We Stopped Counting at 3,000

We stopped counting the books in my mother's house when we got to 3,000. The Un-daddy estimated there were another two to three thousand. Yes, possibly 6,000 books. It is safe to say we were a family who loved books. But, how does a family come to own so many, you ask?

First we are a long line of only children... four generations worth to be exact. This many onlys leads to a lot of inherited books and until recently, we found inherited items nearly impossible to throw out.

Next is just a general curiosity and a love of reading. Until recently, curiosity was satisfied in book stores and libraries. Of course the little Un's generation uses "the google."

Finally, my favorite story about the books involves my mother's "innocent" thievery from the local library. The library kept a barrel in the lobby for donations to the yearly Friends of the Library Sale. Mom, however, claimed she did not know these were donations until confronted by a friend who observed her removing books from the barrels. All of this was common knowledge in my family and we laughed the image of my 5' mom stooped over a barrel getting "pinched" by her friend for stealing.

But here's the best part...

She kept a list of every book taken, title, author, date she "acquired" it and the full retail cost of the book. These lists were better than the Watergate Tapes and provided many hours of belly-shaking eye-watering laughter for the rest of us...thanks Mom. I know she must have enjoyed her own hours of laughter thinking about the posthumous discovery of the lists.

Many posts over the course of this year will contain books and now you know why. I like to think these donations to my own hometown library are in some way atoning for my mother's "innocent" transgressions.

-un-collecting Mom