The Man Who Ate the 747 Read Online Free PDF Page B

$3,800.
    6 To be specific: J.J. watched Peter Dowdeswell scarf 13 raw eggs in one second; John Kenmuir eat 14 cooked eggs in 14.42 seconds; Bobby Kempf consume 3 lemons, including skin and seeds, in 15.3 seconds; and Jim Ellis down 3 pounds 1 ounce of grapes in 34.6 seconds.

THREE
    T he wind hurried over the vast flatness as if it wanted to get somewhere, fast.
    J.J. felt the same impatience, but kept his rented Taurus at the posted 75-mile speed limit. The drive from Omaha took three hours, a straight shot west on Interstate 80, past Lincoln, south at Exit 332 Aurora onto Route 14. It was early morning, the sun glancing off the rearview mirror. The highway led to the middle of absolutely nowhere or the middle of absolutely everything, depending on how you looked at it.
    Usually in neutral on his way to a record event, J.J. was in high gear today, like his early days with The Book. A procession of country singers drawled on the radio:
“Ifthe phone don’t ring, it’s me.”
At the top of his lungs, he joined the chorus. The windows were down, the air warm and dry. He liked to drive and certainly knew about roads. His father, John Smith, had worked his whole life for the Department of Transportation, 40 years as a route marker in northeast Ohio. He painted stripes on every road in District Four all the way to Lake Erie. Every marking, perfect and precise. Each line exactly 4 inches wide. Each dash precisely 10 feet long. Each imprint exactly 15/1000th of an inch thick. “Son,” he liked to say, “I’ve learned one thing in life: Stick to the straight and narrow and stay in your own lane.” His father did just that, kept to the slow lane, until a Mack truck jackknifed outside Akron and he was gone.
    To honor his dad, J.J. proposed and created a whole section on roads in The Book. He measured the longest, the worst, the highest, the lowest, the widest, the steepest. He traveled to Ripatransone, Italy, to verify the narrowest: Vicolo della Virilita, 1 foot 5 inches wide. He visited Bacup, England, to inspect the shortest: Elgin Street, 17 feet long.
    J.J. knew the merit of his father’s philosophy and he, too, stayed in his own lane. No point going fast, no point slow. He drove that way as the road, a smooth two-lane affair, passed through the town of Clay Center. A sign pointed the way to the Roman L. Hruska Meat Animal Research Center. J.J. knew his American history. Roman Hruska, the late senator from Nebraska, was infamous for defending a lackluster Supreme Courtnominee, declaring, “There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance?”
    The mediocre are entitled to a little representation and a little chance?
    J.J. knew the answer. Here, in this utterly ordinary countryside, he hoped to find the greatest record of them all. The map on his lap indicated he was entering the Republican River Valley—hardly a valley at all, more like a little dent in the plains. Pressing forward, as the blacktop became narrower, squeezed on both sides by the fields, he had a sensation of living in a closed loop. Born in one of these interchangeable towns off the interstate, he fled Ohio as soon as he could drive. Yet no matter how far he traveled, to Australia, Zanzibar, and beyond, he always seemed to end up on a road to a small town, measuring the biggest watermelon or the longest clothesline. 7
    Today it was Superior, population 2,397. The sign on the outskirts of town was simple: NEBRASKA—THE GOOD LIFE. He drove slowly, past the tallest landmark, a blue water tower, and down streets lined with brightly painted Victorian homes, well-sprinkled green lawns, and flower beds of blooming zinnias and orange lilies. He explored the business district, four blocks of tidy storefronts. The windows were sprayed with messages: GO WILDCATS. The only sign of intrusion from the outside world was a Pizza Hut.The streets and sidewalks were empty. The white