Three Years in a Walmart Parking Lot

Three Years in a Walmart Parking Lot
Author: Sharon Waters
Publisher: Blurb
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2019-03-06
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9780578405384

A restless sixty-nine year old, Sharon Waters buys an RV, leaves everything behind except her devoted pets, and embarks on a solitary journey akin to the proverbial wandering in the desert. Her three-year trip along harrowing highways and in freezing parking lots tests her strength, ingenuity, and resilience. She digs deep into her personal marrow, meets many, and learns much along the way, but mostly it's a search for herself. This inspiring memoir relates a wealth of practical knowledge and tells a cautionary tale for those new to RV travel. For more experienced travelers, she shares familiar insights as well as ordeals they may wish to avoid. Throughout her venture, the author is comforted by her steadfast companions, two Schipperke dogs, Magic and Cricket, and a cat named Milo. By the end of her journey, Ms. Waters finds that for all her focus on RV improvement and maintenance, it's her self-esteem and confidence that gain the most from her challenging odyssey. Her quest becomes less about a place as destination, and more about achieving a peaceful state of mind.

Three Years Later

Three Years Later
Author: Ray Johnson
Publisher: Club Lighthouse Publishing
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2018-10-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1772170909

A dirt road, meandering through a boreal forest, headed for who knows where. Sara is the first, walking alone down the road, with fragrant fir and spruce crowding both sides of the road on a warm day. She sees the incredible two-story log home, dominating a clearing; beautiful beyond description. She rings the doorbell and hears melodic chimes, but there’s no answer. It takes every ounce of her courage to enter. The interior of the home is as magnificent as the exterior, with a cathedral ceiling soaring high above her. The home has the appealing smell of fresh-cut timber, but no occupants. In the dining room, on a massive table that is a polished slab of redwood, is a packet with her name on it. There are four other packets, identical to hers; all with different names. A voice from outside calls, it is Ann arriving. While they discuss the mysterious and impossible packets, Russel arrives. Following Russel, Brad arrives, then Tioga, the final arrival; all with packets awaiting them. They attempt to discover what common denominator put them on the mysterious dirt road. It is not age or race or gender or occupation that links them. Brad finally forces the other four to accept the unacceptable, they were all murdered. One by one they relate the painful events that led up to their deaths. Tioga asks the burning question, “Did we die yesterday, five years ago or a decade ago?” Brad suggests the packets with their names on them might hold the answer. He further proposes they open them in the order of their arrival. Sara is leery, because she was the first to arrive. Her courage needs bolstering. One by one they discover the contents of the packets. Each packet contains everything they would need to confront the people that murdered them. Brad askes the other four, “Is there anyone here who wants to turn the other cheek?” Narrowed eyes and looks of revenge answer his question. Armed with everything they will need for retribution, they leave on five quests of repayment in like coin. Will justice be painful and swift? Will justice even be achieved? Will they again find themselves on the enigmatic dirt road? Only the force that is powerful enough to bring them back from the grave knows the answer.

Hola Papi

Hola Papi
Author: John Paul Brammer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2022-06-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982141514

The popular LGBTQ advice columnist and writer presents a memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey growing up as a queer, mixed-race kid in America's heartland to becoming the "Chicano Carrie Bradshaw" of his generation.

Strong Towns

Strong Towns
Author: Charles L. Marohn, Jr.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119564816

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

Cleanlots

Cleanlots
Author: BRIAN. WINCH
Publisher: Winch Enterprises
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2018-08-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781775375104

Cleanlots has been described as "America's Simplest Business" and "almost as simple as a walk in the park." Entrepreneur magazine said parking lot litter cleanup is "a simple, inexpensive and potentially lucrative business to get into, and the market is growing." The Cleanlots book is an operations manual on how to start and operate a parking lot litter cleanup business. Each book purchase includes FREE email and telephone support from the author. Since 1981, author Brian Winch has made a six-figure annual income cleaning up litter from parking lots, and he'll teach you to do the same. It's an excellent way to take control over your life and income; you can start this business with very little money, without a college education or advanced computer skills. It's an ideal business for anyone who likes to work outside, who's responsible and can pay attention to detail. You can also operate this business part-time, as a side hustle until you're ready to go full-time.

The Sarah Book

The Sarah Book
Author: Scott McClanahan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780988518391

McClanahan is the only real successor we have to Breece D'J Pancake. Old-fashioned storytelling from modern Appalachia.

The Big Squeeze

The Big Squeeze
Author: Steven Greenhouse
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2009-02-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400096529

Why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? In this fresh, carefully researched book, New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse explores the economic, political, and social trends that are transforming America's workplaces, including the decline of the social contract that created the world's largest middle class and guaranteed job security and good pensions. We meet all kinds of workers—white-collar and blue-collar, high-tech and low-tech, middle-class and low-income—as we see shocking examples of injustice, including employees who are locked in during a hurricane or fired after suffering debilitating, on-the-job injuries. With pragmatic recommendations on what government, business and labor should do to alleviate the economic crunch, The Big Squeeze is a balanced, consistently revealing look at a major American crisis.

The Great Forgetting

The Great Forgetting
Author: James Renner
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2015-11-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374298793

Jack Felter, a history teacher, returns home to bucolic Franklin Mills, Ohio, to care for his father, a retired pilot who suffers from dementia and is quickly losing his memory. Jack would love to forget about Franklin Mills, and about Sam, the girl he fell in love with, who ran off with his best friend, Tony. Except Tony has gone missing. Soon Jack is pulled into the search for Tony, but the only one who seems to know anything is Tony's last patient, a paranoid boy named Cole. Jack must team up with Cole to follow Tony's trail-and maybe save the world. Their journey will lead them to Manhattan and secret facilities buried under the Catskills, and eventually to a forgotten island in the Pacific-the final destination of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. When Jack learns the details about the program known as the Great Forgetting, he's faced with the timeless question: Is it better to forget our greatest mistake or to remember, so it's never repeated?

Girl Meets Boy

Girl Meets Boy
Author: Kelly Milner Halls
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2011-12-28
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1452102643

Twelve authors of young adult fiction collaborate on this collection of paired stories told alternately from the point of view of the boy and the girl.

Big Box USA

Big Box USA
Author: Bart Elmore
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2024-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1646425944

Big Box USA presents a new look at how the big box retail store has dramatically reshaped the US economy and its ecosystems in the last half century. From the rural South to the frigid North, from inside stores to ecologies far beyond, this book examines the relationships that make up one of the most visible features of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century American life. The rise of big box retail since the 1960s has transformed environments on both local and global scales. Almost everyone has explored the aisles of big box stores. The allure of “everyday low prices” and brightly colored products of every kind connect shoppers with a global marketplace. Contributors join a growing conversation between business and environmental history, addressing the ways American retail institutions have affected physical and cultural ecologies around the world. Essays on Walmart, Target, Cabela’s, REI, and Bass Pro Shops assess the “bigness” of these superstores from “smokestacks to coat racks” and contend that their ecological impacts are not limited to the footprints of parking lots and manufacturing but also play a didactic role in educating consumers about their relationships with the environment. A model for historians seeking to bring business and environmental histories together in their analyses of merchant capital’s role in the landscapes of everyday life and how it has remade human relationships with nature, Big Box USA is a must-read for students and scholars of the environment, business, sustainability, retail professionals, and a general audience.