Along with all the trees the wife wanted planted around the yard, she also got two wisteria plants. They have been growing well but now comes a new problem. They are getting large enough that they can’t support themselves and stay upright. They need a trellis to hold them up.
We could do what nearly everyone else does and go to Lowes Hardware or somesuch place, buy some trellises and be done with it. Not the wife, though. She wants something different, and decorative. In an attempt to find just the right type of trellis we embarked on a shopping trip (the wife’s favorite thing to do).
There are two large antique ‘malls’ in town. They are big buildings that the owner rents space to other vendors. The vendors set up little booths and sell their wares. They can be fun (and expensive) to wander around in.
The first place didn’t have any trellises (although the wife found one she likes in the flowerbed of the office next to the antique mall. She’s waiting for the tenant to show up so she can ask if he will sell it to her). We went to the second place in hopes of finding what she wanted.
While we were wandering around the aisles we came across a vendor selling used books. Score!
At that point the wife had to spend most of the rest of her trip wandering alone, as I was fixated on the books. In hindsight, letting the wife wander alone in a shopping area can be dangerous to the bank account. But books!
There were only three walls, relatively small ones at that, of books. There was a good selection of fiction and non-fiction. As I browsed I managed some good finds. First off was Significa by Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace. Next was Downward to The Earth by Robert Silverberg. Then I found three of the Travis MGeee noels by John D. McDonald – One Fearful Yellow Eye, The Dreadful Lemon Sky, and Free Fall in Crimson.
Sidenote: I had the entire Travis McGee series in paperback back before we moved. However, the box that they were in, along with all my Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, mysteriously disappeared in transit from Houston to our new digs. Still not happy about that. The copies I found today were all hardcovers, which is better.
Next came The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. Finally I found What’s New In Magic? by Walter B. Gibson.
Note: None of these are affiliate links.
Regrettably, my desires outweighed my wallet. They were all $3 to $5. I ended up spending the last of my cash the other day and haven’t been able to replenish my supply. The wife took pity on me and let me get one of the books (Thank you, wife!) (she found her own collection of goodies – no trellises though. Remember what I said about leaving her alone in a place to buy things?). After careful consideration I went with Walter B. Gibson’s What’s New In Magic? I figure it is an older title, hard to find, and was written by the guy who wrote the majority of the Shadow novels in the pulp era.
A totally unexpected find in an unlikely place. I’ll have to frequent the antique stores in the area more often and see what other book surprises I might find. It does occur to me that I found the Dark Tower series when I was looking for them by serendipity while the wife was shopping in another antique store in the next town over. Still not as good as a dedicated bookstore, but I’ll take it.
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