'The Book Lady'

There was a time wherever I went my books went with me – to the University of Southern Mississippi, then Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

A friend kept telling me, “You can find all these books in libraries, you know.”

When I left Carbondale to join that friend at the University of Wisconsin-Plattville, I decided to sell my books, to unburden myself of moving them from place to place.

I boxed up special books from my boys’ childhood and shipped them to their dad for safekeeping. I gave the other children’s books to a neighbor’s kids. “We’ll keep them forever,” she said.

I called the organizers of an antiques show coming up at the nearby Ramada Inn and asked if I could sell my books there. With their gracious consent, I asked for a big table by the exit.

I reasoned that many who came to admire the treasures of old estates and attics would find the price tags beyond their reach and, not wanting to leave empty-handed, would buy a book.

So, on an early February morning, I moved 72 boxes of books down two flights of snow-covered stairs, making many round-trips to the Ramada Inn.

Throughout the day, I became known as “The Book Lady,” as hundreds of book lovers obliterated my library. The joy on their faces alleviated the pain of parting with my own personal treasures.

“I’ve always wanted ALL of Frank Yerby’s books,” a woman exclaimed.

A sociology professor bought my 1908 Sears & Roebuck catalog. “Guess this one escaped the indignity of the outhouse,” he chuckled.

“She wants to learn French,” a Japanese man said of his wife while purchasing two years of French textbooks. “Merci,” she said softly as they walked away.

From classics to bestsellers, fiction and nonfiction, one by one my books found new readers, and the day turned out to be one of the most satisfying of my life.

Today, my two-story townhouse is once more filled with books, old companions who have taken me places I’ve never been and let me experience life as I might never have known it.

I’ll keep them close.

Selling them on eBay just wouldn’t satisfy like the joy I brought to others on that cold February day.