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Authors: Bill Bryson
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farmhouses stood. Almost everyone had a satellite dish in the yard, pointed to the sky as if tapping into some life-giving celestial force. I suppose in a sense they were. Here in the hills, the light failed more quickly. I noticed with surprise that it was past six o’clock and I decided that I had better find a room. As if on cue, Carbondale hove into view.
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 centres 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 sorts of things but in slightly different configurations and then I was in thecountry again. The town had no centre. 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 was nothing there. I was perplexed and disillusioned. Before I had left on the trip I had lain awake at night in my bed in England and pictured myself stopping each evening at a motel in a little city, strolling into town along sidewalks, dining on the blue plate special at Betty’s Family Restaurant on the town square, then plugging a scented toothpick in my mouth and going for a stroll around the town, very probably stopping off at Vern’s Midnite Tavern for a couple of draws and a game of eight-ball with the boys or taking in a movie at the Regal or looking in at the Val-Hi Bowling Alley to kibitz the Mid-Week Hairdressers’ League matches before rounding off the night with a couple of games of pinball and a grilled cheese sandwich. But here there was no square to stroll to, no Betty’s, no blue plate specials, no Vern’s Midnite Tavern, no movie theatre, 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 ofthese 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. Glumly I clambered my way to a Pizza Hut and went inside, where a waitress seated me at a table with a view of the parking lot.
All around me people were eating pizzas the size of bus wheels. Directly opposite, inescapably in my line of vision, an overweight man of about thirty was lowering wedges into his mouth whole, like a sword swallower. The menu was dazzling in its variety. It went on for pages. There were so many types and sizes of pizza, so many possible permutations, that I felt quite at a loss. The waitress appeared. ‘Are you ready to order?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I replied, ‘I need a little more time.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You take your time.’ She went off to somewhere out of my line of vision, counted to four and came back. ‘Are you ready to order now?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I really need just a little more
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 centres 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 sorts of things but in slightly different configurations and then I was in thecountry again. The town had no centre. 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 was nothing there. I was perplexed and disillusioned. Before I had left on the trip I had lain awake at night in my bed in England and pictured myself stopping each evening at a motel in a little city, strolling into town along sidewalks, dining on the blue plate special at Betty’s Family Restaurant on the town square, then plugging a scented toothpick in my mouth and going for a stroll around the town, very probably stopping off at Vern’s Midnite Tavern for a couple of draws and a game of eight-ball with the boys or taking in a movie at the Regal or looking in at the Val-Hi Bowling Alley to kibitz the Mid-Week Hairdressers’ League matches before rounding off the night with a couple of games of pinball and a grilled cheese sandwich. But here there was no square to stroll to, no Betty’s, no blue plate specials, no Vern’s Midnite Tavern, no movie theatre, 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 ofthese 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. Glumly I clambered my way to a Pizza Hut and went inside, where a waitress seated me at a table with a view of the parking lot.
All around me people were eating pizzas the size of bus wheels. Directly opposite, inescapably in my line of vision, an overweight man of about thirty was lowering wedges into his mouth whole, like a sword swallower. The menu was dazzling in its variety. It went on for pages. There were so many types and sizes of pizza, so many possible permutations, that I felt quite at a loss. The waitress appeared. ‘Are you ready to order?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I replied, ‘I need a little more time.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You take your time.’ She went off to somewhere out of my line of vision, counted to four and came back. ‘Are you ready to order now?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I really need just a little more
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