This last while we have been tackling book cases...a shelf at a time. I am instructed to go through and pick out what a I don't want. I can make a pretty big pile of "don't wants" in a hurry. My wife will go through a second time and choose ones she doesn't want to part with. I thought that I had thrown out all university texts years ago. There were still lots on the shelves and some of them weren't thrown out this time.
I did make some discoveries that were very surprising. I found about a dozen books that I had received as a little kid. Books that were Christmas presents and birthday presents. My Mom's sister was only 12 when I was born. She spoiled her nephews rotten and she still does today when she's 85 and her nephews are 73. Our Aunt gave us books for gifts. She found a series that we liked. Mom would read these books to us. Once we were all ready for bed we would crawl on Moms's bed. She would read and we were absolutely quiet . When about half of us had fallen asleep she would quit and that was bedtime.
Like many people I left home right after high school. I did not have a permanent residence. Over the years the things I had as a kid disappeared. Once I had settled down my Mom said one day, "These are the only things of yours that are left here." She gave me the books a I found the other day. My brothers established homes before I did and took things that they had as kids to their houses. Not much was left when I established roots.
So the other day when I found these books it was like rediscovering a very ancient past. To say the least, these were books I didn't throw away.
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| The books were always neatly written in with a greeting. I anybody familiar with the Sugar Creek Gang series? |
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| My 1950 birthday present. |
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| In the country schools we would draw names and give that person a Christmas gift which was presented at the Christmas concert. Wesley was in the grade ahead of me, |
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| Hans Brinker doesn't appear to have been a gift as there is no inscription in it. I read this a couple of times. As you see it's in pretty bad shape. Sleep tight! |
