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“... terms it was his starry apotheosis.Working the road in the 1930s and 1940s with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey bands, Sinatra acquired a lot of jazz life knowledge by osmosis. (Jazz inflections peppered his speech for the rest of his life: ‘I’ve known discouragement, despair and all those other cats.’) He learned what not to do: how to hold ...”

“... too far, too fast on the recycling,’ he said. Next to the Jewish Free School, Les beeped his horn when he spotted another veteran of the Harrow refuse system, Fred, who was driving his truck on the other side of the road. ‘Spent years in rubbish,’ Les said. ‘He’s about to retire.’ ‘Lucky bastard,’ said Joshi. It took the best part of six ...”

“... Bergen certainly had, and probably still has, its rough edges. So my father starts honking his horn and making violent hand gestures, sticking his finger in his teeth, flashing the V sign, the cuckold sign, bouncing up and down in the driver’s seat, looking like a crazy person. As the greasers took in this spectacle, pie-eyed and with some concern, my ...”

“... was to issue laws making it illegal to drive with only one hand on the steering wheel or to honk a horn when there was no emergency. I heard that the unemployment rate was now 70 per cent, that less than 1 per cent of the workforce was engaged in reconstruction, and that the US had spent only 2 per cent of the $18.4 billion approved by Congress for ...”

“... to be fitted lifeboats, the fizz of welding torches, the juddering of rivet guns. The shipyard of James Lamont and Co. bordered the castle on its upriver side. Downriver, and even closer, lay the Ferguson Brothers yard. The ships built at both yards were small – 300 feet long at most – and had humdrum purposes: ferries, tugs, minesweepers, dredgers, the ...”

“... said. North Carolina was the birthplace of Billy Graham and three US presidents, Andrew Johnson, James Polk and Andrew Jackson, and also, among the twinkling lights out there, you could find the uncelebrated birthplace of Thomas Wolfe, the North Carolinian who wrote Look Homeward, Angel. As the truck got nearer the Waffle House, someone on the radio made the ...”