I bought a $600 Volvo wagon just before winter storms dumped several inches of snow here in Bloomington, Indiana.
Considering I had spent $500 during the summer to buy a brand-new extra large Schwinn bicycle, I thought the 1999 Volvo was a good buy once I peeped out of my bedroom window the first morning after an overnight snow storm.
"No riding my bike to work today. Thank God!" The Volvo company was founded in 1927. I looked it up - really, really, really grateful that day.
The wintery weather has abated. My $600 Volvo is still running - despite the arm workout I get every day when I drive it. The power steering is going out. But this post isn't about how grateful I was to have a car during winter. Of course I was. No... this post is about the freedom having a car gave me to drive around my new digs here in Indiana.
And... more specifically, this post is about how my car allowed me to visit my favorite bookstore: Half-Price Books.
Here's a little background... Most of my books are in storage in Texas. When I moved to Indiana, I arrived here with one duffel bag of clothes and a backpack with a few magazines, books, journals and pens.
Since I moved to Indiana approximately a week before Covid hit in 2020, I wasn't able to travel back to Texas during 2020. All my favorite books are missing me. And, I have missed them, too.
The first day I drove to Half-Price Books here in Bloomington, I felt like I had returned home. I don't remember how long I spent inside the store. I started from one end of the store and went from section to section scanning book spines, eyeing the displays of featured books and finished at the other end of the store with a stack of books in my arms.
My biceps, tired from steering my Volvo with the failing power steering, were aching even more from carrying all the hardbacks and paperbacks in my treasure trove of the written word.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations - $3
The ScrewTape Letters - $1
An Incomplete Education $1
Just a few titles I picked up that day. I spent less that $20 that day. Every book was either $1 or $3.
So now, I have a library in the making. I am reading... on a budget.
For that, I am thankful for my $600 Volvo.
Now... I can possibly search the stacks at Half-Price Books and add to my exile library a few titles from 1927, the year Volvo was founded:
Elmer Gantry - Sinclair Lewis
The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder
Aspects of the Novel - E.M. Forster
At least I can carry all those books now that I workout every time I drive.
