Adventures

The Iowan town that I used to call home is full of adventures. Of course, I am one to find a penny on the sidewalk and call it an adventure, but at least one of the two adventures I am about to describe is an honest to goodness one and not just one that is an adventure because I have decided to name it that.

1)

Half a block's walk off of Main Street in Ames, IA, there is a used book store called Firehouse Books. No matter what time I go there, the owner is always the only person working. I can honestly never tell if he enjoys his job, but I assume he must. Of course, I've based this assumption mostly on the fact that I would love his job if it were mine.

What I like best about this bookstore is that there are just so many books. Which might seem like a ridiculous statement, since it is a bookstore. And honestly, the space is not that big, so it certainly doesn't hold as many books as a big discount chain would. What Firehouse has that the big chain across town doesn't is shelf after shelf after aisle after row of books that have been experienced. Maybe these books weren't someone's favorite and that is why they ended up on the shelves at the used bookstore. But maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe the person who loved that book on that shelf so much that the pages are creased and the binding is broken couldn't afford the next book without getting rid of the ones already read. Maybe the book was just so good the person couldn't bear to keep it to him or herself and wanted to share the book in some way. Or the person who loved a whole collection of books by that author moved away and didn't have room in that last packing carton. Or maybe the book lover's family had to do something with all the volumes they found cleaning out the house of someone who had recently left this world.

Firehouse is a great store because it wants the reader to think about those stories. First by proclaiming a book used. Who used it and under what circumstances? I, for one, won't buy a used book that has a cracked binding. It hurts my feelings when books have cracked bindings, so even when I am leaving with a stack of used books, they all look pretty close to new. But when comes come into Firehouse with pictures tucked between the pages, or news clippings, or receipts, those things stay with the books they belong to, become artifacts, become a part of the reader's experience perhaps.

This weekend, while browsing the shelves at Firehouse (from which I would later depart with six "new" books), I came across a hardcover copy of Leo Buscaglia's _Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships_. My goal in a used bookstore is to not have very specific goals in what I am looking for, that way I don't ever leave dissappointed with what I do or do not find. So this book seemed like it would be a decent find. I am interested in the ways people talk about love, how we wrap words around this somewhat elusive emotion, how we use words in order to make love as a concept work. So I started flipping through the pages. I can't say that I was immediately excited. In fact, I nearly put the book back on the shelf. But when I decided to check the copyright date (1984--I was two), I found an inscription from September 22, 1991, that read:

"____- I have never given a book to someone I am dating, so this is a special first for me. You may have this book or have read it before, but I wanted this to be a gift from me to you. We can share this book with one another as we grow in our love for each other. I love you! Yours always, ____"

What happened to these lovers? Immediately, I assumed they have broken up. But for this book to be on the shelf in the used bookstore in 2009, perhaps there is more to the story than that. Unless the book has been sitting on that same shelf for years. Maybe they are still deeply in love, still together, and they have gotten all the use they could from these pages. Perhaps something tragic happened and either the recipient or the giver of this book passed. Maybe always was just a lot shorter than the giver of this book would ever have guessed at the time of the giving.

But while I could have put the book itself back down, left it on the shelf with the other used books on the self-help and relationship section, it was that relationship, between ____ and ____ that I couldn't let go of. So I brought that book home with me. I just couldn't put those feelings that existed September 1991 back on the shelf.

2)

When it rains in Iowa in January, it freezes. Makes perfect sense. What didn't make sense was the perfect sheet of ice that covered absolutely every available surface Saturday afternoon when a friend and I were leaving another friend's house after a very nice visit. I have never seen anything like it. We could literally slide down the incline of the driveway.

And we coldn't get the bar away from the curb. It kept sliding sideways back into place. So we left it. And we walked. Approximately eight blocks from house to house. It took us an hour. I fell twice and got a pretty nice sized bruise on my left elbow. I was wet, as it was still drizzling, and I have never hated the slight incline where the sidewalk goes down to meet the road quite so much nor do I think I ever will again.

But we didn't die, and neither of us were seriously hurt. From now on, I am bringing ice skates to Iowa whenever I go. Even in August.