Up at the crack of dawn (or at least before 7 am) to visit Trader
Joe’s for the geezer hour. Lots of
cheery young employees wearing masks and taking care of the old folks who crave
Joe’s frozen appetizers and other good stuff.
Every customer seemed to fit the
over-65 criterion. Is this our future?
And that is not the only event of the day. We have an online literary gathering tonight. In previous years, the prose and poetry were accompanied
by wine and goodies. This year, it is
strictly BYO wine. And I don’t have to
get dressed (ladies, you know what I mean).
Retiree shopping and virtual poetry salons do not take that
much time, leaving opportunity for decluttering. We have gone beyond closet cleaning and are
now focusing on books. A forty-year career
in academic social sciences results in lots of books. Sadly, books do not have
the utility or resale value they once did.
Hubby tried giving them to his university library, but they did not want
old books. He tried taking them to a used book dealer, who gave him $50.00 store
credit for a few boxes. He tried Half Price Books, which gave him even
less. So, he turned to me, a one-time
rare books librarian whose first job out of library school was with a used book
dealer. We worked out a way to reduce his library to a manageable size.
First, we agreed that if he agreed to get rid of a volume he
would accept that it might be recycled. Painful. Second, he would not keep books
with library stickers and markings. Easy. Third, he would not keep paperbacks
with underlining, highlighter, or cigarette burns. Fourth, he would not keep books
in generally poor condition. I estimate
that about one third of the collection falls in these categories. They will either go in the recycling bin or find
new life in the Little Free Libraries around town.
I estimate that hubby will want to keep one third of the
remaining volumes. That means that I
will need to figure out how to dispose of the final third. Because we cannot
overwhelm the recycling bin, this will be a long-term project. The way things
are going, this project will have the joint benefit of keeping me busy while reducing
the weight load of his second-floor library. It’s all good.
