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Roadside Lessons of an American Family
Ballantine
April 2006
240 pages ISBN: 0345481488 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It's not everyone who gets
parents like Jack and Marge. At eighty-seven, Jack is a
pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab.
Marge, Jack's bride of sixty years, though cut from the same
rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar
opposite-pessimistic and proud of it. What was their son,
Mike, thinking when he took a sabbatical from his job with
NBC News so he could pile these two world-class originals
along with three of his grown kids and a daughter-in-law
into a pair of rented RVs and hit the road for a
month?
Mike was thinking that he wanted to give his
parents the ultimate family reunion. And so, one February
morning, three generations of Leonards set out on their
journey under the dazzling Arizona sky. Thirty minutes
later, one of the humongous recreational vehicles has an
unplanned meeting with a concrete island at a convenience
store. Thus begins the adventure of a lifetime--and an
absolute gem of a book.
In the course of their
humorous, often poignant cross-country tour, from the desert
Southwest to the New England coastline, the Leonards
reminisce about their loves, their losses, and their rich
and heartwarming (and sometimes heartbreaking) lives, while
encountering a veritable Greek chorus of roadside characters
along the way. The home stretch finds the clan racing back
to Chicago, hoping to catch the arrival of the next
generation, Jack and Marge's first great-grandchild. Through
it all, Mike pieces together acentury of family lore and
lunacy--and discovers surprising sides to his parents that
allow him to see them in a whole new light.
Mike
Leonard has captivated millions of television viewers with
his wry and witty feature stories for NBC's Today. Now he
brings that same engaging charm and keen insight to the
foibles and passions of his own blessedly unique family. By
turns uproariously funny and deeply moving, The Ride of Our
Lives delivers a lifetime of laughs, lessons, and priceless
memories.
This edition's exclusive DVD features
never-before-seen footage from the trip as well as candid
family video and photographs.
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