I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers.

I have spent a good part of my life looking for the perfect barbecue. There is no point in looking in places like Texas, where they put some kind of ketchup on beef and call it barbecue. Barbecue is pork, which narrows the search to the South, and if it's really good pork barbecue you are looking for, to North Carolina.

When I was a little boy I used to borrow my father's hat, and make a press card to stick in the hat band. That was the way reporters were always portrayed in the movies.

That was the overwhelming thing to me, the joy of carrying my portable typewriter to an event and trying to describe it.

I was on the high school track team, believe it or not, and played baseball, poorly but passionately.

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.

I much preferred the peaceful life on the road, where I didn't have to ask embarrassing questions and do all the things real reporters have to do.