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 -- was n'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 was n'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 , the winner of the lifetime achievement award . And for those who thought that Madden must have felt trapped on that bus for all these years , the truth -- I can promise you this -- is that rolling through the country that way is the opposite of being trapped . The highway begins to feel like a best friend ; as well as you may have thought you knew America before , you begin to understand it in ways you never even considered . Block by block , town by town , state by state , you appreciate anew : There are still so many things to see . So I was n't surprised when Madden , after declaring that the football life he is leaving had been a great ride , said that , by the way , he 's keeping the bus . When he travels , that 's how he will do it , with or without a corporate sponsor , even now that there will be no game waiting on the other end . And of course , after all these years there is a certain remarkable aura that has formed around the man and that bus of his . At the place in Florida where he would sometimes stay , I was coming back from dinner one night and saw two local police squad cars on the property . This was highly unusual ; the town was a quiet dot on the map . I asked the police officers if there had been a crime committed . They appeared a little sheepish . They exchanged glances , as if deciding whether to tell me their real reason for being there . Finally one of them laughed , and said : . `` We just wanted to look at John Madden . '' The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene .
Bob Greene : John Madden 's retiring as a broadcaster but keeping his bus . He says football expert had the ultimate perk for traveling the country . Greene : Highway becomes your best friend as you discover America block by block .