I'm a stranger here myself notes on returning to America after twenty years away

279 Pages·2000·1.52 MB·English

by  Bryson Bill

Broadway Books
New York

Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
1. Coming Home
2. Mail Call
3. Drug Culture
4. What’s Cooking?
5. Well, Doctor, I Was Just Trying to Lie Down...
6. Rule Number 1: Follow All Rules
7. Take Me Out to the Ballpark
8. Help!
9. A Visit to the Barbershop
10. On the Hotline
11. Design Flaws
12. Room Service
13. Consuming Pleasures
14. The Numbers Game
15. Junk-Food Heaven
16. How to Have Fun at Home
17. Tales of the North Woods
18. The Cupholder Revolution
19. Number, Please
20. Friendly People
21. Why Everyone Is Worried
22. The Risk Factor
23. The War on Drugs
24. Dying Accents
25. Inefficiency Report
26. Why No One Walks
27. Wide-Open Spaces
28. Snoopers at Work
29. Lost at the Movies
30. Gardening with My Wife
31. Ah, Summer!
32. A Day at the Seaside
33. On Losing a Son
34. Highway Diversions
35. Fall in New England
36. The Best American Holiday
37. Deck the Halls
38. Fun in the Snow
39. The Mysteries of Christmas
40. Life in a Cold Climate
41. Hail to the Chief
42. Lost in Cyberland
43. Your Tax Form Explained
44. Book Tours
45. The Waste Generation
46. A Slight Inconvenience
47. At the DriveIn
48. Drowning in Red Tape
49. Life’s Mysteries
50. So Sue Me
51. The Great Indoors
52. Death Watch
53. In Praise of Diners
54. Shopping Madness
55. The Fat of the Land
56. Your New Computer
57. How to Rent a Car
58. The Wasteland
59. The Flying Nightmare
60. Enough Already
61. At a Loss
62. Old News
63. Rules for Living
64. Our Town
65. Word Play
66. Last Night on the Titanic
67. Property News
68. Life’s Technicalities
69. An Address to the Graduating Class of Kimball Union Academy, Meriden,
New Hampshire
70. Coming Home: Part II
By Bill Bryson
Don’t miss in a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson’s adventure down under
Intro to Excerpt
An Excerpt from Bill Bryson’s At Home
Outro from Excerpt
Copyright
To
Cynthia,
David,
Felicity,
Catherine,
and Sam
In the late summer of 1996, an old journalist friend from London named Simon
Kelner called me in New Hampshire, to where I had lately moved after living for
twenty-some years in Britain. Simon had recently been made editor of Night &
Day magazine, a supplement of the Mail on Sunday newspaper, and it was his
idea that I should write a weekly column for him on America.
At various times over the years Simon had persuaded me to do all kinds of
work that I didn’t have time to do, but this was way out of the question.
“No,” I said. “I can’t. I’m sorry. It’s just not possible. I’ve got too much on.”
“So can you start next week?”
“Simon, you don’t seem to understand. I can’t do it.”
“We thought we’d call it ‘Notes from a Big Country.’”
“Simon, you’ll have to call it ‘Big Blank Space in the Magazine’ because I
cannot do it.”
“Splendid, splendid,” he said, but a trifle absently. I had the impression that he
was doing something else at the same time—reviewing models for a swimsuit
issue would be my guess. In any case, he kept covering up the phone and issuing
important editor-type instructions to other people in the vicinity.
“So we’ll send you a contract,” he went on when he came back to me.
“No, Simon, don’t do that. I can’t write a weekly column for you. It’s as
simple as that. Are you taking this in? Tell me you are taking this in.”
“Excellent. I’m absolutely delighted. We’re all delighted. Well, must run.”
“Simon, please listen to me. I can’t take on a weekly column. Just not
possible. Simon, are you hearing this? Simon? Hello? Simon, are you there?
Hello? Bugger.”
And that is how I became a newspaper columnist, a pursuit I followed for the
next two years, from September 1996 to September 1998. The thing about a
weekly column, I discovered, is that it comes up weekly. Now this may seem a
selfevident fact, but in two years there never came a week when it did not strike
me as both profound and startling. Another column? Already? But I just did one.
I mention this to make the point that what follows was not intended to be—
could not be—a systematic portrait of America. Mostly I wrote about whatever
little things had lately filled my days—a trip to the post office, the joy of having
a garbage disposal for the first time, the glories of the American motel. Even so,
I would like to think that they chart a sort of progress, from being bewildered
and often actively appalled in the early days of my return to being bewildered
and generally charmed, impressed, and gratified now. (Bewilderment, you’ll
note, is something of a constant in my life, wherever I live.) The upshot is that I
am very glad to be here. I hope that what follows makes that abundantly clear.
These pieces were written in the first instance for a British readership and of
necessity included chunks of explication that an American would find
unnecessary—what a drive-through window is exactly, how the postseason
playoffs work in baseball, who Herbert Hoover was, that sort of thing. I have
endeavored to excise these intrusions discreetly throughout, though just
occasionally the drift of the text made such adjustments impossible. I apologize
for that, and for any other oversights that may have slipped through.
In addition to Simon Kelner, I wish to express my sincere and lasting thanks
to Bill Shinker, Patrick Janson-Smith, John Sterling, Luke Dempsey, and Jed
Mattes, to each of whom I am variously and deeply indebted, and, above all—
way above all—to my dear, long-suffering wife and children for so graciously
and sportingly letting me drag them into all this.
And a special thanks to little Jimmy, whoever he may be.