Growing Up as a Baby Boomer
Twelve Stories and a Novella
by
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Then one day in his second week, Bobby Enloe showed up to watch Greenway run the ride he himself had once commanded. Unemployed, he carried a calculus book and a slide rule with which to explore his single intellectual interest. When not urinating on the tracks, Enloe had used his 25 ½ seconds respite between each ride calculating the pounds of thrust each train had off the top of the first hill, the real weight on the tracks at the bottom of that hill as the cars hit it at 150 miles an hour to suddenly curve upward and streak to the top of the second, slightly lower hill. He knew what the degree of embankment had to be on the first horseshoe turn to accommodate a train, which would have slowed to only 93 mph through the curve. To Enloe it was a mechanical device conforming to known universal laws, perhaps even preparing to break them if it cared to. Enloe was the scientist, Greenway the artist, the Michelangelo of the roller coaster who responded to God’s outstretched hand with a power the Almighty would be chastened to encounter.
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About the Book
Robert Greenway is Crane's favorite hero. In this book he matures from a five-year-old disappointed in his father's ethics to a forty-five-year-old owner of a British inn, The Young Black Horse, in which he is "expected" to stage an annual pigeon race for his "regulars." These stories, some poignant, most hilarious, demonstrate that all of us undergo the same tests in becoming adults--disillusionment, loss of innocence, and summer jobs--learning that the world we are entering is different from the one we expected. Greenway's biggest test comes at 16 when he completely fails at operating a roller coaster.
About the Author
JOHN KENNY CRANE is the author of six books, three fiction and three nonfiction. His novel THE LEGACY OF LADYSMITH was a Book-of-the-Month Club Featured Selection. His critical study THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL was named a Best Acadmic Book of 1985 by the American Library Association. He has published many stories, essays, and book reviews in such magazines as THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW. He Is Dean Emeritus of the