in
there
dining
and
playing
cards,
having
a
wonderful
time,
moving
across
Europe
at
the
speed
of
a
laser
-
and
then
all
would
be
silence
again
and
we
would
sit
for
another
eternity
before
our
train
gathered
the
energy
to
creep
onwards
to
the
next
desolate
station.
[Chapter 15
-
Florence,
p. 193-194]
- Still
the
[hotel]
elevator
didn't
come.
I
decided
to
take
the
fire
stairs.
I
bounded
down
them
two
at
a
time,
the
whole
of
my
existence
dedicated
to
the
idea
of
a
beer
and
a
sandwich,
and
at
the
bottom
found
a
padlocked
door
and
a
sign
in
Italian
that
said
"If
there
is
ever
a
fire
here,
this
is
where
the
bodies
will
pile
up".
[Chapter 15
-
Florence,
p. 193-194]
- Afterwards
I
crossed
the
cathedral
square
[in
Milan]
to
the
Galleria
Vittorio
Emanuele
and
spent
a
happy
hour
wandering
through
it,
hands
behind
my
back,
browsing
in
the
windows
and
noting
with
unease
the
occasional
splats
from
the
pigeons
that
had
made
their
way
in
and
were
now
leading
a
rewarding
life
gliding
amongst
the
rafters
and
shitting
on
the
people
below.
It
is
an
imposing
shopping
arcade,
four
stories
high,
built
in
the
grandiose
style
of
the
1860s
and
still
probably
the
most
handsome
shopping
mall
in
the
world,
with
floors
of
neatly
patterned
tiles,
a
vaulted
latticework
root
of
glass
and
steel,
and
a
cupola
rising
160
feet
about
a
rotunda
where
the
two
interior
avenues
intersect.
It
has
the
loftiness
and
echoing
hush,
and
even
the
shape,
of
a
cathedral,
but
with
something
of
the
commercial
grandness
of
a
nineteenth-century
railway
station
thrown
in.
Every
shopping
centre
should
be
like
this.
[Chapter 16
-
Milan
and
Como,
p. 210]
- One
man
liked
[the
painting]
so
much
that
he
had
brought
his
own
folding
chair
and
was
just
sitting
there
with
arms
crossed
looking
at
it.
The
best
thing
about
the
Brera
[Gallery]
was
that
there
was
hardly
anyone
there,
just
a
few
locals
and
no
foreign
tourists
but
me.
After
Florence,
it
was
bliss
to
be
able
to
see
the
paintings
would
having
to
ask
someone
to
lift
me
up.
[Chapter 16
-
Milan
and
Como,
p. 213]
- [...]
I
remember
reading
that
Lake
Como
was
where
Mussolini
was
found
hiding
out
after
Italy
fell,
and
I
figured
it
must
have
something
going
for
it
if
it
was
the
last
refuge
of
a
desperate
man.
It
did.
It
was
a
lovely
little
city,
clean
and
perfect,
in
a
cupped
hand
of
Alpine
mountains
at
the
southern
end
of
the
narrow,
thirty-mile-long
lake
of
the
same
name.
It
is
only
a
small
place,
but
it
boasts
two
cathedrals,
two
railway
stations
(each
with
its
own
line
to
Milan),
two
grand
villas,
a
fetching
park,
a
lakeside
promenade
overhung
with
poplars
and
generously
adorned
with
green
wooden
benches,
and
a
maze
of
ancient
pedestrian-only
streets
filled
with
little
shops
and
secret
squares.
It
was
perfect,
perfect.
[Chapter 16
-
Milan
and
Como,
p. 215]
- They
don't
seem
to
eat
sandwiches
in
Locarno.
I
walked
all
around
the
business
district
and
had
trouble
finding
even
a
bakery.
When
at
last
I
did
find
one
it
seemed
to
sell
nothing
but
gooey
pastries,
though
they
did
have
a
pile
of
what
I
took
to
be
sausage
rolls.
Starving,
I
ordered
three,
at
considerable
expense,
and
went
outside
with
them.
But
they
turned
out
to
contain
mashed
figs
-
a
foodstuff
that
only
your
grandmother
would
eat,
and
only
then
because
she
couldn't
find
her
dentures
-
and
tasted
like
tea
leaves
soaked
in
cough
syrup.
I
gamely
nibbled
away
at
one
of
them,
but
it
was
too
awful
and
I
put
them
in
my
rucksack
with
the
idea
that
I
might
try
them
again
later.
In
the
event
I
forgot
about
them
and
didn't
rediscover
them
until
two
days
later
when
I
pulled
my
last
clean
shirt
from
the
rucksack
and
found
the
rolls
clinging
to
it.
[Chapter 16
-
Milan
and
Como,
p. 217]
- Locarno,
I
decided,
was
a
strange
place.
I
bought
a
ticket
on
the
two
o'clock
train
to
Domodossala,
a
name
that
can
be
pronounced
in
thirty-seven
ways.
The
man
in
the
ticket
window
made
me
try
out
all
of
them
[...]
I
waited
and
waited
on
the
platform,
but
the
train
never
came
and
it
seemed
off
that
no
one
else
was
waiting
with
me.
There
were
only
a
couple
of
trains
a
day
to
Domodossala.
Surely
there
would
be
at
least
one
or
two
other
passengers?
Finally,
I
went
and
asked
a
porter
and
he
indicated
to
me
[...]
that
I
had
to
take
a
bus
and,
when
pressed
as
to
where
I
might
find
this
bus,
motioned
vaguely
with
the
back
of
his
hand
in
the
direction
of
the
rest
of
the
world.
I
went
outside
just
in
time
to
see
the
bus
for
Domodossala
pulling
out.
Fortunately,
I
was
able
to
persuade
the
driver
to
stop
by
clinging
to
the
windscreen
for
two
hundred
yards.
I
was
desperate
to
get
out
of
there.
[Chapter 16
-
Milan
and
Como,
p. 218-219]
- I
examined
six
or
seven
restaurants,
mystified
by
the
menus,
wishing
I
knew
the
German
for
liver,
pig's
trotters
and
boiled
eyeball,
before
chancing
upon
an
establishment
called
the
Restaurant
de
la
Place
at
the
top
of
the
town.
Now
this
is
a
nice
surprise,
I
thought,
and
went
straight
in,
figuring
I'd
have
some
idea
what
I
was
ordering,
but
the
name
[...]
was
a
heartless
joke.
The
menu
here
was
in
German,
too.
It
really
is
the
most
unattractive
language
for
foodstuffs.
If
you
want
whipped
cream
in
your
coffee
in
much
of
the
German-speaking
world,
you
order
it
"mit
schlag".
Now,
does
that
sound
to
you
like
a
frothy
and
delicious
pick-me-up,
or
does
that
sound
like
the
sort
of
thing
smokers
bring
up
first
thing
in
the
morning?
Here
the
menu
was
full
of
items
that
brought
to
mind
the
noises
of
a
rutting
pig:
Knoblauchbrot,
Schweinskotelett
ihrer
Wahl,
Portion
Schlagobers
(and
that
was
a
dessert).
[Chapter 17
-
Switzerland,
p. 221-222]
- [...]
I
noticed
on
my
map
that
just
up
the
road
was
the
Mus&ecaute;e
International
de
la
Croix-Rouge
et
du
Croissant-Rouge
(International
Museum
of
the
Red
Cross
and
Red
Breakfast
Roll)
[...]
[Chapter 17
-
Switzerland,
p. 231]
- [...]
Bern
has
the
air
of
a
busy
provincial
market
town.
You
would
never
guess
that
it
is
a
national
capital.
This
is
partly
because
of
the
nature
of
Swiss
politics.
So
many
powers
are
devolved
to
the
cantons
and
to
national
referenda
that
Switzerland
doesn't
even
feel
the
need
to
have
a
prime
minister,
and
the
presidency
is
a
such
a
nominal
and
ceremonial
position
that
it
changes
hands
every
year.
They
wouldn't
have
a
president
at
all
except
that
they
need
somebody
to
greet
visiting
heads
of
state
at
the
airport.
[Chapter 17
-
Switzerland,
p. 234]
- You
know
when
you
are
entering
the
German-speaking
part
of
Switzerland
because
all
the
towns
have
names
that
sound
like
someone
talking
with
his
mouth
full
of
bread:
Thun,
Leuk,
Plaffein,
Flims,
Gstaad,
Pfäffikon,
Linthal,
Thusis,
Fluelen,
Thalwil.
[Chapter 18
-
Liechtenstein,
p. 238]
- The
people
of
McDonald's
need
guidance.
They
need
to
be
told
that
Europe
is
not
Disneyland.
They
need
to
be
instructed
to
take
suitable
premises
on
a
side
street
and
given,
without
option,
a
shop
design
that
is
recognizable,
appropriate
to
its
function
and
yet
reasonably
subdued.
It
should
look
like
a
normal
European
bistro,
with
perhaps
little
red
curtains
and
a
decorative
aquarium
and
nothing
to
tell
you
from
the
outside
that
this
is
a
McDonald's
except
for
a
discrete
golden-arches
transfer
on
each
window
and
steady
stream
of
people
with
enormous
asses
going
in
and
out
of
the
door.
While
we're
at
it,
they
should
be
told
that
they
will
no
longer
be
allowed
to
provide
each
customer
with
his
own
weight
in
styrofoam
boxes
and
waste
paper.
And
finally
they
have
to
promise
to
shoot
Ronald.
When
these
conditions
are
met,
McDonald's
should
be
allowed
to
operate
in
Europe,
but
not
until.
[Chapter 19
-
Austria,
p. 253]
- The
bus
was
crowded
-
buses
in
Yugoslavia
always
are
-
but
I
found
a
seat
three-quarters
of
the
way
back
and
gripped
the
seat
bar
in
front
of
me
with
both
hands.
When
Katz
and
I
had
crossed
Yugoslavia,
it
had
been
nothing
if
not
exciting.
The
roads
through
the
mountains
were
perilous
beyond
words,
much
too
narrow
for
a
bus,
full
of
impossible
bends
and
sheer
falls
from
unimaginable
heights.
Our
driver
was
an
escaped
lunatic
who
had
somehow
talked
his
way
into
a
job
with
the
bus
company.
Young
and
handsome,
wearing
his
cap
at
a
rakish
angle,
he
drove
as
if
cheerfully
possessed,
passing
on
blind
bends,
driving
at
break-neck
speed,
honking
at
everything,
slowing
for
nothing.
He
sang
hearty
tunes
and
carried
on
lively
conversations
with
the
passengers
-
often
turning
around
in
his
seat
to
address
them
directly
-
while
simultaneously
sweeping
us
along
the
edge
of
ragged
roads
on
the
brink
of
sheer-side
cliffs.
I
remember
pressing
my
face
to
the
window
many
times
and
being
able
to
see
no
road
beneath
us
-
just
a
straight
drop
and
the
sort
of
views
you
get
from
an
aeroplane.
There
was
never
more
than
an
inch
of
shoulder
standing
between
us
and
wingless
flight.
[...]
I
was
looking
forward
to
the
dangers
of
the
mountain
road
-
it
was
such
an
exhilarating
combination
of
terror
and
excitement,
like
having
a
heart
attack
and
enjoying
it.
The
bus
laboured
through
the
streets
of
Split
and
up
into
the
steep,
cement-coloured
mountains
at
its
back.
I
was
disappointed
to
discover
that
the
roads
had
been
improved
in
my
long
absence
[...]
and
that
the
driver
was
not
obviously
psychotic.
He
drove
with
both
hands
and
kept
his
eyes
on
the
road.
[Chapter 20
-
Yugoslavia,
p. 276-277]
- In
Britain
it
had
been
a
year
without
summer.
Wet
spring
had
merged
imperceptibly
into
bleak
autumn.
For
months
the
sky
had
remained
a
depthless
gray.
Sometimes
it
rained,
but
mostly
it
was
just
dull,
a
land
without
shadows.
It
was
like
living
inside
Tupperware.
[Chapter 2,
p. 13]
- When
we
arrived,
my
grandmother
would
scuttle
off
to
pull
something
fresh-baked
out
of
the
oven.
This
was
always
something
unusual.
My
grandmother
was
the
only
person
I
ever
knew-possibly
the
only
person
who
ever
lived-who
actually
made
things
from
the
recipes
on
the
backs
of
food
packets.
These
dishes
always
had
names
like
Rice
Krispies
'n'
Banana
Chunks
Upside
Down
Cake
or
Del
Monte
Lima
Bean
'n'
Pretzels
Party
Snacks.
Generally
they
consisted
of
suspiciously
large
amounts
of
the
manufacturer's
own
products,
usually
in
combinations
you
wouldn't
think
of
except
perhaps
in
an
especially
severe
famine.
The
one
thing
to
be
said
for
these
dishes
was
that
they
were
novel.
When
my
grandmother
offered
you
a
steaming
slab
of
cake
or
wedge
of
pie
it
might
contain
almost
anything
--
Niblets
sweet
corn,
chocolate
chips,
Spam,
diced
carrots,
peanut
butter.
Generally
it
would
have
some
Rice
Krispies
in
it
somewhere.
My
grandmother
was
particularly
partial
to
Rice
Krispies
and
would
add
a
couple
of
shovelfuls
to
whatever
she
made,
even
if
the
recipe
didn't
call
for
it.
She
was
about
as
bad
a
cook
as
you
can
be
without
actually
being
hazardous.
[Chapter 2,
p. 18]
- [...]
I
went
into
my
room
with
my
bag
and
had
a
look
around,
as
you
do
in
a
new
place.
There
was
a
black-and-white
TV,
which
appeared
to
get
only
one
channel,
and
three
bent
coat
hangers.
The
bathroom
mirror
was
cracked,
and
the
shower
curtains
didn't
match.
The
toilet
seat
had
a
strip
of
paper
across
it
saying
"Sanitized
For
Your
Protection",
but
floating
beneath
it
was
a
cigarette
butt,
adrift
in
a
little
circle
of
nicotine.
Dad
would
have
liked
it
here,
I
thought.
I
had
a
shower
--
that
is
to
say,
water
dribbled
onto
my
head
from
a
nozzle
in
the
wall
--
and
afterwards
went
out
to
check
out
the
town.
I
had
a
meal
of
gristle
and
baked
whiffle
ball
at
a
place
called,
aptly,
Chuck's.
I
didn't
think
it
was
possible
to
get
a
truly
bad
meal
anywhere
in
the
Midwest,
but
Chuck
managed
to
provide
it.
It
was
the
worst
food
I
had
ever
had
--
and
remember,
I've
lived
in
England.
It
had
all
the
attributes
of
chewing
gum,
except
flavor.
Even
now
when
I
burp
I
can
taste
it.
[Chapter 3,
p. 26]
- In
a
forlorn
effort
to
keep
from
losing
my
mind,
I
switched
on
the
radio,
but
then
I
remembered
that
American
radio
is
designed
for
people
who
have
already
lost
their
minds.
[...]
I
twirled
the
dial.
A
voice
said,
"We'll
return
to
our
discussion
of
maleness
in
sixty
seconds."
I
twirled
the
dial.
The
warbling
voice
of
a
female
country
singer
intoned:
His
hands
are
tiny
His
legs
are
short
But
I
lean
upon
him
For
my
child
support.
[Chapter 4,
p. 40]
- [...]
Signs
came
and
went:
TEE
PEE
MINI
MART,
B-RITE
FOOD
STORE,
BETTY'S
BEAUTY
Box,
SAV-A-LOT
FOOD
CENTER,
PINCKNEYVILLE
COON
CLUB,
BALD
KNOB
TRAILER
COURT,
DAIRY
DELITE,
ALL
U
CAN
EAT.
In
between
these
shrines
to
dyslexia
and
free
enterprise
there
were
clearings
on
the
hillsides
where
farmhouses
stood.
[...]
[Chapter 4,
p. 41]
- It
used
to
be
that
when
you
came
to
the
outskirts
of
a
town
you
would
find
a
gas
station
and
a
Dairy
Queen,
maybe
a
motel
or
two
if
it
was
a
busy
road
or
the
town
had
a
college.
Now
every
town,
even
a
quite
modest
one,
has
a
mile
or
more
of
fast-food
places,
motor
inns,
discount
cities,
shopping
malls
-
all
with
thirty-foot-high
revolving
signs
and
parking
lots
the
size
of
Shropshire.
Carbondale
appeared
to
have
nothing
else.
I
drove
in
on
a
road
that
became
a
two-mile
strip
of
shopping
centers
and
gas
stations,
K-Marts,
J.
C.
Penneys,
Hardees
and
McDonald's.
And
then,
abruptly,
I
was
in
the
country
again.
I
turned
around
and
drove
back
through
town
on
a
parallel
street
that
offered
precisely
the
same
sort
of
things
but
in
slightly
different
configurations
and
then
I
was
in
the
country
again.
The
town
had
no
center.
It
had
been
eaten
by
shopping
malls.
I
got
a
room
in
the
Heritage
Motor
Inn,
then
went
out
for
a
walk
to
try
once
more
to
find
Carbondale.
But
there
really
was
nothing
there.
[...]
here
was
no
square
to
stroll
to,
no
Betty's,
no
blue-plate
specials,
no
Vern's
Midnite
Tavern,
no
movie
theater,
no
bowling
alley.
There
was
no
town,
just
six-lane
highways
and
shopping
malls.
There
weren't
even
any
sidewalks.
Going
for
a
walk,
as
I
discovered,
was
a
ridiculous
and
impossible
undertaking.
I
had
to
cross
parking
lots
and
gas
station
forecourts,
and
I
kept
coming
up
against
little
white-painted
walls
marking
the
boundaries
between,
say,
Long
John
Silver's
Seafood
Shoppe
and
Kentucky
Fried
Chicken.
To
get
from
one
to
the
other,
it
was
necessary
to
clamber
over
the
wall,
scramble
up
a
grassy
embankment
and
pick
your
way
through
a
thicket
of
parked
cars.
That
is
if
you
were
on
foot.
But
clearly
from
the
looks
people
gave
me
as
I
lumbered
breathlessly
over
the
embankment,
no
one
had
ever
tried
to
go
from
one
of
these
places
to
another
under
his
own
motive
power.
What
you
were
supposed
to
do
was
get
in
your
car,
drive
twelve
feet
down
the
street
to
another
parking
lot,
park
the
car
and
get
out.
[...]
[Chapter 4,
p. 41-42]
- I
looked
at
the
other
magazines.
There
were
at
least
zoo
of
them,
but
they
all
had
titles
like
Machine-Gun
Collector,
Obese
Bride,
Christian
Woodworker,
Home
Surgery
Digest.
There
was
nothing
for
a
normal
person,
so
I
left.
[Chapter 6,
p. 56]
- I
could
live
here,
I
thought.
But
then
the
waitress
came
over
and
said,
"Yew
honestly
a
breast
menu,
honey?"
and
I
realized
that
it
was
out
of
the
question.
I
couldn't
understand
a
word
these
people
said
to
me.
She
might
as
well
have
addressed
me
in
Dutch.
It
took
many
moments
and
much
gesturing
with
a
knife
and
fork
to
establish
that
what
she
had
said
to
me
was
"Do
you
want
to
see
a
breakfast
menu,
honey?"
[...]
[Chapter 7,
p. 62]
- [...]
I
passed
through
a
little
town
called
Pine
Mountain,
which
seemed
to
have
everything
you
could
want
in
an
inland
resort.
It
was
attractive
and
had
nice
shops.
The
only
thing
it
lacked
was
a
mountain,
which
was
a
bit
of
a
disappointment
considering
its
name.
I
had
intentionally
chosen
this
route
because
Pine
Mountain
conjured
up
to
my
simple
mind
a
vision
of
clean
air,
craggy
precipices,
scented
forests
and
tumbling
streams
[...]
Still,
who
could
blame
the
locals
if
they
stretched
the
truth
a
little
in
the
pursuit
of
a
dollar?
You
could
hardly
expect
people
to
drive
miles
out
of
their
way
to
visit
something
called
Pine
Flat-Place.
[...]
From
Warm
Springs
I
went
some
miles
out
of
my
way
to
take
the
scenic
road
into
Macon,
but
there
didn't
seem
to
be
a
whole
lot
scenic
about
it.
It
wasn't
unscenic
particularly,
it
just
wasn't
scenic.
I
was
beginning
to
suspect
that
the
scenic
route
designations
on
my
maps
had
been
applied
somewhat
at
random.
I
imagined
some
guy
who
had
never
been
south
of
Jersey
City
sitting
in
an
office
in
New
York
and
saying,
"Warm
Springs
to
Macon?
Oooh,
that
sounds
nice,"
and
then
carefully
drawing
in
the
orange
dotted
line
that
signifies
a
scenic
route,
his
tongue
sticking
ever
so
slightly
out
of
the
corner
of
his
mouth.
[Chapter 8,
p. 67,70]
- I
stood
agog
in
Lafayette
Square
in
Savannah,
amid
brick
paths,
trickling
fountains
and
dark
trees
hung
with
Spanish
moss.
Before
me
rose
up
a
cathedral
of
exquisite
linen-fresh
whiteness
with
twin
Gothic
spires,
and
around
it
stood
zoo-year-old
houses
of
weathered
brick,
with
hurricane
shutters
that
clearly
were
still
used.
I
did
not
know
that
such
perfection
existed
in
America.
There
are
twenty
such
squares
in
Savannah,
cool
and
quiet
beneath
a
canopy
of
trees,
and
long
straight
side
streets
equally
dark
and
serene.
It
is
only
when
you
stumble
out
of
this
urban
rain
forest,
out
into
the
open
streets
of
the
modern
city,
exposed
to
the
glare
of
the
boiling
sun,
that
you
realize
just
how
sweltering
the
South
can
be.
This
was
October,
a
time
of
flannel
shirts
and
hot
toddies
in
Iowa,
but
here
summer
was
unrelenting.
It
was
only
eight
in
the
morning
and
already
businessmen
were
loosening
their
ties
and
mopping
their
foreheads.
What
must
it
be
like
in
August?
Every
store
and
restaurant
is
air-conditioned.
You
step
inside
and
the
sweat
is
freeze-dried
on
your
arms.
Step
back
outside
and
the
air
meets
you
as
something
hot
and
unpleasant,
like
a
dog's
breath.
It
is
only
in
Savannah's
squares
that
the
climate
achieves
a
kind
of
pleasing
equilibrium.
Savannah
is
a
seductive
city
and
I
found
myself
wandering
almost
involuntarily
for
hours.
The
city
has
more
than
1,000
historic
buildings,
many
of
them
still
lived
in
as
houses.
This
was,
New
York
apart,
the
first
American
city
I
had
ever
been
in
where
people
actually
lived
downtown.
What
a
difference
it
makes,
how
much
more
vibrant
and
alive
it
all
seems,
to
see
children
playing
ball
in
the
street
or
skipping
rope
on
the
front
stoops.
[...]
[Chapter 8,
p. 70-71]
- [...]
You
are
always
reading
how
buoyant
the
movie
industry
is
in
America,
but
all
the
theaters
now
are
at
shopping
malls
in
the
suburbs.
You
go
to
the
movies
there
and
you
get
a
choice
of
a
dozen
pictures,
but
each
theater
is
about
the
size
of
a
large
fridge-freezer
and
only
marginally
more
comfortable.
There
are
no
balconies.
Can
you
imagine
that?
Can
you
imagine
movie
theaters
without
balconies?
To
me
going
to
the
movies
means
sitting
in
the
front
row
of
the
balcony
with
your
feet
up,
dropping
empty
candy
boxes
onto
the
people
below
(or,
during
the
more
boring
love
scenes,
dribbling
Coke)
and
throwing
Nibs
at
the
screen.
Nibs
were
a
licorice-flavored
candy,
thought
to
be
made
from
rubber
left
over
from
the
Korean
War,
which
had
a
strange
popularity
in
the
1950s.
They
were
practically
inedible,
but
if
you
sucked
on
one
of
them
for
a
minute
and
then
threw
it
at
the
screen,
it
would
stick
with
an
interesting
pock
sound.
It
was
a
tradition
on
Saturdays
for
everybody
to
take
the
bus
downtown
to
the
Orpheum,
buy
a
box
of
Nibs
and
spend
the
afternoon
bombarding
the
screen.
You
had
to
be
careful
when
you
did
this
because
the
theater
manager
employed
vicious
usherettes,
dropouts
from
Tech
High
School
whose
one
regret
in
life
was
that
they
hadn't
been
born
into
Hitler's
Germany,
who
patrolled
the
aisles
with
highpowered
flashlights
looking
for
children
who
were
misbehaving.
Two
or
three
times
during
the
film
their
darting
lights
would
fix
on
some
hapless
youngster,
half
out
of
his
seat,
poised
in
throwing
position
with
a
moistened
Nib
in
his
hand,
and
they
would
rush
to
subdue
him.
He
would
be
carried
off
squealing.
This
never
happened
to
my
friends
or
me,
thank
God,
but
we
always
assumed
that
the
victims
were
taken
away
and
tortured
with
electrical
instruments
before
being
turned
over
to
the
police
for
a
long
period
of
mental
readjustment
in
a
reform
school.
Those
were
the
days!
You
cannot
tell
me
that
some
suburban
multiplex
with
shoebox
theaters
and
screens
the
size
of
bath
towels
can
offer
anything
like
the
enchantment
and
community
spirit
of
a
cavernous
downtown
movie
house.
Nobody
seems
to
have
noticed
it
yet,
but
ours
could
well
be
the
last
generation
for
which
moviegoing
has
anything
like
a
sense
of
magic.
[Chapter 8,
p. 72]
- [...]
I
was
gratified
to
note
that
almost
everything
had
a
Bryson
City
sign
on
it
--
Bryson
City
Laundry,
Bryson
City
Coal
and
Lumber,
Bryson
City
Church
of
Christ,
Bryson
City
Electronics,
Bryson
City
Police
Department,
Bryson
City
Fire
Department,
Bryson
City
Post
Office.
I
began
to
appreciate
how
George
Washington
might
feel
if
he
were
to
be
brought
back
to
life
and
set
down
in
the
District
of
Columbia.
I
don't
know
who
the
Bryson
was
whom
this
town
was
so
signally
honoring,
but
I
had
certainly
never
seen
my
name
spread
around
so
lavishly,
and
I
regretted
that
I
hadn't
brought
a
crowbar
and
monkey
wrench
because
many
of
the
signs
would
have
made
splendid
keepsakes.
I
particularly
fancied
having
the
Bryson
City
Church
of
Christ
sign
beside
my
front
gate
in
England
and
being
able
to
put
up
different
messages
every
week
like
"Repent
Now,
Limeys."
[Chapter 9,
p. 80-81]
- All
morning
I
had
been
troubled
by
a
vague
sense
of
something
being
missing,
and
then
it
occurred
to
me
what
it
was.
There
were
no
hikers
such
as
you
would
see
in
England
--
no
people
in
stout
boots
and
short
pants,
with
knee-high
tasseled
stockings.
No
little
rucksacks
full
of
sandwiches
and
flasks
of
tea.
and
baker's
caps
laboring
breathlessly
up
the
mountainsides,
slowing
up
traffic.
What
slowed
the
traffic
here
were
the
massive
motor
homes
lumbering
up
and
down
the
mountain
passes.
Some
of
them,
amazingly,
had
cars
tethered
to
their
rear
bumpers,
like
dinghies.
I
got
stuck
behind
one
on
the
long,
sinuous
descent
down
the
mountain
into
Tennessee.
It
was
so
wide
that
it
could
barely
stay
within
its
lane
and
kept
threatening
to
nudge
oncoming
cars
off
into
the
picturesque
void
to
our
left.
That,
alas,
is
the
way
of
vacationing
nowadays
for
many
people.
The
whole
idea
is
not
to
expose
yourself
to
a
moment
of
discomfort
or
inconvenience
--
indeed,
not
to
breathe
fresh
air
if
possible.
When
the
urge
to
travel
seizes
you,
you
pile
into
your
thirteen-ton
tin
palace
and
drive
400
miles
across
the
country,
hermetically
sealed
against
the
elements,
and
stop
at
a
campground
where
you
dash
to
plug
into
their
water
supply
and
electricity
so
that
you
don't
have
to
go
a
single
moment
without
air-conditioning
or
dishwasher
and
microwave
facilities.
These
things,
these
RVs,
are
like
life-support
systems
on
wheels.
Astronauts
go
to
the
moon
with
less
backup.
RV
people
are
another
breed
--
and
a
largely
demented
one
at
that.
They
become
obsessed
with
trying
to
equip
their
vehicles
with
gadgets
to
deal
with
every
possible
contingency.
Their
lives
become
ruled
by
the
dread
thought
that
one
day
they
may
find
themselves
in
a
situation
in
which
they
are
not
entirely
self-sufficient.
[...]
[Chapter 9,
p. 84-85]
- At
the
foot
of
the
mountain,
the
park
ended
and
suddenly
all
was
squalor
again.
I
was
once
more
struck
by
this
strange
compartmentalization
that
goes
on
in
America
--
a
belief
that
no
commercial
activities
must
be
allowed
inside
the
park,
but
permitting
unrestrained
development
outside,
even
though
the
landscape
there
may
be
just
as
outstanding.
America
has
never
quite
grasped
that
you
can
live
in
a
place
without
making
it
ugly,
that
beauty
doesn't
have
to
be
confined
behind
fences,
as
if
a
national
park
were
a
sort
of
zoo
for
nature.
The
ugliness
intensified
to
fever
pitch
as
I
rolled
into
Gatlinburg,
a
community
that
had
evidently
dedicated
itself
to
the
endless
quest
of
trying
to
redefine
the
lower
limits
of
bad
taste.
It
is
the
world
capital
of
tat.
It
made
Cherokee
look
decorous.
There
is
not
much
more
to
it
than
a
single
milelong
main
street,
but
it
was
packed
from
end
to
end
with
the
most
dazzling
profusion
of
tourist
clutter
-
the
Elvis
Presley
Hall
of
Fame,
[...]
the
National
Bible
Museum,
Hillbilly
Village,
Ripley's
Believe
It
or
Not
Museum,
the
American
Historical
Wax
Museum,
Gatlinburg
Space
Needle,
something
called
Paradise
Island,
something
else
called
World
of
Illusions,
[...]
Guinness
Book
of
Records
Exhibition
Center
and,
not
least,
the
Irlene
Mandrell
Hall
of
Stars
Museum
and
Shopping
Mall.
In
between
this
galaxy
of
entertainments
were
scores
of
parking
lots
and
noisy,
crowded
restaurants,
junk-food
stalls,
ice
cream
parlors
and
gift
shops
of
the
sort
that
sell
"wanted"
posters
with
YOUR
NAME
HERE
and
baseball
caps
with
droll
embellishments,
like
a
coil
of
realistic-looking
plastic
turd
on
the
brim.
[...]
I
loved
it.
When
I
was
growing
up,
we
never
got
to
go
to
places
like
Gatlinburg.
My
father
would
rather
have
given
himself
brain
surgery
with
a
Black
and
Decker
drill
than
spend
an
hour
in
such
a
place.
He
had
just
two
criteria
for
gauging
the
worth
of
a
holiday
attraction:
Was
it
educational
and
was
it
free?
Gatlinburg
was
patently
neither
of
these.
His
idea
of
holiday
heaven
was
a
museum
without
an
admission
charge.
[...]
So
Gatlinburg
to
me
was
a
heady
experience.
I
felt
like
a
priest
let
loose
in
Las
Vegas
with
a
sockful
of
quarters.
All
the
noise
and
glitter,
and
above
all
the
possibilities
for
running
through
irresponsible
sums
of
money
in
a
short
period,
made
me
giddy.
[...]
I
went
through
the
Ripley's
Believe
It
or
Not
Museum
and
I
savored
every
artifact
and
tasteless
oddity.
It
was
outstanding.
I
mean
honestly,
where
else
are
you
going
to
see
a
replica
of
Columbus's
flagship,
the
Santa
Maria,
made
entirely
of
chicken
bones?
And
how
can
you
possibly
put
a
price
on
seeing
an
eightfoot-long
model
of
the
Circus
Maximus
constructed
of
sugar
cubes,
or
the
death
mask
of
John
Dillinger,
or
a
room
made
entirely
of
matchsticks
by
one
Reg
Polland
of
Manchester,
England
(well
done,
Reg;
Britain
is
proud
of
you)?
We
are
talking
lasting
memories
here.
[...]
[Chapter 9,
p. 86-88]
- [...]
For
a
while
it
troubled
me
that
I
could
live
in
America
for
twenty
years,
have
the
benefit
of
an
expensive
education
and
not
know
anything
at
all
about
one
of
the
fifty
states.
I
went
around
asking
people
if
they
had
ever
heard
Delaware
mentioned
on
television
or
seen
a
story
pertaining
to
it
in
the
newspaper
or
read
a
novel
set
there
and
they'd
say,
"You
know,
I
don't
think
I
ever
have,"
and
then
they'd
look
kind
of
troubled
too.
I
determined
that
I
would
read
up
on
Delaware
[...]
But
I
could
find
almost
nothing
written
about
Delaware
anywhere.
Even
the
entry
in
the
Encyclopaedia
Britannica
was
only
about
two
paragraphs
long
and
finished
in
the
middle
of
a
sentence,
as
I
recall.
And
the
funny
thing
was
that
as
I
drove
across
Delaware
now
I
could
feel
it
vanishing
from
my
memory
as
I
went,
like
those
children's
drawing
slates
on
which
you
erase
the
picture
by
lifting
the
transparent
sheet.
It
was
as
if
a
giant
sheet
were
being
lifted
up
behind
me
as
I
drove,
expunging
the
experience
as
it
unfolded.
[...]
[Chapter 12,
p. 109]
- [...]
Do
you
know
that
if
you
are
a
black
man
in
urban
America
you
now
stand
a
one-in-nineteen
chance
of
being
murdered?
In
World
War
11,
the
odds
of
being
killed
were
one
in
fifty.
In
New
York
City
there
is
one
murder
every
four
hours.
Murder
there
has
become
the
most
common
cause
of
death
for
people
under
thirty-five-and
yet
New
York
isn't
even
the
most
murderous
city
in
America.
At
least
eight
other
cities
have
a
higher
murder
rate.
In
Los
Angeles
there
are
more
murders
on
schoolgrounds
alone
each
year
than
there
are
in
the
whole
of
London.
So
perhaps
it
is
little
wonder
that
people
in
American
cities
take
violence
as
routine.
I
don't
know
how
they
do
it.
[Chapter 13,
p. 111]
- [...]
Through
my
dad's
old
binoculars
I
could
clearly
see
how
Pickett's
troops
had
advanced
from
the
direction
of
the
town,
a
mile
or
so
to
the
north,
sweeping
across
the
Burger
King
parking
lot,
skirting
the
Tastee
Delite
Drive-In
and
regrouping
just
outside
the
Crap-o-Rama
Wax
Museum
and
Gift
Shop.
It's
all
very
sad.
Ten
thousand
soldiers
fell
there
in
an
hour;
two
out
of
every
three
Confederate
soldiers
didn't
make
it
back
to
base.
It
is
a
pity,
verging
on
the
criminal,
that
so
much
of
the
town
of
Gettysburg
has
been
spoiled
with
tourist
tat
and
that
it
is
so
visible
from
the
battlefield.
[Chapter 13,
p. 117]
- You
only
go
on
a
long-distance
bus
in
the
United
States
because
either
you
cannot
afford
to
fly
or
--
and
this
is
really
licking
the
bottom
of
the
barrel
in
America
--
you
cannot
afford
a
car.
Being
unable
to
afford
a
car
in
America
is
the
last
step
before
living
out
of
a
plastic
sack.
As
a
result,
most
of
the
people
on
long-distance
buses
are
one
of
the
following:
mentally
defective,
actively
schizoid,
armed
and
dangerous,
in
a
drugged
stupor,
just
released
from
prison
or
nuns.
Occasionally
you
will
also
see
a
pair
of
Norwegian
students.
You
can
tell
they
are
Norwegian
students
because
they
are
so
pink
faced
and
healthy-looking
and
they
wear
little
pale
blue
ankle
socks
with
their
sandals.
By
and
large
a
ride
on
a
long-distance
bus
in
America
combines
most
of
the
shortcomings
of
prison
life
with
those
of
an
ocean
crossing
in
a
troopship.
So
when
the
bus
pulled
up
before
me,
heaving
a
pneumatic
sigh,
and
its
doors
flapped
open,
1
boarded
it
with
some
misgivings.
The
driver
himself
didn't
look
any
too
stable.
He
had
the
sort
of
hair
you
associate
with
people
who
have
had
accidents
involving
live
wires.
There
were
about
half
a
dozen
other
passengers,
though
only
two
of
them
looked
seriously
dangerous
and
just
one
was
talking
to
himself.
I
took
a
seat
near
the
back
and
settled
down
to
get
some
sleep.
I
had
drunk
far
too
many
beers
with
my
brother
the
night
before,
and
the
hot
spices
from
the
submarine
sandwich
were
now
expanding
ominously
inside
my
abdomen
and
drifting
around
like
that
stuff
they
put
in
lava
lamps.
Soon
from
one
end
or
the
other
it
would
begin
to
seep
out.
[Chapter 14,
p. 124-125]
- Twenty-five
years
ago
Lake
Erie
was
declared
dead.
Driving
along
its
southern
shore,
gazing
out
at
its
flat
gray
immensity,
I
thought
this
appeared
to
be
a
remarkable
achievement.
It
hardly
seemed
possible
that
something
as
small
as
man
could
kill
something
as
large
as
a
Great
Lake.
But
just
in
the
space
of
a
century
or
so
we
managed
it.
Thanks
to
lax
factory
laws
and
the
triumph
of
greed
over
nature
in
places
like
Cleveland,
Buffalo,
Toledo,
Sandusky
and
other
bustling
centers
of
soot
and
grit,
Lake
Erie
was
transformed
in
just
three
generations
from
a
bowl
of
blue
water
into
a
large
toilet.
Cleveland
was
the
worst
offender.
Cleveland
was
so
vile
that
its
river,
a
slow-moving
sludge
of
chemicals
and
half-digested
solids
called
the
Cuyahoga,
once
actually
caught
fire
and
burned
out
of
control
for
four
days.
This
also
was
a
remarkable
achievement,
I
feel.
Things
are
said
to
be
better
now.
According
to
a
story
in
the
Cleveland
Free
Press,
which
I
read
during
a
stop
for
coffee
near
Ashtabula,
an
official
panel
with
the
ponderous
title
of
the
International
Joint
Commission's
Great
Lakes
Water
Quality
Board
had
just
released
a
survey
of
chemical
substances
in
the
lake,
and
it
had
found
only
362
types
of
chemicals
in
the
lake
compared
with
more
than
a
thousand
the
last
time
they
had
counted.
That
still
seemed
an
awful
lot
to
me
and
I
was
surprised
to
see
a
pair
of
fishermen
standing
on
the
shore,
hunched
down
in
the
drizzle,
hurling
lines
out
onto
the
greenish
murk
with
long
poles.
Maybe
they
were
fishing
for
chemicals.
[Chapter 17,
p. 153-154]
- To
relieve
the
tedium
I
switched
on
the
radio.
In
fact,
I
had
been
switching
it
on
and
off
all
day,
listening
for
a
while
but
then
giving
up
in
despair.
Unless
you
have
lived
through
it,
you
cannot
conceive
of
the
sense
of
hopelessness
that
comes
with
hearing
"Hotel
California"
by
the
Eagles
for
the
fourteenth
time
in
three
hours.
You
can
feel
your
brain
cells
disappearing
with
little
popping
sounds.
[...]
Over
and
over
I
searched
the
airwaves
for
something
to
listen
to,
but
I
could
find
nothing.
It
wasn't
as
if
I
was
asking
for
all
that
much.
All
I
wanted
was
a
station
that
didn't
play
endless
songs
by
bouncy
prepubescent
girls,
didn't
employ
disc
jockeys
Who
said
"H-e-y-y-y-y"
more
than
once
every
six
seconds
and
didn't
keep
telling
me
how
much
Jesus
loved
me.
[...]
[...]
Late
in
the
afternoon,
I
happened
onto
a
news
broadcast
by
some
station
in
Crudbucket,
Ohio,
or
some
such
place.
American
radio
news
broadcasts
usually
last
about
thirty
seconds.
It
went
like
this:
"A
young
Crudbucket
couple,
Dwayne
and
Wanda
Dreary
and
their
seven
children,
Ronnie,
Lonnie,
Connie,
Donnie,
Johnny
and
Tammy-Wynette,
were
killed
when
a
light
airplane
crashed
into
their
house
and
burst
into
flames.
Fire
Chief
Walter
Water
said
he
could
not
at
this
stage
rule
out
arson.
On
Wall
Street,
shares
had
their
biggest
one-day
fall
in
history,
losing
508
points.
And
the
weather
outlook
for
greater
Crudville:
clear
skies
with
a
2
percent
chance
of
precipitation.
You're
listening
to
radio
station
K-R-U-D
where
you
get
more
rock
and
less
talk."
There
then
followed
"Hotel
California"
by
the
Eagles.
I
stared
at
the
radio,
wondering
whether
I
had
heard
that
second
item
right.
The
biggest
one-day
fall
in
shares
in
history?
The
collapse
of
the
American
economy?
I
twirled
the
dial
and
found
another
news
broadcast:
"...but
Senator
Pootang
denied
that
the
use
of
the
four
Cadillacs
and
the
trips
to
Hawaii
were
in
any
way
connected
with
the
$120
million
contract
to
build
the
new
airport.
On
Wall
Street,
shares
suffered
their
biggest
one-day
fall
in
history,
losing
508
points
in
just
under
three
hours.
And
the
weather
outlook
here
in
Crudbucket
is
for
cloudy
skies
and
a
98
percent
chance
of
precipitation.
We'll
have
more
music
from
the
Eagles
after
this
word."
The
American
economy
was
coming
apart
in
shreds
and
all
I
could
get
were
songs
by
the
Eagles.
I
twirled
the
twirled
the
dial,
thinking
that
surely
somebody
somewhere
must
be
giving
the
dawn
of
a
new
Great
Depression
more
than
a
passing
mention
--
and
someone
was,
thank
goodness.
It
was
CBC,
the
Canadian
network,
with
an
excellent
and
thoughtful
program
called
"As
It
Happens,"
which
was
entirely
devoted
that
evening
to
the
crash
of
Wall
Street.
I
will
leave
you,
reader,
to
consider
the
irony
in
an
American
citizen,
traveling
across
his
own
country,
having
to
tune
in
to
a
foreign
radio
network
to
find
out
the
details
of
one
of
the
biggest
domestic
news
stories
of
the
year.
To
be
scrupulously
fair,
I
was
later
told
that
the
public-radio
network
in
America
--
possibly
the
most
grossly
underfunded
broadcast
organization
in
the
developed
world
--
also
devoted
a
long
report
to
the
crash.
I
expect
it
was
given
by
a
man
sitting
in
a
tin
but
in
a
field
somewhere,
reading
scribbled
notes
off
a
sheet
of
paper.
[Chapter 17,
p. 155-157]
- [...]
If
you
have
ever
wondered
what
becomes
of
all
those
pylons
you
see
marching
off
to
the
horizon
in
every
country
in
the
world,
like
an
army
of
invading
aliens,
the
answer
is
that
they
all
join
up
in
a
field
just
north
of
Toledo,
where
they
discharge
their
loads
into
a
vast
estate
of
electrical
transformers,
diodes
and
other
contraptions
that
looks
for
all
the
world
like
the
inside
of
a
television
set,
only
on
a
rather
grander
scale,
of
course.
The
ground
fairly
thrummed
as
I
drove
past
and
I
fancied
I
felt
a
crackle
of
blue
static
sweep
through
the
car,
briefly
enlivening
the
hair
on
the
back
of
my
neck
and
leaving
a
strangely
satisfying
sensation
in
my
armpits.
I
was
half
inclined
to
turn
around
at
the
next
intersection
and
go
back
for
another
dose.
But
it
was
late
and
I
pressed
on.
[...]
[Chapter 17,
p. 158]
- I
drove
north
and
west
across
Michigan,
lost
in
a
warm
afterglow
of
pleasure
from
the
museum.
I
was
past
Lansing
and
Grand
Rapids
and
entering
the
Manistee
National
Forest,
100
miles
away,
almost
before
I
knew
it.
Michigan
is
shaped
like
an
oven
mitt
and
is
often
about
as
exciting.
The
Manistee
forest
was
dense
and
dull
--
endless
groves
of
uniform
pine
trees
--
and
the
highway
through
it
was
straight
and
flat.
Occasionally
I
would
see
a
cabin
or
little
lake
in
the
woods,
both
just
glimpsable
through
the
trees,
but
mostly
there
was
nothing
of
note.
Towns
were
rare
and
mostly
squalid
--
scattered
dwellings
and
ugly
prefab
buildings
where
they
made
and
sold
ugly
prefab
cabins,
so
that
people
could
buy
their
own
little
bit
of
ugliness
and
take
it
out
into
the
woods.
[Chapter 18,
p. 161-162]
- [...]
I
went
out
and
had
a
walk
around,
to
look
for
something
to
eat.
It
was
only
a
little
after
seven,
but
it
was
dark
already
and
the
chill
air
felt
more
like
December
than
October.
I
could
see
my
breath.
It
was
odd
to
be
in
a
place
so
full
of
buildings
and
yet
so
dead.
Even
the
McDonald's
was
closed,
with
a
sign
in
the
window
telling
me
to
have
a
good
winter.
[Chapter 18,
p. 163]
- "At
Northern
Wisconsin
General
Hospital,
we'll
help
you
to
achieve
your
birthing
goals,"
said
a
voice
on
the
radio.
Oh,
God,
I
thought.
This
was
yet
another
new
development
since
I
had
left
America
--
the
advent
of
hospital
advertising.
Everywhere
you
go
you
now
encounter
hospital
ads.
Who
are
they
for?
A
guy
gets
hit
by
a
bus,
does
he
say,
"Quick,
take
me
to
Michigan
General.
They've
got
a
magnetic
resonance
imager
there"?
I
don't
understand
it.
But
then
I
don't
understand
anything
to
do
with
American
health
care.
[Chapter 19,
p. 170]
- I
drove
through
the
thin
light
of
afternoon
along
back
highways.
It
seemed
to
take
forever
to
cross
the
state,
but
I
didn't
mind
because
it
was
so
fetching
and
restful.
There
was
something
uncommonly
alluring
about
the
day,
about
the
season,
the
sense
that
winter
was
drawing
in.
By
four
o'clock
the
daylight
was
going.
By
five
the
sun
had
dropped
out
of
the
clouds
and
was
slotting
into
the
distant
hills,
like
a
coin
going
into
a
piggy
bank.
At
a
place
called
Ferryville,
I
came
suddenly
up
against
the
Mississippi
River.
It
fairly
took
my
breath
away,
it
was
so
broad
and
beautiful
and
graceful
lying
there
all
flat
and
calm.
In
the
setting
sun
it
looked
like
liquid
stainless
steel.
[Chapter 19,
p. 172]
- [...]
Every
ten
miles
or
so
[in
the
far
west
of
Kansas]
there
is
a
side
road,
and
at
every
side
road
there
is
an
old
pickup
truck
stopped
at
a
stop
sign.
You
can
see
them
from
a
long
way
off-in
Kansas
you
can
see
everything
from
a
long
way
off-glinting
in
the
sunshine.
At
first
you
think
the
truck
must
be
broken
down
or
abandoned,
but
just
as
you
get
within
thirty
or
forty
feet
of
it,
it
pulls
out
onto
the
highway
in
front
of
you,
causing
you
to
make
an
immediate
downward
adjustment
in
your
speed
from
sixty
miles
an
hour
to
about
twelve
miles
an
hour
and
to
test
the
resilience
of
the
steering
wheel
with
your
forehead.
This
happens
to
you
over
and
over.
Curious
to
see
what
sort
of
person
could
inconvenience
you
in
this
way
out
in
the
middle
of
nowhere,
you
speed
up
to
overtake
it
and
see
that
sitting
at
the
wheel
is
a
little
old
man
of
eighty-seven,
wearing
a
cowboy
hat
three
sizes
too
large
for
him,
staring
fixedly
at
the
empty
road
as
if
piloting
a
light
aircraft
through
a
thunderstorm.
He
is
of
course
quite
oblivious
of
you.
Kansas
has
more
drivers
like
this
than
any
other
state
in
the
nation,
more
than
can
be
accounted
for
by
simple
demographics.
Other
states
must
send
them
their
old
people,
perhaps
by
promising
them
a
free
cowboy
hat
when
they
get
there.
[Chapter 20,
p. 191]
- At
the
junction
of
US
24,
I
turned
left
and
headed
west.
Here
the
weather
was
superb.
The
sun
shone,
the
sky
was
blue.
Out
of
the
west,
a
flotilla
of
clouds
sailed
in,
fluffy
and
benign,
skimming
the
peaks.
The
highway
was
of
pink
asphalt;
it
was
like
driving
along
a
strip
of
bubblegum.
[...]
[Chapter 21,
p. 195]
- [...]
Eventually
I
came
to
a
platform
of
rocks,
marking
the
edge
of
the
canyon.
There
was
no
fence
to
keep
you
back
from
the
edge,
so
I
shuffled
cautiously
over
and
looked
down,
but
could
see
nothing
but
gray
soup.
A
middle-aged
couple
came
along
and
as
we
stood
chatting
about
what
a
dispiriting
experience
this
was,
a
miraculous
thing
happened.
The
fog
parted.
It
just
silently
drew
back,
like
a
set
of
theater
curtains
being
opened,
and
suddenly
we
saw
that
we
were
on
the
edge
of
a
sheer,
giddying
drop
of
at
least
a
thousand
feet.
"Jesus!"
we
said
and
jumped
back,
and
all
along
the
canyon
edge
you
could
hear
people
saying,
"Jesus!"
like
a
message
being
passed
down
a
long
line.
And
then
for
many
moments
all
was
silence,
except
for
the
tiny
fretful
shiftings
of
the
snow,
because
out
there
in
front
of
us
was
the
most
awesome,
most
silencing
sight
that
exists
on
earth.
The
scale
of
the
Grand
Canyon
is
almost
beyond
comprehension.
It
is
ten
miles
across,
a
mile
deep,
180
miles
long.
You
could
set
the
Empire
State
Building
down
in
it
and
still
be
thou
sands
of
feet
above
it.
Indeed
you
could
set
the
whole
of
Manhattan
down
inside
it
and
you
would
still
be
so
high
above
it
that
buses
would
be
like
ants
and
people
would
be
invisible,
and
not
a
sound
would
reach
you.
The
thing
that
gets
you-that
gets
everyone-is
the
silence.
The
Grand
Canyon
just
swallows
sound.
The
sense
of
space
and
emptiness
is
overwhelming.
Nothing
happens
out
there.
Down
below
you
on
the
canyon
floor,
far,
far
away,
is
the
thing
that
carved
it:
the
Colorado
River.
It
is
300
feet
wide,
but
from
the
canyon's
lip
it
looks
thin
and
insignificant.
It
looks
like
an
old
shoelace.
Everything
is
dwarfed
by
this
mighty
hole.
And
then,
just
as
swiftly,
just
as
silently
as
the
fog
had
parted,
it
closed
again
and
the
Grand
Canyon
was
a
secret
once
more.
I
had
seen
it
for
no
more
than
twenty
or
thirty
seconds,
but
at
least
I
had
seen
it.
Feeling
semisatisfied,
I
turned
around
and
walked
back
towards
the
car,
content
now
to
move
on.
[...]
[Chapter 23,
p. 207]
- Zion
[National
Park]
was
incredibly
beautiful.
Whereas
at
the
Grand
Canyon
you
are
on
the
top
looking
down,
at
Zion
you
are
at
the
bottom
looking
up.
It
is
just
a
long,
lush
canyon,
dense
with
cottonwood
trees
along
the
valley
floor,
hemmed
in
by
towering
copper-colored
walls
of
rock-the
sort
of
dark,
forbidding
valley
you
would
expect
to
pass
through
in
a
hunt
for
the
lost
city
of
gold.
Here
and
there
long,
thin
waterfalls
emerged
from
the
rock
face
and
fell
a
thousand
feet
or
more
down
to
the
valley,
where
the
water
collected
in
pools
or
tumbled
onward
into
the
swirling
Virgin
River.
At
the
far
end
of
the
valley
the
high
walls
squeezed
together
until
they
were
only
yards
apart.
In
the
damp
shade,
plants
grew
out
of
cracks
in
the
rock,
giving
the
whole
the
appearance
of
hanging
gardens.
It
was
very
picturesque
and
exotic.
[Chapter 23,
p. 209-210]
- [...]
Utah
is
the
one
place
on
the
planet
where
you
never
have
to
worry
about
young
men
coming
up
to
you
and
trying
to
convert
you
to
Mormonism.
They
assume
you
are
one
of
them
already.
As
long
as
you
keep
your
hair
cut
fairly
short
and
don't
say,
"Oh,
shit!"
in
public
when
something
goes
wrong,
you
may
escape
detection
for
years.
It
makes
you
feel
a
little
like
Kevin
McCarthy
in
Invasion
of
the
Body
Snatchers,
but
it
is
also
strangely
liberating.
[Chapter 23,
p. 212]
- I
wandered
through
room
after
room
[in
Caesar's
Palace
casino,
Las
Vegas]
trying
to
find
my
way
out,
but
the
place
was
clearly
designed
to
leave
you
disoriented.
There
were
no
windows,
no
exit
signs,
just
endless
rooms,
all
with
subdued
lighting
and
with
carpet
that
looked
as
if
some
executive
had
barked
into
a
telephone,
"Gimme
twenty
thousand
yards
of
the
ugliest
carpet
you
got."
It
was
like
woven
vomit.
I
wandered
for
ages
without
knowing
whether
I
was
getting
closer
to
or
farther
from
an
exit.
[...]
[Chapter 24,
p. 215]
- As
I
was
so
close
to
Los
Angeles,
I
toyed
with
the
idea
of
driving
on
in,
but
I
was
put
off
by
the
smog
and
the
traffic
and
above
all
by
the
thought
that
in
Los
Angeles
someone
might
come
up
to
me
and
carve
a
Z
in
my
chest
for
real.
I
think
it's
only
right
that
crazy
people
should
have
their
own
city,
but
I
cannot
for
the
life
of
me
see
why
a
sane
person
would
want
to
go
there.
[...]
[Chapter 24,
p. 220]
- On
reflection,
I
can
think
of
one
eating
experience
even
more
dispiriting
than
dining
at
the
4-Way
Cafe
and
that
was
the
lunchroom
at
Callanan
Junior
High
School
in
Des
Moines.
The
lunchroom
at
Callanan
was
like
something
out
of
a
prison
movie.
You
would
shuffle
forward
in
a
long,
silent
line
and
have
lumpen,
shapeless
food
dolloped
onto
your
tray
by
lumpen,
shapeless
women
--
women
who
looked
as
if
they
were
on
day
release
from
a
mental
institution,
possibly
for
having
poisoned
food
in
public
places.
The
food
wasn't
merely
unappealing,
it
was
unidentifiable.
Adding
to
the
displeasure
was
the
presence
of
the
deputy
principal,
Mr.
Snoyd,
who
was
always
stalking
around
behind
you,
ready
to
grab
you
by
the
neck
and
march
you
off
to
his
office
if
you
made
gagging
noises
or
were
overheard
inquiring
of
the
person
across
from
you,
"Say,
what
is
this
shit?"
Eating
at
Callanan
was
like
having
your
stomach
pumped
in
reverse.
[Chapter 25,
p. 232-233]
- I
didn't
realize
it
at
the
time,
but
the
US
government
had
recently
admitted
that
plutonium
had
been
found
to
be
leaking
from
one
of
the
storage
facilities
on
the
site
and
was
working
its
way
downward
through
the
ground
to
a
giant
subterranean
reservoir,
which
supplies
the
water
for
tens
of
thousands
of
people
in
southern
Idaho.
Plutonium
is
the
most
lethal
substance
known
to
man-a
spoonful
of
it
could
wipe
out
a
city.
Once
you
make
some
plutonium,
you
have
to
keep
it
safe
for
250,000
years.
The
United
States
government
had
managed
to
keep
its
plutonium
safe
for
rather
less
than
36
years.
This,
it
seems
to
me,
is
a
convincing
argument
for
not
allowing
your
government
to
mess
with
plutonium.
And
this
was
only
one
leak
out
of
many.
At
a
similar
facility
in
the
state
of
Washington,
500,000
gallons
of
highly
radioactive
substances
drained
away
before
anyone
thought
to
put
a
dipstick
in
the
tank
and
see
how
things
were
doing.
How
do
you
lose
500,000
gallons
of
anything?
I
don't
know
the
answer
to
that
question,
but
I
do
know
that
I
would
not
like
to
be
a
real
estate
agent
trying
to
sell
houses
in
Pocatello
or
Idaho
Falls
five
years
from
now
when
the
ground
starts
to
glow
and
women
are
giving
birth
to
human
flies.
For
the
time
being,
however,
Idaho
Falls
remains
an
agreeable
little
city.
The
downtown
was
attractive
and
still
evidently
prospering.
Trees
and
benches
had
been
set
out.
A
big
banner
was
draped
across
one
of
the
streets
saying,
"Idaho
Falls
Says
NO
To
Drugs".
That's
really
going
to
keep
the
kids
off
the
hard
stuff,
I
thought.
Small-town
America
is
obsessed
with
drugs,
yet
I
suspect
that
if
you
strip-searched
every
teenager
in
Idaho
Falls
you
would
come
up
with
nothing
more
illicit
than
some
dirty
magazines,
a
packet
of
condoms
and
a
half-empty
bottle
of
Jack
Daniel's.
Personally
I
think
the
young
people
of
Idaho
Falls
ought
to
be
encouraged
to
take
drugs.
It
will
help
them
to
cope
when
they
find
out
there's
plutonium
in
their
drinking
water.
[Chapter 26,
p. 236]
- It
required
only
a
little
light
reading
in
adventure
books
and
almost
no
imagination
to
envision
circumstances
in
which
I
would
find
myself
caught
in
a
tightening
circle
of
hunger-emboldened
wolves
[...]
Then
there
were
all
the
diseases
lurking
in
the
woods
-
Giardia
lamblia,
Eastern
equine
encephalitis,
Rock
Mountain
spotted
fever,
Lyme
disease,
Helicobactor
pylori,
Ehrlichia
chaffeenis,
schistosomiasis,
brucellosis,
and
shigella,
to
offer
but
a
sampling.
[...]
Then
there
is
the
little-known
family
of
organisms
called
hantaviruses,
which
swarm
in
the
micro-haze
above
the
faeces
of
mice
and
rats,
and
are
hoovered
into
the
human
respiratory
system
by
anyone
unlucky
enough
to
stick
a
breathing
orifice
near
them
-
by
lying
down,
say,
on
a
sleeping
platform
over
which
infected
mice
have
recently
scampered.
In
1993
a
single
outbreak
of
hantavirus
killed
thirty-two
people
in
the
southwestern
United
States
[...]
Among
viruses,
only
rabies,
Ebola
and
HIV
are
more
certainly
lethal.
Again,
there
is
no
treatment.
[Chapter 1,
p. 14-15]
- Black
bears
rarely
attack.
But
here's
the
thing.
Sometimes
they
do.
All
bears
are
agile,
cunning
and
immensely
strong,
and
the
are
always
hungry.
If
they
want
to
kill
you
and
eat
you,
they
can,
and
pretty
much
whenever
they
want.
That
doesn't
happen
often,
but
-
and
here
is
the
absolutely
salient
point
-
once
would
be
enough.
[Chapter 2,
p. 29]
- The
following
day
we
went
to
the
supermarket
to
buy
provisions
for
our
first
week
on
the
trail.
I
knew
nothing
about
cooking,
but
Katz
had
been
looking
after
himself
for
years
and
had
a
repertoire
of
dishes,
principally
involving
peanut
butter,
tuna
and
noodles
stirred
together
in
a
pot,
that
he
thought
would
transfer
nicely
to
a
camping
milieu
[...]
[Chapter 2,
p. 37]
- On
the
fourth
evening
we
made
a
friend.
[...]
a
plumpish,
bespectacled
woman
[...]
with
the
squint
of
someone
who
is
either
chronically
confused
or
can't
see
very
well
[...]
she
squinted
at
the
gathering
gloom
and
announced
she
would
camp
with
us.
Her
name
was
Mary
Ellen.
She
was
from
Florida
and
she
was,
as
Katz
for
ever
after
termed
her
in
a
special
tone
of
awe,
a
piece
of
work.
She
talked
non-stop,
except
when
she
was
clearing
out
her
Eustachian
tubes,
which
she
did
frequently,
by
pinching
her
nose
and
blowing
out
with
a
series
of
violent
and
alarming
snorts
of
a
sort
that
would
make
a
dog
leave
the
sofa
and
get
under
a
table
in
the
next
room.
I
have
long
known
that
it
is
God's
plan
for
me
to
spend
a
little
time
with
each
of
the
most
stupid
people
on
earth,
and
Mary
Ellen
was
proof
that
even
in
the
Appalachian
woods
I
would
not
be
spared.
It
became
evident
from
the
first
moment
that
she
was
a
rarity.
[...]
She
had
the
most
oddly
redundant
turn
of
phrase.
She
would
say
things
like
"There's
a
stream
over
there",
and
"It's
nearly
ten
o'clock
a.m.".
Once,
in
reference
to
winters
in
central
Florida,
she
solemnly
informed
me,
"We
usually
only
get
frosts
once
or
twice
a
winter,
but
this
year
we
had
'em
a
couple
of
times."
[Chapter 4,
p. 73-76]
- [...]
The
word
that
clings
to
every
hiker's
thoughts
in
north
Georgia
is
Deliverance,
the
1974
novel
by
James
Dickey
[...]
"Every
family
I've
met
up
here
has
at
least
one
relative
in
the
penitentiary,"
a
character
in
the
book
remarks
[...]
"Some
of
them
are
in
for
making
liquor
or
running
it,
but
most
of
them
are
in
for
murder.
They
don't
think
a
whole
lot
about
killing
people
up
here."
[...]
Dickey's
book
[...]
attracted
heated
criticism
in
the
state
when
it
was
published
[...]
but
in
fact
it
must
be
said
people
have
been
appalled
by
northern
Georgians
for
150
years.
[...]
We
went
into
the
motel
reception,
which
was
more
like
a
small,
untidy
living
room
that
a
place
of
business,
and
found
an
aged
woman
with
lively
white
hair
and
a
bright
cotton
dress
sitting
on
a
sofa
by
the
door.
She
looked
happy
to
see
us.
"Hi,"
I
said,
"We're
looking
for
a
room."
The
woman
grinned
and
nodded.
"Actually,
two
rooms
if
you've
got
them."
The
woman
grinned
and
nodded
again.
I
waited
for
her
to
get
up,
but
she
didn't
move.
"For
tonight,"
I
said
encouragingly.
"You
do
have
rooms?"
Her
grin
became
a
kind
of
beam
and
she
grasped
my
hand,
and
held
on
tight;
her
fingers
felt
cold
and
bony.
She
looked
at
me
intently
and
eagerly,
as
if
she
thought
-
hoped
-
that
I
would
throw
a
stick
for
her
to
fetch.
"Tell
her
we
come
from
Reality
Land,"
Katz
whispered
in
my
ear.
At
that
moment
a
door
swung
open
and
a
grey-haired
woman
swept
in,
wiping
her
hands
on
an
apron.
"Oh,
ain't
no
good
talking
to
her,"
she
said
in
a
friendly
manner.
"She
don't
know
nothing,
don't
say
nothing.
Mother,
let
go
the
man's
hand."
Her
mother
beamed
at
her.
"Mother,
let
go
the
man's
hand."
[...]
My
room
was
basic
and
battered
-
there
were
cigarette
burns
on
every
possible
surface,
including
the
toilet
seat
and
door
lintels,
and
the
walls
and
ceilings
were
covered
in
big
stains
that
suggested
a
strange
fight
to
the
death
involving
lots
of
hot
coffee
-
but
it
was
very
heaven
to
me.
[Chapter 5,
p. 90-92]
- 'Bunkhouse'
is
not
a
word
I
particularly
want
to
hear
at
my
time
of
life,
but
we
had
no
choice.
[...]
The
bunkhouse
was
basic
and
and
awesomely
unlovely.
It
was
dominated
by
twelve
narrow
wood
bunks
stacked
in
tiers
of
three,
each
with
a
thin
bare
mattress
and
a
grubby
bare
pillow
lumpily
filled
with
shreds
of
styrofoam.
In
one
corner
stood
a
potbellied
stove,
hissing
softly,
surrounded
by
a
semicircle
of
limp
boots
and
draped
with
wet
woolen
socks,
which
steamed
foully.
A
small
wooden
table
and
a
pair
of
broken-down
easy
chairs,
both
sprouting
stuffing,
completed
the
furnishings.
Everywhere
there
was
stuff
-
tents,
clothes,
backpacks,
raincovers
-
hanging
out
to
dry,
dripping
sluggishly.
The
floor
was
bare
concrete,
the
walls
uninsulated
plywood.
It
was
singularly
uninviting,
like
camping
in
a
garage.
"Welcome
to
the
Stalag,"
said
a
man
with
an
ironic
smile
and
an
English
accent.
[...]
"Red
cross
parcels
come
on
the
last
Friday
of
the
month,
and
there'll
be
a
meeting
of
the
escape
committee
at
nineteen
hundred
hours
this
evening.
I
think
that's
all
you
need
to
know."
"And
don't
eat
the
Philly
cheese
steak
sandwich
unless
you
want
to
puke
all
night,"
said
a
wan
but
heartfelt
voice
from
a
shadowy
bunk
in
the
corner.
[Chapter 6,
p. 110-111]
- Here
in
the
Smokies
[...]
the
Park
Service
in
1957
decided
to
'reclaim'
Abrams
Creek,
a
tributary
of
the
Little
Tennessee
River,
for
rainbow
trout.
To
that
end,
biologists
dumped
extravagant
quantities
of
a
poison
called
rotenone
into
15
miles
of
creek.
Within
hours,
tens
of
thousands
of
dead
fish
were
floating
on
the
surface
like
autumn
leaves
-
what
a
proud
moment
that
must
be
for
a
trained
naturalist.
Among
the
thirty-one
species
of
Abrams
Creek
fish
that
were
wiped
out
was
one
called
the
smoky
madtom,
which
scientists
had
never
seen
before.
Thus
the
Park
Service
biologists
managed
the
wonderfully
unusual
accomplishment
of
discovering
and
eradicating
a
new
species
of
fish
in
the
same
instant.
(In
1980,
another
colony
of
smoky
madtoms
was
found
in
a
nearby
stream.)
Of
course,
that
was
forty
years
ago
and
such
foolishness
would
be
unthinkable
in
these
more
enlightened
times.
Today
the
National
Park
Service
employs
a
much
more
subtle
approach
to
endangering
wildlife:
neglect.
It
spends
almost
nothing
-
less
than
3
per
cent
of
its
budget
-
on
research
of
any
type,
which
is
why
no-one
knows
how
many
mussels
are
extinct
or
even
why
they
are
going
extinct.
Everywhere
you
look
in
the
eastern
forests,
trees
are
dying
in
colossal
numbers.
In
the
Smokies,
over
90
per
cent
of
Fraser
firs
-
a
noble
tree,
unique
to
the
southern
Appalachian
highlands
-
are
sick
or
dying,
from
a
combination
of
acid
rain
and
the
depredations
of
an
insect
called
the
balsam
woolly
adelgid.
Ask
a
park
official
what
they
are
doing
about
it
and
he
will
say,
"We
are
monitoring
the
situation
closely."
For
this
read,
"We
are
watching
them
die."
Or
consider
the
grassy
balds
-
treeless,
meadowy
expanses
of
mountaintop,
up
to
250
acres
in
extent,
which
are
quite
unique
to
the
souther
Appalachians.
No-one
knows
why
the
balds
are
there,
or
how
long
they
have
existed,
or
why
they
appear
on
some
mountains
but
not
others.
[...]
According
to
the
writer
Hiram
Rogers,
grassy
balds
cover
just
0.015
per
cent
of
the
Smokies
landscape,
but
hold
29
per
cent
of
its
flora.
For
unknown
numbers
of
years
they
were
used
by
Indians
and
then
by
European
settlers
for
grazing
summer
livestock,
but
now,
with
graziers
banished
and
the
Park
Service
doing
nothing,
woody
species
like
hawthorn
and
blackberry
are
steadily
reclaiming
the
mountaintops.
Within
twenty
years,
there
may
be
no
balds
left
in
the
Smokies.
Ninety
plant
species
have
disappeared
from
the
balds
since
the
park
was
opened
in
the
1930s.
At
least
twenty-five
more
are
expected
to
go
in
the
next
few
years.
There
is
no
plan
to
save
them.
[...]
It
is
actually
Park
Service
policy
to
let
the
balds
vanish.
Having
got
everyone
agitated
by
interfering
with
nature
for
years,
it
has
decided
now
not
to
interfere
at
all,
even
when
that
interference
would
be
demonstrably
beneficial.
I
tell
you,
these
people
are
a
wonder.
[Chapter 7,
p. 126-129]
- The
waitress
[...]
stopped
and
looked
at
me,
then
slowly
swaggered
back
to
the
table,
staring
at
me
with
majestic
disdain
the
while.
"You
got
a
problem
here?"
"Twenty
dollars
is
a
bit
much
for
a
couple
of
burgers,
don't
you
think?"
I
squeaked
in
a
never-before-heard
Bertie
Wooster
voice.
She
held
her
stare
for
another
moment,
then
picked
up
the
bill
and
read
it
through
aloud
for
our
benefit,
smacking
each
item
as
she
read.
"Two
burgers.
Two
sodas.
State
sales
tax.
City
sales
tax.
Beverage
tax.
Inclusive
gratuity.
Grand
total:
twenty
dollars
and
seventy-four
cents."
She
let
it
fall
back
onto
the
table
and
graced
us
with
a
sneer.
"Welcome
to
Gatlinburg,
gentlemen."
And
then
we
went
out
to
see
the
town.
I
was
particularly
eager
to
have
a
look
at
Gatlinburg
[...]
The
same
throngs
of
pear-shaped
people
in
Reeboks
wandered
between
food
smells,
clutching
grotesque
comestibles
and
bucket-sized
soft
drinks.
It
was
still
the
same
tacky,
horrible
place.
Yet
I
would
hardly
have
recognized
it
from
just
nine
years
before.
Nearly
every
building
I
remembered
had
been
torn
down
and
replaced
with
something
new,
principally
mini-malls
and
shopping
courts,
which
stretched
back
from
the
main
street
and
offered
a
whole
new
galaxy
of
shopping
and
eating
opportunities.
[...]
Just
up
the
road
from
Gatlinburg
is
the
town
of
Pigeon
Forge,
which
twenty
years
ago
was
a
sleepy
hamlet
-
nay,
which
aspired
to
be
a
sleepy
hamlet
-
famous
only
as
the
hometown
of
Dolly
Parton.
Then
the
estimable
Ms
Parton
built
an
amusement
park
called
Dollywood.
Now
Pigeon
Forge
has
200
outlet
shops
stretched
along
3
miles
of
highway.
It
is
bigger
and
uglier
than
Gatlinburg,
and
has
better
parking,
and
so
of
course
it
gets
more
visitors.
[Chapter 8,
p. 138-140]
- I
bought
a
copy
of
the
Nashville
Tennessean
newspaper
out
of
a
metal
box,
just
to
see
what
was
happening
in
the
world.
The
principal
story
indicated
that
the
state
legislature,
in
one
of
those
moments
of
enlightenment
with
which
the
Southern
states
often
distinguish
themselves,
was
in
the
process
of
passing
a
law
banning
schools
from
teaching
evolution.
Instead
they
were
to
be
required
to
instruct
that
the
Earth
was
created
by
God,
in
seven
days,
sometime
before
the
turn
of
the
century.
The
article
reminded
us
that
this
was
not
a
new
issue
in
Tennessee.
The
little
town
of
Dayton
[...]
was
the
scene
of
the
famous
Scopes
trial
in
1925,
when
the
state
prosecuted
a
schoolteacher
named
John
Thomas
Scopes
for
rashly
promulgating
Darwinian
hogwash.
As
nearly
everyone
knows,
Clarence
Darrow,
for
the
defence,
roundly
humiliated
William
Jennings
Bryan,
for
the
prosecution,
but
what
most
people
don't
realize
is
that
Darrow
lost
the
case.
Scopes
was
convicted
and
the
law
wasn't
overturned
until
1967.
And
now
the
state
was
about
to
bring
the
law
back,
proving
conclusively
that
the
danger
for
Tennesseans
isn't
so
much
that
they
may
be
descended
from
apes
as
that
they
may
be
overtaken
by
them.
[Chapter 8,
p. 144-145]
- In
1904,
a
keeper
at
the
Bronx
Zoo
in
New
York
noticed
that
the
zoo's
handsome
chestnuts
had
become
covered
in
small
orange
cankers
of
an
unfamiliar
type.
Within
days
they
began
to
sicken
and
die.
By
the
time
scientists
had
identified
the
sources
as
an
Asian
fungus
called
Endothia
Parasitica
[...]
the
chestnuts
were
dead
and
the
fungus
had
escaped
into
the
great
sprawl
of
the
Appalachians,
where
one
tree
in
every
four
was
a
chestnut.
For
all
its
mass,
a
tree
is
a
remarkably
delicate
thing.
All
of
its
internal
life
exists
within
three
paper-thin
layers
of
tissue,
the
phloem,
xylem
and
cambium,
just
beneath
the
bark,
which
together
form
a
moist
sleeve
around
the
dead
heartwood.
However
tall
it
grows,
a
tree
is
just
a
few
pounds
of
living
cells
spread
between
roots
and
leaves.
[...]
lifting
water
is
just
one
of
the
many
jobs
that
the
phloem,
xylem
and
cambium
perform.
They
also
manufacture
lignin
and
cellulose,
regulate
the
storage
and
production
of
tannin,
sap,
gum,
oils
and
resins,
dole
out
minerals
and
nutrients,
convert
starches
into
sugars
for
future
use
[...]
and
goodness
knows
what
else.
Because
all
this
is
happening
in
such
a
thin
layer,
it
also
leaves
the
tree
terribly
vulnerable
to
invasive
organisms.
To
combat
this,
trees
have
formed
elaborate
defence
mechanisms.
[...]
[...]
The
problem
arises
when
a
tree
encounters
an
attacker
for
which
evolution
has
left
it
unprepared,
and
seldom
has
a
tree
been
more
helpless
against
an
invader
than
the
American
chestnut
against
Endothia
Parasitica.
It
enters
a
chestnut
effortlessly,
devours
the
cambium
cells
and
positions
itself
for
an
attack
against
the
next
tree
before
the
tree
has
the
faintest
idea,
chemically
speaking,
what
hit
it.
It
spreads
by
means
of
spores,
which
are
produced
in
the
hundreds
of
millions
in
each
canker.
A
single
woodpecker
can
transfer
a
billion
spores
on
one
flight
between
trees.
[...]
The
mortality
rate
was
100
per
cent.
In
just
over
thirty-five
years
the
American
chestnut
became
a
memory.
The
Appalachians
alone
lost
four
billion
trees,
a
quarter
of
its
cover,
in
a
generation.
A
great
tragedy,
of
course.
But
how
lucky,
when
you
think
about
it,
that
these
diseases
are
at
least
species
specific.
Instead
of
a
chestnut
blight
or
Dutch
elm
disease
or
dogwood
anthracnose,
what
if
there
was
just
a
tree
blight
-
something
indiscriminate
and
unstoppable
that
swept
through
whole
forests?
If
fact
there
is.
It's
called
acid
rain.
[Chapter 10,
p. 163-165]
- Each
time
you
leave
the
cosseted
and
hygienic
world
of
towns
and
take
yourself
into
the
hills
you
go
through
a
series
of
staged
transformations
-
a
kind
of
gentle
descent
into
squalor
-
and
each
time
it
is
as
if
you
have
never
done
it
before.
At
the
end
of
the
first
day,
you
feel
mildly,
self-consciously,
grubby;
by
the
second
day,
disgustingly
so;
by
the
third
you
are
beyond
caring;
by
the
fourth
you
have
forgotten
what
it
is
like
not
to
be
like
this.
Hunger,
too,
follows
a
defined
pattern.
On
the
first
night
your
are
starving
for
your
noodles;
on
the
second
night
you
are
starving
but
wish
it
wasn't
noodles;
on
the
third
night
you
don't
want
the
noodles
but
know
you
had
better
eat
something;
by
the
fourth
you
have
no
appetite
at
all
but
just
eat
because
that
is
what
you
do
at
this
time
of
day.
I
can't
explain
it,
but
it's
strangely
agreeable.
[Chapter 10,
p. 169]
- Every
twenty
minutes
on
the
Appalachian
Train,
Katz
and
I
walked
further
than
the
average
American
walks
in
a
week.
For
93
per
cent
of
all
trips
outside
the
home,
for
whatever
distance
or
whatever
purpose,
Americans
now
get
in
a
car.
That's
ridiculous.
[...]
Nearly
everyone
in
[the
town
of
Hanover,
New
Hampshire]
is
within
an
easy
walk
of
the
centre,
and
yet
almost
no-one
walks
anywhere
ever
for
anything.
I
have
a
neighbour
who
drives
800
yards
to
work.
I
know
another
-
a
perfectly
fit
woman
-
who
will
drive
100
yards
to
pick
up
her
child
from
a
friend's
house.
When
school
lets
out
here,
virtually
every
child
[...]
gets
picked
up
and
driven
from
a
few
hundred
yards
to
three-quarters
of
a
mile
home
(those
who
live
further
away
get
a
bus).
Most
of
the
children
sixteen
years
or
older
have
their
own
cars.
That's
ridiculous,
too.
On
average
the
total
walking
of
an
American
these
days
-
that's
walking
of
all
types:
from
car
to
office,
from
office
to
car,
round
the
supermarket
and
shopping
malls
-
adds
up
to
1.4
miles
a
week,
barely
350
yards
a
day.
[...]
Lots
of
shops
were
dark
and
bare,
and
there
was
nowhere
I
could
find
to
get
insect
repellent,
but
a
man
outside
the
[Waynesboro]
post
office
suggested
I
try
K-Mart.
"Where's
you
car?"
he
said,
prepatory
to
giving
directions.
"I
don't
have
a
car."
That
stopped
him.
"Really?
It's
over
a
mile,
I'm
afraid."
"That's
OK."
He
gave
his
head
a
dubious
shake,
as
if
disowning
responsibility
for
what
he
was
about
to
tell
me.
"Well,
then
what
you
want
to
do
is
go
up
Broad
Street,
take
a
right
at
the
Burger
King
and
keep
on
going.
But,
you
know,
when
I
think
about
it,
it's
well
over
a
mile
-
maybe
a
mile
and
a
half,
mile
and
three-quarters.
You
walking
back
as
well?"
"Yeah."
Another
shake.
"Long
way."
"I'll
take
emergency
provisions."
If
he
realized
this
was
a
joke
he
didn't
show
it.
"Well,
good
luck
to
you,"
he
said.
"Thank
you."
"You
know,
there's
a
cab
company
around
the
corner,"
he
offered
helpfully
as
an
afterthought.
"I
actually
prefer
to
walk,"
I
explained.
He
nodded
uncertainly.
"Well,
good
luck
to
you,"
he
said
again.
[Chapter 11,
p. 173-175]
- Sixty
years
ago,
there
were
almost
no
trees
on
the
Blue
Ridge
Mountains.
All
this
was
farmland.
[...]
In
the
1920s,
sociologists
and
other
academics
from
the
cities
ventured
into
the
hills,
and
they
were
invariably
appalled
at
what
they
found.
Poverty
and
deprivation
were
universal.
The
land
was
ridiculously
poor.
Many
people
were
farming
slopes
that
were
practically
perpendicular.
[...]
[...]
then
came
the
Great
Depression
[...]
under
that
dizzying
socialist
impulse
(thought
you
must
never
use
that
term)
that
marked
the
presidency
of
Franklin
Roosevelt,
the
land
was
bought
for
the
nation.
The
people
were
moved
out,
and
the
Civilian
Conservation
Corps
was
put
to
work
building
pretty
bridges,
picnic
shelters,
visitor
centres,
and
much
else,
and
the
whole
was
opened
to
the
public
in
July
1936.
It
is
the
quality
of
craftsmanship
that
accounts
substantially
for
the
glory
of
Shenandoah
National
Park.
Indeed,
it
is
one
of
the
very
few
examples
of
human
handiwork
-
Hoover
Dam
is
another,
and
Mount
Rushmore,
I
would
submit,
is
a
third
-
anywhere
in
the
United
States
that
complements,
even
enhances,
a
natural
landscape.
[...]
[...]
We
peeked
round
the
corner
and
found
a
Boy
Scout
troop
marching
into
the
clearing.
They
said
hello
and
we
said
hello,
and
then
we
sat
with
our
legs
dangling
from
the
sleeping
platform
and
watched
them
fill
the
clearing
with
their
tents
and
abundant
gear,
pleased
to
have
something
to
look
at
other
than
each
other.
There
were
three
adult
supervisors
and
seventeen
Boy
Scouts,
all
charmingly
incompetent.
Tents
went
up,
then
swiftly
collapsed
or
keeled
over.
One
of
the
adults
went
off
to
filter
water
and
fell
in
the
creek
Even
Katz
agreed
that
this
was
better
than
TV.
For
the
first
time
since
we
had
left
New
Hampshire,
we
felt
like
masters
of
the
trail.
[Chapter 12,
p. 195-197]
- [...]
Mining
has
of
course
always
been
a
wretched
line
of
work
everywhere,
but
nowhere
more
so
than
in
the
United
States
in
the
second
half
of
the
nineteenth
century.
Thanks
to
immigration,
miners
were
infinitely
expendable.
When
the
Welsh
got
bolshie,
you
brought
in
Irish.
When
they
failed
to
satisfy
you,
you
brought
in
Italians
or
Poles
or
Hungarians.
Workers
were
paid
by
the
ton,
which
meant
not
only
that
they
were
given
an
incentive
to
hack
out
coal
with
reckless
haste,
but
also
that
any
labour
that
they
expended
in
making
their
environment
safer
or
more
comfortable
went
uncompensated.
Mine
shafts
were
bored
through
the
earth
like
holes
through
Swiss
cheese,
often
destabilizing
whole
valleys.
In
1846,
at
Carbondale,
almost
50
acres
of
mine
shafts
collapsed
simultaneously
without
warning,
claiming
hundreds
of
lives.
Explosions
and
flash
fires
were
common.
Mine
dust
is
incredibly
volatile
-
and
most
of
this
at
a
time,
remember,
when
the
only
illumination
was
open
flames.
Between
1870
and
the
outbreak
of
the
First
World
War,
50,000
people
dies
in
American
mines.
The
great
irony
of
anthracite
is
that,
tough
as
it
is
to
light,
once
you
get
it
lit
it's
nearly
impossible
to
put
out.
Stories
of
uncontrolled
mine
fires
are
legion
in
eastern
Pennsylvania.
One
fire
at
Lehigh
began
in
1850
and
didn't
burn
itself
out
until
the
Great
Depression
-
eighty
years
after
it
started.
[...]
Unfortunately
[the
town
of
Centralia]
sat
on
24
million
tons
of
anthracite.
In
1962
a
fire
in
a
[garbage]
tip
on
the
edge
of
town
ignited
a
coal
seam.
The
fire
department
poured
thousands
of
gallons
of
water
onto
the
fire,
but
each
time
they
seemed
to
have
it
extinguished
it
came
back
[...]
In
1979,
the
owner
of
a
petrol
station
near
the
centre
of
town
found
that
the
temperature
in
his
underground
tanks
was
registering
172°F
[78°C].
Sensors
sunk
into
the
earth
showed
that
the
temperature
13
feet
under
the
tanks
was
almost
[1000°F
=
538°C].
[...]
The
federal
government
came
up
with
$42
million
to
evacuate
the
town.
As
people
moved
out,
their
houses
were
bulldozed
and
the
rubble
was
neatly,
fastidiously,
cleared
away
until
there
were
almost
no
buildings
remaining.
So
today
Centralia
isn't
really
even
a
ghost
town.
It's
just
a
big
open
space
with
a
grid
of
empty
streets
still
surreally
furnished
with
stop
signs
and
fire
hydrants.
Every
30
feet
or
so
there
is
a
neat,
paved
driveway
going
15
or
20
yards
to
nowhere.
[...]
[...]
About
50
yards
along,
a
jagged
crack
appeared
in
the
centre
of
the
highway
and
quickly
grew
into
a
severe
gash
sever
inches
across,
emitting
still
more
smoke.
In
places
the
road
on
one
side
of
the
gash
had
subsided
a
foot
or
more,
or
slumped
into
a
shallow,
bowl-shaped
depression.
From
time
to
time
I
peered
into
the
crack,
but
couldn't
gauge
anything
of
its
depth
for
the
swirling
smoke,
which
proved
to
be
disagreeably
acrid
and
sulphurous
when
the
breeze
pushed
it
over
me.
I
walked
along
for
some
minutes
[...]
before
I
spread
my
gaze
more
generally
and
it
dawned
on
me
that
I
was
in
the
middle
-
very
much
in
the
middle
-
of
an
extensively
smoking
landscape,
on
possibly
no
more
than
a
skin
of
asphalt,
above
a
fire
that
had
been
burning
out
of
control
for
thirty-four
years
[...]
It
seemed
odd
on
reflection
that
I,
or
any
other
severely
foolish
person,
could
drive
in
and
have
a
look
round
a
place
as
patently
dangerous
and
unstable
as
Centralia,
and
yet
there
was
nothing
to
stop
anyone
venturing
anywhere.
What
was
odder
still
was
that
the
evacuation
of
Centralia
was
not
total.
Those
who
wanted
to
stay
and
live
with
the
possibility
of
having
their
houses
fall
into
the
earth
were
allowed
to
remain,
and
a
few
had
evidently
so
chosen.
[Chapter 14,
p. 233-237]
- It
was
well
past
lunchtime,
so
I
drove
the
five
miles
to
Mount
Carmel,
the
nearest
town.
[...]
I
had
lunch
at
the
Academy
Luncheonette
and
Sporting
Goods
Store
-
possibly
the
only
place
in
America
where
you
can
gaze
at
jockstraps
while
eating
a
tuna
salad
sandwich
[...]
[Chapter 14,
p. 238]
- When
at
last
I
reached
Williamstown
a
sign
on
a
bank
announced
a
temperature
of
[97°F
=
36°C].
No
wonder
I
was
hot.
I
crossed
the
street
and
stepped
into
a
Burger
King.
[...]
I
bought
a
bucket-sized
Coke
and
sat
in
a
booth
by
the
window,
feeling
very
pleased.
I
had
done
17
miles
over
a
reasonably
challenging
mountain
in
hot
weather.
I
was
grubby,
sweatstreaked,
comprehensively
knackered
and
rank
enough
to
turn
heads.
I
was
a
walker
again.
[Chapter 16,
p. 272]
- If
you
were
going
to
be
a
farmer,
you
could
hardly
choose
a
worse
place
than
New
England.
[...]
The
soil
is
rocky,
the
terrain
steep,
and
the
weather
so
bad
that
people
take
actual
pride
in
it.
[Chapter 16,
p. 272-273]
- From
Norwich,
it
is
about
a
mile
to
the
Connecticut
River
and
a
pleasant,
unassuming
1930s
bridge
leading
to
the
State
of
New
Hampshire
and
the
town
of
Hanover
on
the
opposite
bank.
Once
the
road
that
led
from
Norwich
to
Hanover
was
a
leafy,
gently
sinuous
two-lane
affairs
-
the
sort
of
tranquil,
alluring
byway
you
would
hope
to
find
connecting
two
old
New
England
towns
a
mile
apart.
Then
some
highway
official
or
other
decided
that
what
would
be
a
really
good
idea
would
be
to
build
a
big,
fast
road
between
the
two
towns.
[...]
So
they
built
a
broad,
straight
highway,
six
lanes
wide
in
places,
with
concrete
dividers
down
the
middle
and
outsized
sodium
street
lamps
that
light
the
night
sky
for
miles
around.
Unfortunately,
this
had
the
effect
of
making
the
bridge
a
bottleneck
where
the
road
narrowed
back
to
two
lanes.
[...]
so,
as
I
write,
they
are
replacing
that
uselessly
attractive
old
bridge
with
something
much
grander
and
in
keeping
with
the
Age
of
Concrete.
For
good
measure
they
are
widening
the
street
that
leads
up
a
short
hill
to
the
centre
of
Hanover.
Of
course,
that
means
chopping
down
trees
all
along
the
street
and
drastically
foreshortening
most
of
the
front
gardens
with
concrete
retaining
walls
[...]
[...]
Luckily
I
have
a
good
imagination,
so
as
I
strode
from
Norwich
to
Hanover
I
imagined
not
a
lively
mini-expressway,
but
a
country
lane
shaded
with
trees,
bounded
with
hedges
and
wild
flowers,
and
graced
with
a
stately
line
of
modestly
scaled
lamp-posts,
from
each
of
which
was
suspended,
upside
down,
a
highway
official,
and
I
felt
much
better.
[Chapter 16,
p. 278-280]
- Vermont
and
New
Hampshire
are
so
snugly
proximate
and
so
similar
in
size,
climate,
accent
and
livelihoods
(principally
skiing
and
tourism)
that
they
are
often
bracketed
as
twins,
but
in
fact
they
have
quite
different
characters.
Vermont
is
Volvos
and
antique
shops
and
country
inns
with
cutely
contrived
names
like
Quail
Hollow
Lodge
and
Fiddlehead
Farm
Inn.
New
Hampshire
is
guys
in
hunting
caps
and
pickup
trucks
with
number
plates
bearing
the
feisty
slogan
"Live
Free
or
Die."
[...]
[Chapter 17,
p. 286]
- On
the
afternoon
of
12
April
1934,
Salvatore
Pagliuca,
a
meteorologist
at
the
summit
weather
observatory
on
Mount
Washington,
had
an
experience
no-one
else
has
had
before
or
since.
[...]
the
wind
was
so
strong
that
he
tied
a
rope
round
his
waist
and
had
two
colleagues
take
hold
of
the
other
end.
As
it
was,
the
men
had
difficulty
just
getting
the
weather
station
door
open
and
needed
all
their
strength
to
keep
Pagliuca
from
becoming
a
kind
of
human
kite.
How
Pagliuca
managed
to
reach
his
weather
instruments
or
take
readings
is
not
known
[...]
What
is
certain
is
that
Pagliuca
had
just
experienced
a
surface
wind
speed
of
231
miles
an
hour.
Nothing
approaching
that
velocity
has
ever
been
recorded
elsewhere.
In
The
Worst
Weather
on
Earth:
A
History
of
the
Mount
Washington
Observatory,
William
Lowell
Putnam
dryly
notes:
"There
may
be
worse
weather,
from
time
to
time,
at
some
forbidding
place
on
Planet
Earth,
but
it
has
yet
to
be
reliably
recorded."
Among
the
Mount
Washington
weather
station's
many
other
records
are:
most
weather
instruments
destroyed,
most
wind
in
twenty-four
hours
(nearly
3,000
miles
of
it),
and
lowest
wind
chill
(a
combination
of
100
mph
winds
and
a
temperature
of
-47°F
[-44^deg;C],
a
severity
unmatched
even
in
Antarctica).
[Chapter 18,
p. 297-298]
- In
its
283
miles,
the
Appalachian
Trail
in
Maine
presents
the
northbound
hiker
with
almost
100,000
feet
of
climb,
the
equivalent
of
three
Everests.
And
at
the
heart
of
it
all
lies
the
famous
Hundred
Mile
Wilderness
-
99.7
miles
of
boreal
forest
trail
without
a
shop,
house
or
paved
road,
running
from
the
village
of
Monson
to
a
public
campground
at
Abol
Bridge,
just
below
Katahdin.
It
is
the
remotest
section
of
the
entire
[Appalachian
Trail].
If
something
goes
wrong
in
the
Hundred
Mile
Wilderness,
you
are
on
your
own.
You
could
die
of
an
infected
blood
blister
out
there.
[Chapter 19,
p. 310]
MP3 audio of quote (956 Kbyte)
