英语书籍：Bowling Across America（The End）

英语书籍：Bowling Across America（The End）ZT

=====TODAY'S BOOK=====================

BOWLING ACROSS AMERICA
50 States in Rented Shoes
by Mike Walsh (nonfiction)

Published by St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9780312366193
Text Copyright (c) 2008 by Mike Walsh
BOWLING (Part 5 of 5)
======================================


(continued from Thursday)

The romantic feelings I held for bowling were matched in swooning
fervor only by those I felt for land travel, specifically that which
involved a car, lots of roadside diners, and a general lack of a
pressing schedule. This is the other part of the shared sensibility
with my father that encouraged such appreciation for a trivial
quest. As a family of eight, we were lucky to take a summer
vacation, let alone fly anywhere, so our destinations were always
reached by highway. I did a lot of my growing up in the backseat
of an enormous wood-paneled Ford Country Squire LTD station
wagon, watching the landscapes go by and wondering what was going on
in that farmhouse, or what people did in that small town beyond the
exit ramp. (Incidentally, the Country Squire of my memory is
slightly bigger and less fuel-efficient than a Hummer. With all six
of us inside along with whatever luggage didn't fit in the cartop
carrier, there was still room to build a fort, assemble an elaborate
meal from the cooler Mom had packed, fight over who was touching
whom, and behave for up to three minutes after Dad threatened to
pull over and make someone walk.) But it was more than the cost of
airfare that kept us from flying anywhere. My father loved a good
car trip, and even after the kids had all moved out and he and my
mother could afford to fly on their travels, my dad would lobby
hard, if unsuccessfully, to drive instead. Whether through nature or
nurture, his love for America's interstate freeway system remains a
constant in my psyche. The road beckons.

It does so, as often as any time, during the workday. As the
whiter-versus-brighter debate swirls around me, I find myself
conspiring and strategizing. In the five years since graduating from
college I've managed to add few states to my quest, despite ample
opportunity to have done so. While this is a relatively minor
failure in the grand scheme of things, the events of the past year
and the prospects for the months to come have shone a light on it,
compelling me to do something about it. It's now the first warm,
sunny day in May. Schools are winding down classes, summer camps are
registering campers, and somewhere a father is mapping out a road
trip and getting the minivan's oil changed. Spring's transition to
summer always evokes memories of loading into the Country Squire's
cavernous backseats, Mom sitting shotgun and Dad behind the wheel
pointing us toward the horizon. Days like this should be filled with
anticipation and outlook.

But today I am in a windowless conference room in Cincinnati and my
father is in the ground ninety miles to the north. Tomorrow promises
more of the same, as does the next year, the next decade. "This
won't do." I turn to my meeting notes, mostly incoherent scribble
that will lead to tedious to-do lists I have no desire to complete.

I continue writing in the margins, crafting my plan throughout the
meeting and on the plane ride home to Chicago. By the time the
wheels touch down at O'Hare my to-do list, while fraught with risk
and uncertainty, is a bit more inspiring. It reads:

1. Quit job.

2. Put belongings in storage.

3. Set course for bowling alleys in all 50 states.


CHAPTER TWO
Lacing Up the Rental Shoes

Prior to quitting my job I spend some time developing convoluted
financial survival schemes--written outlines of daydreams,
really--that involved my being sponsored by a hotel chain,
automobile manufacturer, bowling ball maker, foot odor powder
distributor, or a wealthy heiress in order to fund the trip, or at
least offset my expenses. After all, the few thousand dollars I have
in the bank will only get me so far, and the prospect of credit card
debt is only so appealing, despite how easy the commercials make it
sound. It is one thing to throw away a promising career to drive
aimlessly around the country but another thing to add mountains of
personal debt on top of one's self. Priority One is signing up a
name sponsor to underwrite the trip.

Not that I'll be selling out--my demands of any sponsor will be that
they have a light hand, almost no influence whatsoever on the trip,
and ultimately be barely noticeable. The last thing I need is to
look like a NASCAR driver struggling to move under the weight of
logos and patches. No, any sponsor giving me money to pursue a life
goal would have to play by my rules: be a product brand I like and
seek little to no recognition for its contribution. When you have
nothing to lose, such arrogance comes easily for a while. Never
mind the fact that I don't even have a car.

I attempt to overcome this first by writing letters to marketing
directors of newly launched cars, hoping to convince them to give me
just one of their vehicles. My pinch, that I would return their
investment many times over in favorable news stories about a
twenty-seven-year-old man who chose their car in which to drive
aimlessly about the country, alone, garners no response.

I then recall that a friend of a friend runs marketing activities
for a line of Chrysler minivans. He had once proposed a very
well-thoughtout plan when working for Oscar Mayer to circumnavigate
the globe in the company's famed Wienermobile. He'd gone to the
extent of consulting a world record-holding adventure driver about
the permits and paperwork required, calculated expenses, and planned
to bring along spare parts and a mechanic to install them just in
case. It was sure to become a global news story centered on a vehicle
that was built for the very purpose of getting on the news. And still
it was rejected. Somewhere on page 7 of the PowerPoint presentation
I'm drafting to persuade him, I realize that my plan lacks the kind
of executional detail ("the key thing is that I have no set
itinerary...") important to a major corporation when making funding
decisions and/or giving away cars. Never mind that, unlike the
Wienermobile, a single man going bowling in a minivan isn't exactly
a global news story. I opt not to trouble him.

With less than two weeks left of a steady paycheck, I remain a man
about to embark on a long car trip without a car. Luckily, my mother
shares my enthusiasm for the project.

Actually, to say she is "enthusiastic" at this point is a tad
inaccurate. "Terrified" might be too dramatic. Cautiously skeptical
seems about right.

"That's nice," she responds the first time I tell her of my plan to
quit work to bowl in all fifty states. Her tone is one of feigned
interest, patronizing me as she might have when I was a child going
on in great detail about my plans to be a fireman while she just
wanted to watch the evening news in peace. Only this time she hears
what I'm saying and hopes her tone will illustrate the folly of my
plan and dissuade me from making such a potentially disastrous life
choice.

"Mom, this isn't like the time I brought my friend's pregnant wife
home and introduced her as my new girlfriend. This is real."

"You don't even have a car."

"I was thinking of taking the Scorpio or the truck."

The Scorpio is a black 1987 Merkur with leather seats and a big
speedometer, a car my father loved too much to get rid of when he
bought his next car in 1998. Not that he could have gotten rid of
it: Merkur was a Ford product built in Germany that was touted as a
European sports sedan with tight handling and a powerful engine.
Unfortunately, it was so fraught with maintenance and repair
problems that Ford only sold it in the United States for one model
year before discontinuing it. The truck is a dark green 1968 GMC
pickup with lap seat belts, no radio, and doors that don't lock
(hence the missing radio).

***********

Hardcover: Today's read ends on page 10.