When I pulled the tome off the shelf, I should have listened to the small voice reminding me not to bring any more
sh stuff home. With absorbing some of my parents' things from the old homestead, my poor little dollhouse is starting to look like a tribe of hoarders lives here. I should have listened. No one would want a dictionary that was 50 years old. Especially a dictionary with a broken cover poorly held together with duct tape. This book was well loved and well used. I spent hours in the attic (before my dad turned the room into a home office) lying on the floor and turning the pages. I'd randomly read a page from here and a page from there. So many words. So many cool things like how to properly address a letter to a duke.
I carried the book downstairs. I should have put it in a trash bag, but I couldn't. I just couldn't bear to let it go. The duct tape holding the binding together had dried out. I carefully pulled the old tape away. Before I knew it, I had a roll of duct tape and was carefully measuring, cutting, and applying new pieces of tape. The old book will have a new job. It's big and heavy. It will make a perfect weight to flatten paper. That's what I'll tell Himself if he asks.
Are there any items you're so attached to you can't bear to part with?
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I have two large dictionaries too--they're broken up into two books they're that large. They're kind of a nasty red and gold color too. But I can't part with them either. LOL
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not alone!
ReplyDeleteIn my museum sized collection I have two areas that have THE BOOKS AND ITEMS I SHALL NEVER PART WITH (that should be read with a Charlton Hestonish Ten Commandmants voice) the rest of it can go the way of the dodo bird, but those two semi large areas will not.
ReplyDeleteYou made the right choice! Books are treasures, and old books even more so. I have a few aging dictionaries, and seeing how everyone simply goes to dictionary.com, I going to try doubly hard to make sure my kids look words up the old-fashioned way.
ReplyDeleteLove this!
ReplyDeleteThe things I can't part with from my childhood are also books. Old Scholastic paperbacks, my Cherry Ames books, my Marguerite Henry books. So many wonderful stories and memories there.
Older dictionaries are the BEST! they have words we used to hear, they have words used in historical novels that we aren't sure of...they are priceless! If it is possible, we have too many books but it has given both our kids a love of them. They both have need of more book shelves in their homes!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! We once were told to evacuate because of a hurricane and the only things I packed were the pictures and the boys clay ‘works of art’! (Never even thought of legal papers or that sort of thing! LOL)
ReplyDelete