If I were a cartoon character I’d be drawn with so many curved lines around me I’d whirl right off the page. It’s amazing to me that four whole days have gone by in what seems like a blur of perpetual motion. It all began Friday with an auction devoted solely to paper and books with the emphasis heavily on paper. It was rather far from home, but was such a rarity that I would have dug out my hiking boots and walked if needed. To say there was a lot of stuff would be like saying the United States has a lot of people. Boxes, flats, tubs, piles, mounds, and heaps of vintage magazines, brochures, maps, books and prints kept the small, but rabid, crowd bidding for seven hours straight! We got home at eleven p.m. with the Cruiser’s back bumper nearly scraping the road from the weight of the goodies.
At first the prices were scary – think big hairy wood spider scary -- but as the day wore on and the crowd thinned the buying kept getting better. By the time I bought the last big box of books it was so good I didn’t even care that my shoes were twice their size in mud. I got the box for $22 and have already sold a rare Ohio volume, Tales From Yellow Creek, on Advanced Book Exchange for enough to get a nice chunk of money back. The guys – and it was ALL guys because paper seems to be a man’s game – didn’t groove on books too much. They saved their energy and a LOT of their cash for magazines. One guy spent almost $300 on a flat of smallish old magazines called Life. I’d never seen them before, but I know for a fact that they are not an earlier incarnation of the big Life magazine. Maybe he knew something I don’t, but I’m still glad I didn’t jump in on that one. Instead I waited for the Delineator, early McCalls from 1914, Godey's Lady Book from 1879 and stuff I can’t even remember.
The fact that I don’t know what else I got tells you how crazy it’s been since I last talked to you. Usually I’m rooting around in the boxes like a kid who can’t wait for Christmas. But we had to be at the Case Western Reserve University sale Saturday morning no later than seven a.m., so we grabbed a quick something that approximated dinner and went straight to bed. The Case sale used to be my favorite, but anymore it’s smaller, pricier, and lacking in the high-end treasure that gave it a singular rarified cachet. Nonetheless we sallied forth hopefully and got there at seven for a ten a.m opening. But here’s the shocker – people used to spend the night camping in the parking lot. People came from distant states. The line used to wend its way down the side of the building and double back on itself even with the price of admission at $20 a person just to walk in the door. Not this year it didn’t! We were fifteenth in line and it never got appreciably bigger.
In the past scanners were minimal because of the fee. But this year very few of the old-timers showed up making scanners the majority. I didn’t even mind though because there weren’t enough of them to invade the delightful atmosphere of peace, leisure and fun.Though I was greatly disappointed in the antiquarian section, I did buy a few lesser books for old time’s sake just because I liked them and my favorite volunteers (who know me by name because I haunt their section) love the same stuff I do. We all get so excited you’d think we were a pack of 49’ers headed to the Klondike gold fields. I only bought one middling priced book there at $40 though and one other book in the art department for $50. Everything else was in the $10-30 range for a total of only $300, less by two thirds from the good old days.
But after Case there was no more putting life on hold for books -- time to switch gears. Did you hear that eardrum- popping screech emanating from Medina around noon? If not, you must have been in the shower because we’re talking an abrupt one-eighty here. I hosted a wedding shower for a friend’s daughter last night and didn’t start doing any of the preparations until Saturday afternoon. No menu, no groceries, no favors, no games, no centerpiece, no sharpened pencils, no anything. So Saturday and Sunday the pedal met the metal big-time. Don’t ask how it came together. I don’t want to think about it except to say that it did and 25 people had dinner and dessert, the bride glowed in bridely bliss, high hilarity ensued, and a good time was had by all. Picture below of the centerpiece.
So then -- back to the books. Case had a half price sale on Monday which I had pretty much decided to skip until I looked over what I got Saturday night and realized that I had done better than I thought. So off we sped to Cleveland again late Monday morning hoping to snatch up some bargains. We did, but the tables looked like Pompeii after the quake which could be why only two people waited in “line” when we showed up five minutes before starting time. The best buys were in science and technology, but I did scavenge a humdinger in art and a good set in music, so I was happy. Went home, put the finishing touches on the wedding shower, changed into my party clothes, and was good to go.
And that, folks, is what I did on my four-day “vacation” from the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment