Cleaning house - the books have to go!

 The week of July 4, Barb started The Great Clean Out of 2013 by emptying the attic of all the detritus stored upstairs. Most of that ended up in the trash and the recycling, but a lot of the items have prompted some good stories; there are more of those in the wings.

Next came the kitchen cabinets and the hutch in the dining room. Goodwill was the primary beneficiary of the odd and assorted pots and pans, table cloths, dishes, cups, bowls... you get the picture.

Now it's the bookshelves. Hello, Half-Price Books! When you are avid readers and scholars (well, one of us is) the accumulation of books is an occupational hazard. Mind you, these are not the legacy books that become a permanent part of the family library - these are for the most parts books that we cannot remember acquiring (and some of which we have never read). Trust me, the shelves are not bare.

There is a tradition of book selling in the family. Years ago, I worked for Ralph Sweet at Sweet Publishing Company. Sweet published a variety of books, ranging from commentaries to Sunday School curricula, all aimed at the churches of Christ market place. The big seller was always the VBS material, a new series every year.

For 30 years, until 2007, Abilene Christian held a summer Bible Teacher's Workshop, a source of resources and ideas to teachers and church leaders. Sweet always had several tables of books and materials for sale at these workshops, and for several years, Barb and I manned those tables. We loaded up a U-Haul trailer full of books, VBS kits and assorted teacher materials, dropped the kids off in Breckenridge at the grand parents and spent a week in Abilene at the Workshop. We attended the sales tables by day, and evenings were like a holiday for us; eating out, a dip in the motel pool each evening and air conditioned comfort.

Ralph collected remainder books all year, quantities of books from various Christian publishers that remained unsold and could be purchased by the box. We set them out and sold them for a pittance, but they were very popular, even if we did have to post a sign that said "If we serve you fish, we trust you will not eat the bones." No, really. This was a conservative crowd!

One year Ralph purchased John Allen Chalk's library. Chalk, who had been a speaker for the Herald of Truth and pulpit minister for Highland in Abilene, culled his library (like Barb is doing now) prior to starting law school (unlike Barb). When we put those books out, there was a feeding frenzy, bones or no bones.

Dr. LeMoine Lewis, a professor at ACU, bought the majority of them. He thumbed through the selection rapidly, pulling out books by the stack. Some he put in the "sold" stack, and a few he set aside and had us promise not to sell them while he ran home to check his inventory. We had been in Dr, Lewis' home and we knew that he had several rooms with nothing but books. He had library-style stacks in the center of the rooms, as well as wall-to-wall shelves! After his death, the bulk of his library became the basis of the Lewis Church History Collection at ACU.

I even sold books on Amazon for a time. After Barb retired from teaching, I posted what remained of her teacher books on the Amazon Seller site and earned enough to purchase a couple of iTouches for our use. And a few years back, we traded many of our fiction books at the little bookstore up the street. After Mr. Grape retired and closed his store, Half-Price Books became the only game in town. Based on the number of boxes and bags of books stacked around the house, they are going to be very excited to see Barb coming!