Roadside Treasures

So I’m driving to work yesterday morning, zipping along some 40 mph backroads trying to make it to the main highway to get to work a little bit early, when something catches my eye. Something gleaming, golden, sparkling, with a chorus of angels “ahh-ahh-ing” in symphonic stereo in soft-blur focus.

What did I see?

A bookcase on the side of the road.

How weird! A bookcase on the side of the road. Sitting there, loaded with thirty or forty or fifty books, just sitting there on that little stretch of grass between the curb and the sidewalk. “Take me!” it pleaded to anyone who would walk by, “take me, or at least take one of my books! Free!”

Believe me, I was sorely tempted to pull over and do just that. Problem was – well, there were a couple of problems. I was trying to get in before my normal scheduled time to get some work done and earn some OT. Also, I had just zoomed through a traffic light and had a line of cars inches off my back bumper. There wasn’t any place to pull over anyway, and the nearest side street was like a quarter-mile down the road.

So I drove on.

But guess what I thought about all the way to work?

What books were on that shelf?

What books was the owner throwing out? Couldn’t he / she donate them to a local library? That speeding sideways glimpse told me they were all ancient – no glitzy pictures on the jackets like those in the book armada that confronts and assaults you as you step in a Barnes and Noble. No, these were treasures. Treasures! And what was the story of each one, I wondered, driving all the way to work. And wondered off and on during work yesterday, and today, and now as I write this.

Remember Hopper’s Laws:

I. Most of the best books have been written before I was born

II. Most of the best books written before I was born are out-of-print

So I never, never, ever, pass up an opportunity to peruse a dusty shelf of ancient books.

Now – what treasures did I pass on yesterday!