“The best things in life are free,” and once a year, one of the best things for me does come free: books! (Well, ok, almost free.) Every summer, Friends of Plano Public Library organizes a giant book sale at Plano Event Center. Literally thousands of used books of every genre are on sale for three days. Throughout the past handful of years, the event has become an annual pilgrimage for my family.
Ever since I can remember, I have always loved books. I grew up in Purwokerto (a small city in Central Java, Indonesia) in the 1970s, and as was the case with most cities in Indonesia back then, there was no public library. What existed instead were small, privately-owned book rental stores. They rented out mostly comic books, but on occasion, would have a small collection of non-comic paperbacks. I remember a time during the second grade when I had to stay home for two months to recuperate from an illness. I can recall renting numerous books to pass away the time. My favorite was a series of books by a German writer named Karl May depicting the adventures and friendship of a cowboy and an Apache Indian chief, set in the wild American West. (To my dismay, I found out later that Karl May was virtually unknown in the US.)
Later on, there was one bigger book rental store that showed up in Purwokerto. It was the closest thing to a library that my hometown had, but it was nothing compared to the modern public libraries that Plano and its affluent neighboring suburbs have. My kids and their peers probably take the easy access to good books for granted, but those who have lived in a third-world country know how fortunate we are to have that.
My son Austin and I made our pilgrimage to the Plano Annual Book Sale on Friday. We used to come on the last day of the sale, when for $10 we could fill up a grocery paper bag with as many books as we wanted (in early years, the price would even drop to $5 during the last hour), but that experience last year was disappointing; there were hardly any good books left. So, this year, I decided to come a day earlier on the second day. It was $2 each for hardcover books and $1 for paperbacks – still a great bargain.
Admittedly, in past years, there have been books I bought that ended up being donated back to the library, and many are still waiting to be read. Throughout the years, though, I have obtained some enlightening books such as Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest by Sandra Day O’Connors and Waiting for the Mountain to Move by Charles Handy. My perennial favorite is A Touch of Wonder by Arthur Gordon. It is a reflection on the simple things in life; things that were relevant to a husband and father in the 1950s Georgia and are still relevant to me in the 2010s Texas.
This year I “only” bought ten books, plus two for Austin, for a total of $20. In a nod to our age, I bought my wife Lili 100 Simple Things You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s and Age-Related Memory Loss by Jean Carper (Lili was not amused). There, among the 100 chapters, lies one on “Keep Mentally Active.” It says that mentally stimulating activities keep dementia at bay, and reading is listed as the first example. With that recommendation, I am definitely going back to the annual book sale next year, and the years after that.
REFLECTIONS ON LIFE, WORK, AND FAITH IN THE 21ST-CENTURY AMERICA 