Our DNA makes us what we are. We get half from the female side and half from the male side. So it is correct to say that I have half my mother’s and have half my father’s DNA. It makes me what I am. So it stands to reason that my obsession with book overabundance has a great deal to do with my having inherited my parent’s love of reading, which was both genetically and environmentally linked.

Too bad, I’m saying was both. If they were still alive, I’d be saying is both.

One of life’s greatest, if not the greatest unfairness is that usually children’s greatest accomplishments come after their parents are long dead. There are early accomplishments and there are later accomplishments. The early accomplishments are things common to all children. They learn to walk, talk, shit on the toilet, that sort of thing. The later accomplishments are their making their mark on the world. They become orchestra conductors, principal ballerinas, World Series baseball players.

We can hope (and I don’t believe in hope) that our parents somehow see and are proud of the later accomplishments. I would like to think so. Tonight, after putting in considerable time organizing the former banquet room of the historic Eagle Hotel, then heading towards the door, I looked back behind me and thought, my father and mother would be impressed with what I’ve done.

My giving away free books (because there was an overabundance of books) was not the way my father did it. He went the conventional route because he didn’t see any alternatives. There most likely was not an overabundance of books in Hillsboro New Hampshire. And if there was, I don’t know if he would have wanted to get a nonprofit going. He would not have wanted to write grants. He simply would have enjoyed passing free books on to readers and enjoy talking about these books.

That I have done this would have fascinated him. And he might have been proud.

As for my mother – she worked in Portland, at a very used independent bookstore, unpacking boxes of books that came down from Seattle. She was dealing with overabundance. She didn’t own the shop; rather, she was a grunt. She earned minimum wage and took home books and bookmarks.

She was, I think, trying to prove something to my father. Maybe it was that she was as knowledgeable about books as he was. Yes, this is it.

Me, I don’t think I’m trying to prove to either parent that I’m as book wise as they were. I just have not been able to let go of the fact that books ought not be destroyed. So what I acquired from them both, and have been acting upon, is a mutual love of books. And if you love something, you act in its best interest.

Will what I just wrote end up in Shelf Life? It might. Then again, it might not. I’m now feeling that Shelf Life could end up being over 1,000 pages in length. It seems like every day there are many new insights.

Next: 18. 1/18/26: No Ideas but in Things