BOOK SIGNING

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July 8, 2006

Join us on Saturday, July the 8th for a special book signing with author Claude "BUD" Smith. Author of LAPPING AMERICA. Hear about his travels across the country in his 1996 red Corvette. Book signing will be from 12:00 til 2:00 PM. Join us for Baseball, Hotdogs, and Apple Pie. The lap car will be here as well !!!!

Here's some more info from his website !!

LAPPING AMERICA A Man, a Corvette, and the Interstates Claude Clayton Smith

Burford Books announces the publication of Claude Clayton Smiths LAPPING AMERICA (ISBN: 1-58080-139-0, 312 pages, $16.95 paperback original, publication date June 16, 2006).

Hailed by Library Journal as some of the best of contemporary travel writing: humorous, insightful, depressing, challenging, nostalgic, and surprisingly upbeat all at once, LAPPING AMERICA celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Interstates, properly known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate & Defense Highways. Smiths tribute to the Interstates takes him on a perimeter drive of the country from corner to corner, all in a fire-red Corvette. Along the way he meets a cross-section of people and discovers what makes the Interstates such a part of the American fabric.

He learns, for example, that the original conception of the Interstates as defense highways meant that every five miles on an Interstate is a stretch straight enough to serve as an emergency aircraft runway, and that overpass clearances on all Interstates are set at 14 feet to accommodate rocket-laden military vehicles. He learns that Interstate rest stops sometimes become havens for abandoned Alzheimers patients, and that the Interstates were routed to capture attractive views whenever possible. Above all, he finds in the Interstates something of the paradox of contemporary America: beautiful and efficient in some places, overcrowded and neglected in others.

This is a funny, perceptive, beautifully crafted account of a journey many of us dream of making, and Smith is there to make that dream come true.

CLAUDE CLAYTON SMITH is Professor of English at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio.