When he got his first job with a valet parking company near his Cheltenham Township home at 16, Larry Cohen did not expect that he would one day publish a book on his four decades in the parking business, writes Dan Nephin for Lancaster Online.

And it was sometimes a tricky business, according to “The Quirky World of Parking: Four Decades of Observations, One Parking Space at a Time.”

Cohen, who is Lancaster County Parking Authority’s executive director and a parking industry consultant, has received death threats due to his line of work. He also once had to change his doctor because he felt pressured to use his position to help the doctor with a favor.

Those are just a few of many vignettes featured in the book. And while it is mostly targeted at his industry peers, Cohen’s book is engaging and the vignettes would be interesting to everybody.

“I think the public’s perception of what parking operations − parking authorities in particular − do is write parking tickets and take (their) money for parking,” said Cohen. “And like any business, parking is more complex than that.”

Read more about The Quirky World of Parking at Lancaster Online by clicking here.