Full Circle then Around Again

While I don't find myself at them often enough I rather enjoy used book stores, and in December I found myself in one. I had found some books from a series I'm in the middle of, but my Wife reminded me that Christmas was coming up and maybe I shouldn't buy things I so obviously wanted so close to the holiday. She did all that with one look, and hardly saying anything.

So I put them back and looked for something new to read. I walked down the horror isle, which I usually find tolerable as a genre, and ran across I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. I remembered thinking the movie previews had looked interesting, and I'm more likely to enjoy a book than a movie so I purchased it for next to nothing.

The paperback I Am Legend looked unread, or it was read by someone much kinder to books than myself. I can't say I've put much thought into where a used book has been before this one, but this one came to my attention in that it had a reciept in it, one that I had not put in it for a bookmark. This receipt let me know that the former owner of the book had purchased it in the Pittsburg Internation Airport, paid cash, and bought some other indescribable item on March 3rd, 2008.

This was interesting because my Grandparents on my Mother's side had lived just outside of Pittsburg. When my Grandmother died, my parents moved my Grandfather here to take better care of him. I had to wonder about when I would return to Pittsburg again.

I got my answer last Thursday, when my Grandfather passed away at the age of 91. He was a hard working, stubborn man who was very set in his ways, but he was a loving Grandfather who left me with many great memories. He had never quite been the same since Grandma had passed away, and it would be wrong to fault a man for that. He will be missed, but his stubborness lives on. Not so easily witnessed in myself even though it is there, but very visable in my son.

The whole family went back to Pennsylvania to bury him with Grandmother and since I've been stumbling slowly through the short stories of I Am Legend, I took the book with me for something to do with any spare time I had. So, the book got a second trip to Pennsylvania. I have to admit that I debated leaving it there, but I haven't finished it yet.