This morning the phone rang at 8:00 a.m. I had just said to myself, “five more minutes.” My hope is always that I will fall into a deep sleep and awake at 10:00 a.m. Never happens.

Pete got up and answered the phone. I could not tell who it might be. His uh huhs gave me no indication as to what was going on. I knew it was bad when I heard him say, “well, that’s a shame.” SA same? Well, no one died. . .

He hung up and said that we’d have to get the books and bookcases out of Vagabond Blues. It took about 45 minutes, the amount of time it takes for me to tend to the animals, to internalize this information. Pete told me just a bit more during breakfast. The homeless, who are suffering from the cold, are getting in the building.

Ducks on finger lake

I surmised that maybe, just maybe, the bookcases were messy when the janitor came around, and he thought they were messing with the books. Dunno.

And so, after breakfast I called Bill who distributes, and Robert who is the BLBP board president and I told them what was going on. I think that it took them a while to also internalize the information.

I headed to town, and Robert was there, moving boxes into the back room of the hotel. He and Bill were already on it. Bill was packing up boxes at the Hotel. I jumped into the fray and told Bill where the boxes went, and then I went and helped him pack up 15 boxes.

Bill and Robert left as soon as the books were in the back room, with hardly a glance backwards. I was left to think a bit more about the current state of affairs.

Our losing our presence is a huge loss – we had four bookcases in Vagabond Blues, and they were very popular. It also means more work for me because now I am going to have to work harder at finding places for outgoing books. I don’t know if I have it in me to do this. I’m starting to tire.

I also got to thinking about how what we are doing is not working. I wonder, in order for people to appreciate books, if they have to pay for them. I am wondering further if when we get the new building if we’ll need to have books be a part of our revenue stream.

I also got to thinking about why what we are doing isn’t working and it comes down to this. There is an undercurrent of conservativism that is monetarily based. These individuals will literally fight to the death to preserve the free market system. This is the way the Vagabond Blues powers that be might see the situation. The available space is a part of a money-making venture. They were making no money off of us. And here we were “getting rich” off the grant largess. And the homeless people, they weren’t spending any money in any of the shops. So they put an end to a good thing.

But perhaps the end is just the beginning.

Next: 18. 1/18/24: Null Dies Sine Linea