Chip! I'm with you when it comes to books. We recently had a book organization weekend. The paper backs, that is. Ended up taking about 12 big boxes to used book store. They were what I call "wall bangers". (The kind you finish and throw against the wall because you're mad you wasted your time reading it) The rest we organized by authors........the ones we will reread. Since we're talking about books, I'll have to tell you about some of mine. My grgrandfather from Gibson Co. TN had two daughters that were old maid school teacher's in Bowie, Texas. Annie the older was teacher, principal and even superintendent of a school system. Anyway after the last died, most of their things were tossed. But quite a collection of books were left. My father took some (and I have all those now) and the rest ended up in his sister's attic. My cousin recently sold their house and gave me a whole truck load of them. There is a set of 1900 Encyclopedias. Plus a 45 book set of "World's Greatest Literature". I have very old copies of about every classic you imagine. A couple of interesting ones: The Poems of Ossian.....Boston:Phillips, Sampson & Company, 110 Washington ST. 1850 gorgeous book......red embossed with gold The Road to Heaven -Christianity - Paganism by Rev. Waldo Messaros 1888 it's a huge book also embossed in brown with silver The poems book says on the first page in very nice handwriting "The Property of B. Franklin Dickens bought Feb 20th, 1851 Price one dollar". I looked at the 1850 Gibson census and found him. He must have sold it to my Wilson's and it ended up in Texas. (either that or they stole it) I truly would not take any amount of money for these books and display them in the living room bookcases. I only hope they will mean something to my daughter and she'll keep them in the family. But then she's not a reader. We made some other great finds in his parents attic but I won't go into it. But the books are a treasure to me. We read constantly. Vic ----- Original Message ----- From: <Morom01@aol.com> To: <TNCHAT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 10:51 AM Subject: [TNCHAT] Yardsales in Tennessee > One activity that's just as common in the South and Tennessee as frying pans > and hog lard, is the ritual known as the yard sale. > > Everyone has them and most people go to them in Tennessee. I have lived 34 > years and had never had one, nor had I ever attended one, until this weekend. > My wife and several of her coworkers decided to have a yard sale. I learned > two things this weekend, 1) A yard sale is a thinly veiled attempt of wives > to sell all their husband's things. (She tried to sell my whoopy cushion and > rubber chicken, I've had since highschool) 2) Other wives come to buy the > husband's things for their own husbands. > > But something struck me odd Friday night as all the ladies set up their > wares. One lady brought a box full of books. Well, I'm a book freak, if it's > a book I'll buy it. I looked in the box and found a whole set of Worldbook > Encyclopedias. Not an old set either, these were from the 90's. I looked and > the price was $5 for the whole set! > > I thought about it for a few moments and just couldn't stand for those books > to be sold like that. Books, especially reference books hold a somewhat, > almost Holy feel over me. > > I asked the lady why she was selling her encyclopedias. She told me she > didn't need them any longer. Now what, pray tell, could convince her she had > no longer a need for encyclopedias? Had she learned the secret of the > universe and therefore had no more use for books of knowledge? > > No, she tells me, "I have them on CD-Rom now!" > > Have we, as a society come so far that we don't even want to open a book > anymore? Would this lady prefer booting her computer to simply opening a book? > > I found myself feeling very sad over this box of books. Yes, I bought them! > It was my first ever in my lifetime yardsale purchase. I don't really need > another set of encyclopedias, but I'll find a local library that might make > use of them here in Union County, Tennessee. So that maybe some people who > aren't fortunate enough to have them on CD-Rom may use them. Although I > wonder who the lucky one really is. Is it the one who reads the encyclopedia > on CD or the one who opens a book and discovers the secrets of the universe > under a tree in their backyard? > > I'll take the backyard, with a book, an RC and a Moon Pie! > > Just thought I'd share that with you all, for some reason it just got to me. > > Chip > Manager TNChat > > > ==== TNCHAT Mailing List ==== > To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list please visit: > http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnunion/tnchat > This list is generously donated by Rootsweb for our use. > >