Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a bestselling author whose current book is "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams."





Bob Greene says John Madden has had a great perk: seeing America on his own bus.





(CNN) -- You've undoubtedly heard that John Madden has left the football broadcast booth. What you may not have heard is that he's not leaving his bus.





"It's been such a great ride," Madden said as he announced his retirement.





But the truly great ride -- the one he will not relinquish -- wasn't his long career as a National Football League broadcaster.





The best ride was the literal one.





Madden's aversion to flying in airplanes led him to perhaps the grandest business perk in all of American life: He was given his own bus, with his own professional drivers. He crisscrossed the country, on his way from one big game to another, on what came to be known as the Maddencruiser, the cost of which eventually was underwritten by corporate sponsorship.





Now. . .you may think that being stuck in a bus for days and nights on end must be a lousy way to lead a life.





Not when you're the only passenger -- you, or whatever buddies and colleagues you choose to invite along. Not when there's food and drink onboard, and television sets with DVD players at the ready, and plenty of room to stretch out and observe the country as it passes by.





And those amenities leave out the most beautiful lure of all. Let President Obama explain it.





He did, inadvertently, the other week. He wasn't talking about Madden -- he was talking about plans for a new high-speed rail system. These were the president's words:





"No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes [at the metal detector]. . . . "





That's the gift Madden gave himself, by working out the bus deal -- the gift of avoiding the endless headaches of travel the rest of the world has to endure. Departure time? Whenever he wants. Flight cancellations? No such thing. Cramped seats? Nope. Security lines? There are none.





It can make for a pretty peaceful life. A football game to see every week, the country winding gloriously out ahead of you between stadiums, your main decision boiling down to how to chop up the miles, where to eat and where to sleep and where to stop for a few hours just to talk to people. . . .





There is a hotel on the west coast of Florida where I have stayed quite often, and during football season Madden would sometimes stay there too. If there had been a game in, say, Miami, and the next one was in Dallas, he might ask his bus driver to stop for the night at this place, which features outlying cottages on the Gulf of Mexico.





Talk about a guy who seemed tranquil -- I know his on-air image was always sort of loud and animated, but I'd see Madden having a serenely silent and unhurried meal by himself in the restaurant, leisurely flipping through the sports pages; I'd see him in the little sandwich shop/deli in the morning, a quiet and amiable fellow standing in line with everyone else, waiting to pay for his breakfast pastries; I'd see him, on departure day, strolling blissfully toward his bus, an overnight bag in his hand, having decided that this was the time that he'd like to roll out. . . .





Who would ever have thought that a fantasy life could revolve around something as seemingly mundane as a bus? But in a chaotic and confused world, full of noise and anger and deadlines, the allure of cruising in splendid solitude through the country, seeing America mile by mile, the journey itself being the ultimate victory. . . .





Madden is the grand champion of bus riders,
What did Green say about being able to travel the country? Who is retiring? Who had the ultimate perk? Who did Bob Greene say was retiring?
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