Bill, Pete, and I did it. We salvaged several boxes of books today at the local recycling center. What makes this statement most impressive is that Bill was hobbling around on a sprained ankle (he fell off a ladder), and Pete was hobbling around on a torn leg muscle (he fell down our stairs.)

The two were not up to par. They were sorting books slowly and shuffling around like two old men. Still, they moved boxed books, and did not complain.

They always serve lunch at the recycling center on Saturdays. Today they served egg on hamburger on rice with gravy. Pete just told me that it was the birthday of one of the workers, who is from Hawaii – this is what they serve there. I had rice and fried onions and mushrooms and this was just fine.

Lunch is always a welcome occasion. Today it was really welcome because the guys did need to sit down, Bill to rest his ankle and Pete to rest his leg.

Then it was back to work, with me digging down deep, into the bowels of a Gaylord. I found an 1871 spelling book. It was buried amongst catalogues and numerous National Geographics, psychology, and math books. It was somewhat battered – I placed it carefully in a box with other older textbooks.

I also found a Levi denim sheepskin lined coat. I am now the Marlboro woman.

As we were getting ready to leave, a fellow showed up with three boxes of books.

His timing was good – we just loaded them, along with the children’s books, into the back of the truck. I snuck a peek – there were a number of heavy art books in the boxes. These books will have to go local because they’ll be too heavy to mail anywhere.

Pete and I took the children’s books to the Meeting House. This was fortuitous. I sorted through them and found places to put them. I am planning on putting them out on the long sorting table on Monday, and they will be cleaned and stamped on Tuesday.

I am now glad I took the time to do this because I’ll have less sorting and categorizing to do on Monday. Pete’s going to retrieve the rest of salvaged books on Monday, so I’ll take care of them, exclusively, then. Joe from the Goose Creek Correctional Facility is planning on coming by on Monday, and he’ll take most of the paperback fiction, and I hope, the National Geographics.

There does seem to be a serendipitous element to this project. Come mid-afternoon on Saturdays, I begin to fret, wondering how I’ll find places for the books. It doesn’t matter how many books there are – I just fear that we’ll have tapped the book market or that readers will have decided to go the Kindle route.

Given that so many individuals now are going the electronic route, that we are able to find appreciative readers is amazing. Of course, we’d get the books into their hands faster if we were working out of a larger space. But as I keep telling Pete, we are lucky to have the workspace that we now have. The location is the best for distribution purposes.

Next: 291. 10/23/22: Ranger the Goat Weighs in