It was the morning of December 21, 1931. Sandusky was sixty miles away, and he slept through most of the ride, not waking until the bus reached the terminal two and a half hours later. He had just over three hundred dollars in his pocket: the two hundred fifty from Meers, another fifty he had slipped into his wallet before leaving Chicago on the twentieth, and change from the ten he had broken for his bus ticket. He went into the depot luncheonette and ordered the breakfast special: ham and eggs, toast, home fires, orange juice, and all the coffee you could drink. Halfway through his third cup, he asked the counterman if there was anything to see in town. He was just passing through, he said, and he doubted he would ever be back this way again. Sandusky ain’t much, the counterman said. It’s just a little burg, you know, but if I was you, I’d go and check out Cedar Point. That’s where the amusement park is. You’ve got your roller coasters and fun rides, the Leapfrog Railway, the Hotel Breakers, all kinds of things. That’s where Knute Rockne invented the forward pass, by the way, in case you’re a football fan. It’s shut down for the winter now, but it might be worth a look.
Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions
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