in The Walled City

This is another book by my new favorite author Stewart O'Nan. This is a collection of short stories. The stories are all over the place. They seem to be fiction. "In the Walled City" was one of the stories. That phrase was just a non-important line of dialog.

The final story is one about Willie T. He works at a factory and is getting older. He has been there for 25 years. He sees a van for sale. It has been rear ended. Willie knows a guy that could repair the van for a few hundred dollars.

Willie finds out the van is being sold for $2000. Willie dreams of retiring from the factory, then using the newly purchased van to transport people and/or goods for a living while retired. He does end up retiring and buying the van.

He has responded to an ad in the newspaper requiring transportation. He did not bother to ask who he would be transporting. It turned out that a group of 6 would need an hour's drive to and from some remote facility. At first, all seemed well until Willie figured out all the people were dying of cancer.

Willie went from a gig to a full time employee to do the transport. He thought about quitting. It was hard to deal with the impending death. His boss and one of the transports told Willie to get it together for the sake of the patients. It was especially hard when this one patient who told him to buck up died himself.

The Magnolia Story

This book is the biography of Chip and Joanna Gaines. They are the stars of Fixer Upper on HGTV. This follows both of their lives from the beginning. Chip started out as an avid baseball player. He got a sports scholarship to a junior college. He majored in Entrepreneurship. During college he got a job with a man who had the contract to cut the grass on his campus.

Joanna went to college hoping to be on TV. She did a stint in NYC. But it turns out she did not quite like it. She ended up working for her dad's franchise selling tires. That is where she met Chip, who as a customer needed new tires on his truck. Joanna states that Chip was around 2 hours late to their first date. It was almost a no go.

One business Chip was doing when the two got married was flipping small houses near college. They both moved into one of his project houses. They got it all fixed up. But after the house was ready, Chip made them move out so they could rent the house. Joanna found this pattern repeating many times. It was quite chaotic. After a while they scaled up their business creating new homes. But they were maxes out on loans when the housing crisis hit. They were saved by a small private investor.