A Typical Weekend

Friday,
After breakfast at Dave’s (where I left a poster and some flyers promoting my Jax history book) Ginny & I went to the Jacksonville Fairgrounds to the Friend’s Of The Library Book Sale.

We browsed for hours amid over 100, 000 books culled from Jacksonville Libraries or donated for the sale.

Three observations:

1. Before going, I prayed that the Lord would deliver me from acquisitiveness, that I not just buy things which strike my fancy but truly useful books: We bought only eight books between us.

2. The age of the people shopping; gray-hair definitely predominated. Younger readers were definitely not in evidence – Makes me wonder about the future of writing.

3. The material the Library has culled; They are giving Jacksonville a systematic lobotomy by removing from the shelves traditional classics. Yes, I can see removing out-of-date materials but when will they get more up-to-date copies of Beowulf. Poe, Kippling, Browning, Yates? Literature was being thrown out by the barrel full. History and biography discarded by the ton as though the information in these books might change.

And, there were tons of discarded books about World War II. How are younger readers to learn about these battles? There was a reason we A-Bombed Japan and sent Americans to die fighting Nazis. But the memories of people who actually did the fighting are being discarded to be pulped unless someone buys the culled books.

Such books sales make me feel very sad.

I know how much energy, thought, work and life-force goes into producing a book – and here are thousands of examples of such human endeavor essentially consigned to the trash. Tragic.

O well, as King Solomon observed, “Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh”.

Saturday, March 5, 2005
Ginny & I devoted this day to cleaning up our garden – by which I mean we sat outside and talked about all the work to be done with this flower bed or that. We did not actually do any work. But daydreamed about how nice the garden will look once we get it straight from the ravages of winter.

Eve came over to pick up her mail and bring me some pamphlets discarded from the Friends of the Library culling. She took us out for a nice lunch at Dave’s then Gin & I went to the library to stock up on books for next week.

Sunday, March 6, 2005
Ginny & I chose to skip church this morning and go bird watching along a section of the Jacksonville to Baldwin Rails To Trails path.

Organizers of this project revamp abandoned railroad tracks to make long hiking trails. The section we strolled was paved about eight feet wide with cleared right of way to either side of the path. We strolled past farmland and ponds and pinewoods. The number of cyclists and walkers using the trail surprised me. I thought the path would be little known but a lot of people were on the trail enjoying a beautiful day.

Next time I’ll bring a camera.

The only untoward incident was that Ginny stumbled, spraining and bruising her ankle (especially worrisome because she is diabetic and a foot injury can be serious). But once I got her home I filled a Ziploc freezer bag with ice and kept her foot elevated and warped for the rest of the day as we watched library videos.

Our friend Rick, A Neighborhood Watch Block Captain, came over to tell us that a new neighbor, a young man , father of an eight-month-old baby, died suddenly yesterday. The family just recently moved into the neighborhood. Rick and Judy, another block captain, are organizing a collection to help out the widow and children.