Winding up a weekend of memories...

I put away some more boxes of books after carefully recording what book went in what box. I couldn't help but wonder why I was doing this, not from the perspective of "I'll never see them again," but "When will I ever have the time?"

Do I really need all those books (almost a full box) on C and C++ programming? Will I ever really refer to any of those books on object-oriented design? These days, Perl seems to do it all for me, though I do dream of upgrading a glossary program I wrote in Borland C++ Builder back when I worked in Houston.

I remember going through a fair number of my parents' books in my youth. They were squirreled away in every nook and cranny, and even part of my room was given over to a shelf of my mother's books. I read a lot as a kid, and my mother often would remark that it was a shame that she had gotten rid of quite a lot of books before I was born.

I suppose my reluctance to part with books may be based on that formative exposure; for some reason, I always thought I was compiling a library of books worthy of passing down to my children (not via inheritance, but simply by making them available). It didn't work out that way.

Mostly, it has to do with the fact that the books I bought simply don't have the "staying power" of those my mother read, back in the day. I collected paperbacks of science fiction and mystery; she kept early editions of Stefan Zweig and Joyce's Ulysses.

Then again, there is also the fact that my kids didn't grow up to be the kind of readers I grew up to be. I loved reading, and that love has served me well in "real life," even though it wasn't always a smooth road. I still remember the stinging embarrassment I experienced when my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Rosenstock (a.k.a., "The Pill"), discovered me reading one of the books from a shelf at the side of the room... during a math lesson.

During one session of summer camp, I methodically went through the entire Hardy Boys series at the camp library in 6 weeks, reading the books during the one hour of enforced rest after lunch with an enthusiasm I do not think I've been able to muster since, because (a) I was a big fan of Frank and Joe, and (b) my parents weren't believers in allowances or in buying children's books, and you would sooner find a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater in the children's section of the Queens Borough Public Library than anything written by "Franklin W. Dixon."

So it is with sorrow that I put my books into storage, while trying to keep those volumes that are not of immediate import out of boxes and close enough at hand for them to be useful, should they be needed.

Who knows, maybe I'll set up an eBay store, or something, and sell my imprisoned friends to good homes.

Cheers...