Tim Norris’ name might be familiar to Milwaukee readers. The Milwaukee Journal feature writer was transferred to sports after the 1995 shotgun marriage with the Sentinel. As mismanagement continued, he found himself jobless, relegated to the temp sector. Like many out of luck Americans before him, he went west.
Running the Old Road in Yellowstone is his memoir of a summer job in one of the nation’s natural landmarks. Yellowstone National Park was already a place of fond memory from family vacations, but now he saw the land with different eyes. “This place is a world of its own,” he writes, “drifting on clouds and columns and billowing coruscations of steam.”
He spent many hours working at the park’s fast-food outlet and no surprise, many of his best times were on the hiking trails. As the theme from the old “Davy Crockett” show ran through his head, he thought to himself that he’s not the “king of the wild frontier.” No, “I’m a skinny, idiot runner in eyeglasses and New Balance 603’s and a shirt that reads ‘Winterfest 5K 2004’ from Baraboo, and I expect that if a bear comes after e I will wet myself or worse.”
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