Customer Reviews

A Bus of My Own

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Thank you for the fast delivery of my purchase. My wife has really enjoy reading "A Bus of My Own." She read it in 2 days.
tHANK YOU.

This warm-hearted 1992 narrative by journalist Jim Lehrer (born 1934) is both personal and informative. Lehrer describes his upbringing in Kansas and then Texas, where his father ran a small bus company and when it failed switched to managing a bus terminal. Lehrer spent time in both college and the U.S. Marines, and seems more attached to the latter. Soon, he was working as a newspaperman for the Dallas Morning News and Times Herald. Later, Lehrer joined PBS, eventually teaming with Robin McNeil on the News Hour. Lehrer provides excellent insights into that program, plus electronic and print journalism, and he's unafraid to criticize bad reporting, journalistic arrogance, and his own shortcomings. Lehrer also reflects on his 1983 heart attack, which he blames on poor lifestyle (cigarettes, bad diet and lack of exercise). Throughout the narrative Lehrer describes his passion for intercity bus signs and memorabilia, particularly the 1946 Flexible Clipper bus (with air scoop) he pleasure drives on weekends.

This nicely readable book is hardly the pinnacle of journalistic memoirs. Still, it is a warm, humane, informative book by a very capable journalist.

Jim Lehrer, a reporter who was in Dallas on 11/22/63, maintains that Secret Service SAIC of the Dallas office Forrest V. Sorrels ordered the bubbletop off JFK's limo and had regrets about it. Regrets aside, that decision was actually made by Secret Service agent Samuel A. Kinney (I spoke to both Sorrels and Kinney). That said, a decent book; worth a look.
Vince Palamara
Secret Service expert, History Channel, author of 2 books, in over 32 other author's books, etc.

Let me say from the outset that I am delighted to have gotten this memoir at the price I did. If you are a fan of Jim Lehrer, whether from his decades long news program on PBS, or his great works of fiction (especially the One-Eyed Mack series), you should take the time to read this memoir.

My only complaint, and it is a minor one based on the price I paid, is that the book was not exactly in perfect, "new" condition as promised by the third party seller Amazon provided. The pages and jacket cover are browned a bit from its age (1992). But for the $1.47 price (+ 3,.99 shipping), I can not really complain.