Ever reliable and responsible, Otis Halstead is a father, a husband (one half of a "well-dressed couple of substance") , and the CEO of Kansas Central Fire and Casualty. He has never done anything out of the ordinary. Until now.<br><br>The change in Otis starts with an antique toy fire truck, the exact model he had pined for at age ten but never received. Though it is now a collectible costing $12,350, he will buy it-because he can. Next comes a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, ordered from the Nostalgia Today catalog. A Kansas City Chiefs regulation NFL helmet follows. But Otis's real coup is the purchase of his one true childhood passion: a red 1952 Cushman Pacemaker motor scooter. For his baffled wife, Sally, this is the final straw. She insists that he see a shrink-a sloppy man with flowing hair who uses terms like "mature men in crisis" and "second childhood syndrome." Otis is unimpressed-and extremely insulted-by the doctor's insinuation that his baldness is to blame for his sudden interest in toys.<br><br>But it's not until tragedy strikes uncomfortably close to home that Otis decides he wants out of his sensible, safe life in Eureka, Kansas. And so, a few weeks before his sixtieth birthday, Otis leaves town, heading west on old U.S. 56, a corporate CEO wearing a football helmet, riding a forty-year-old motor scooter, and with a BB gun strapped to the side. One might say he was in for an adventure. Otis would say he was finally about to experience life.<br><br>Jim Lehrer has created an acute, laugh-out-loud, and endearing portrait of American middle age. With abundant wit and a sharp sense of the lives most of us lead, <i>Eureka </i>takes us on a journey through the unfulfilled dreams of childhood. In Otis Halstead, Lehrer has created his most brilliant and winning character to date.
