Old Books Options

[Retrogressive]

I have this... compulsive... habit. I seem to only want to buy used books. I haven't always been like this. The fact that new books are so expensive doesn't help my compulsive habit. When I say compulsive, I mean: I know all of our used books store owners and they know me by name. I also have discounts at all of our used book stores because I've brought in so many books-- thus, I get books for dirt cheap. It's not the price that I'm "compulsive" about. It's the age, the time someone spent on it, the story OF the book ITSELF that interests me so much.

So one day I started a book collection of 1800-early 1900 books. They aren't worth anything at all. Most of these books have been mass produced later on in their publication or have simply been forgotten with time and culture changes, making the plot trite and predictable. I often wonder who wrote that Dec. 25, 1908 inscription, "To John, with love- Sarah." Who were the people who wrote in my margins? And who will be reading my scribbles in fifty years?

These time capsules aren't limited to 100 year old books. I recently bought a 20 cent copy of Crime and Punishment. The previous owner wrote her name all over the cover, and doodled on Raskolnikov's face. Yet, for some class she took she scribbled little side notes in the margins. She spent her TIME writing in those notes. Who was this Ali Lawrence? How did her beloved book come to be in my hands?

Our time capsules are everywhere. We are constantly being confronted with little bits of forgotten history everyday-- those initials in the pavement, the graffiti in the bathroom, and that T-shirt your mom bought you from the used clothing store. Everything around us has a story to tell, even if it's just beginning. Do you have a collection that tells a story? A picture? A memory? Or something you wonder about?

[*Kathleen*]

Are we allowed to bump Lounge topics? I really thought this was a quality thread, and I'd be sad to see it go that quickly.

[*Libertie*]

Are we allowed to bump Lounge topics? I really thought this was a quality thread, and I'd be sad to see it go that quickly.

Doesn't matter, I'd rather see good threads go to the top than see the stuff that's been surfacing lately.

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My dad used to work as a boiler operator for the local Human Development Center when I was a child. The people who lived on this what we called "the colony" were mentally challenged patients that had been deemed unsuitable to live in public or on their own. It was like a small town with houses, buildings, etc. Most of the people who worked there lived there as well, including us. I remember not being allowed to go outside, even in the front yard, by myself, and if we saw someone walking on the sidewalk we were all instructed to run into the house immediately. Pretty scary.

One of the patients had an obsession with trading. It didn't matter what it was, all that mattered was that he gave you something, you gave him something. So my dad would get us up and tell us, "We're going to see Boombox (that was his nickname). Get some toys you'd like to give him." So we'd get all the toys we never played with, put them in a box, and brought them out to this guy, who let us go through boxes and boxes of stuff. We'd come home with new stuff to play with, and we were always thrilled. After we moved away from that place, I put a bunch of the stuff we got from this guy in a box. Somehow, this box survived move after move, and when my dad passed away I found it (the one time I was allowed to look through his house before I was forced to leave).

Looking through the box, it made me wonder. Who were the children who gave each individual toy to this man? How did he get ahold of these toys so that we could have them? Assumedly, he traded something for them. What was it? As I was looking through the box, I was flooded with so many memories, and of course the tears came pretty easily at that point. Unfortunately, I don't have any use for a box of toys, so I took them to Goodwill. Funny.. Now some other child is playing with them.

[*Kathleen*]

Doesn't matter, I'd rather see good threads go to the top than see the stuff that's been surfacing lately.

---

My dad used to work as a boiler operator for the local Human Development Center when I was a child. The people who lived on this what we called "the colony" were mentally challenged patients that had been deemed unsuitable to live in public or on their own. It was like a small town with houses, buildings, etc. Most of the people who worked there lived there as well, including us. I remember not being allowed to go outside, even in the front yard, by myself, and if we saw someone walking on the sidewalk we were all instructed to run into the house immediately. Pretty scary.

One of the patients had an obsession with trading. It didn't matter what it was, all that mattered was that he gave you something, you gave him something. So my dad would get us up and tell us, "We're going to see Boombox (that was his nickname). Get some toys you'd like to give him." So we'd get all the toys we never played with, put them in a box, and brought them out to this guy, who let us go through boxes and boxes of stuff. We'd come home with new stuff to play with, and we were always thrilled. After we moved away from that place, I put a bunch of the stuff we got from this guy in a box. Somehow, this box survived move after move, and when my dad passed away I found it (the one time I was allowed to look through his house before I was forced to leave).

Looking through the box, it made me wonder. Who were the children who gave each individual toy to this man? How did he get ahold of these toys so that we could have them? Assumedly, he traded something for them. What was it? As I was looking through the box, I was flooded with so many memories, and of course the tears came pretty easily at that point. Unfortunately, I don't have any use for a box of toys, so I took them to Goodwill. Funny.. Now some other child is playing with them.

Oh okay. Just checking. And wow. That's pretty powerful. It's just so... weird how even toys and such become history, no matter how insignificant it may seem.