Joy Ride: A Journal of Life On the Road in the Summer of 1949

Two years after Bill Heller left the Army, he graduated from Northwestern University. It was 1949 and he was 21 years old. Soon he would join his family business, but for now, he was free. On the first day of summer, Bill and his friend Sid Wasserman headed north and west, driving Bill’s brand-new robin’s-egg blue Oldsmobile convertible. Ten weeks and 14,000 miles later, they were back home. This book is the journal Bill kept during that trip, an attempt to record the travels and experiences of two particular friends during the summer of 1949. It was with Sid that Bill found his approach to life, traveling for business and pleasure, by highway and byway, cruise ship and freighter, prop plane and jet. Life as a joy ride.