sorting out old friends

sorting out old friends

This afternoon, as a random way to procrastinate writing, I counted our bookshelves--seventeen!--and decided to start downsizing.
       Our home is a modest single-story, but somehow we've managed a flowing library, that is to say, books are in every room and on every surface, along with assorted magazines and newspapers. They're like old friends, especially the volumes I used for research, whose pages are marked with post-its and colored pencils. It's probably time to donate these to the library for others to use.
       Novels read twice and thrice should go, too, but wait, those are best friends (Little House on the Prairie, Treasure Island, etc.). Can't get rid of these. Ditto the picture books from when my boys were little, and copies signed by author friends. These stay. Same with my favorite dictionary that sits in the kitchen among neglected cookbooks. My sons say they can google the definition of a word faster than the "old way," but they're mistaken. I'm fast. I have an eagle eye at the top of each page, trained by Mountain Bell as a Directory Assistance Operator in the '70s. Back then we used real phone books and practically had them memorized. So the dictionary stays. I want to keep the lads on their toes.
       Now as for downsizing, I'll give it another try tomorrow.