When I was little my parents used to wake me up super early on weekends. I'd always be waken up at 7 am, or sometimes earlier, and usually given 1/2 hour to get ready. I used to hate having to wake up earlier. In my mind, weekends were for sleeping in and taking a much deserved break from school. But no. I had to get up early, get dressed, not have time to eat breakfast, and then having to sit in a hot car while my parents drove all around town looking for yard sales. Once we'd find a yard sale I'd have to decide if I want to be stubborn and stay in the car, or get off. 80% of the time I'd get off.
The first thing I would do is immediately look to see if there were books. If there were any books, I'd head over there. I didn't care about anything else I might like at the yard sales. Books was my first priority in yard sales. I guess it's because I have always loved reading. Since I was little I'd always hide in my room and lay down on my bed with a book. And thanks to yard sales, I was always able to get some great books.
I remember once at a yard sale I found a entire collection of encyclopedias. The whole set only cost me $1. I remember them so clearly. They had a funny old smell to them. They had beautiful dark read hard covers. And, they were from the 1960s. I loved the old feel to them. I actually used them a lot. Not really for school, but for personal enjoyment. I remember getting them all out of my book shelf and stacking them together to make forts and houses for my dolls. If I needed to reach for something I'd grab a bunch of them and stack them so I could stand on top of them. But I did also read them. Whenever I was bored, which was quite a lot, I would grab one and lay in bed and just read them. I would randomly open it and look for something interesting to learn and read. My favorite was the "D" encyclopedia. I loved going to the "Dogs" section. It had 3 full color pages of different types of dogs. My other favorite section was the "Dolls" section. It also contained about 3 colored pages showing different types of dolls from all over the world. It was so cool. I was never bored looking at them. My parents used to think it was weird that I read encyclopedias for fun. But I was always fascinated by them. So much information in one book. I loved it.
However, my constant use in them wore them out. The covers started getting loose and falling off (probably from me always stacking them and standing on them). I remember how sad I was when I threw them all away. But I was hardly using them. I think it was most likely thanks to the Internet cause I could search and find cool stuff on there too, and those books were so old.
In my quest to find more interesting books, I had found my new favorite author. It was at a yard sale in my hometown, and they had a box with a few Piers Anthony books. Piers Anthony is a English American writer who writes Science Fiction & Fantasy stories. Back then I used to be really into fantasy books. I still am, but not as much as before. Before I wouldn't read anything else for fun unless it was fantasy. Anyways, back to the books... I remember seeing the cover of On A Pale Horse as well Bearing An Hourglass. Those were book 1 & 2 of the Incarnations of Immortality series. I also found Virtual Mode which was book one of The Mode series, all by Piers Anthony. I bought all 3 and started reading them immediately. I fell in love with them right away. I was completely captivated that I had to read both entire series. It took longer with the Incarnations of Immortality series because there were 7 in total, and I had to have my public library special order them. I loved those two series a lot that a couple of years ago I purchased both complete series on Ebay because I wanted to own them. I still read them a lot, and I'm so happy I found those books because I probably wouldn't of ever gotten into Piers Anthony.
I have bought so many books from yard sales since I was little. Most recently, I got 11 books at 3 different yard sales last weekend. I've only been able to read one, which was Ghost Girl by Torey L. Hayden. I started reading it Wednesday afternoon and finished it yesterday around 4:30 PM. I was totally hooked. I'm so glad I got that book, because I remember it was all the way at the bottom of this box and I didn't really feel like taking all the books out to look. But I'm glad I did because it was a pretty good book. It was a little strange. It's based on a true story, where the author is telling her story of when she was a special educations teacher in a small town. She had this one student, 8 year old Jadie who didn't speak to anyone at school. She also never walked straight. Torey was able to get the girl to start talking and she learned that Jadie thought she was a ghost and that the reason she was always hunched over was because she believed that she had to hold herself or her guts would fall out. It got more interesting because the more the girl would talk, she would say weird things, especially sexual things, and talk more about blood and killing and pain. She would also always draw this weird symbol. The teacher started looking into it and believed Jadie and her sisters were being sexually abused, but she also started thinking that the people who were harming them were satanic or doing it for ritual purposes. Jadie even told the teacher of how she was tied down and her small kitten was pulled apart on top of her and she had to lay there with the blood and guts of the cat all over her.
Jadie was always asking for help from the teacher, who she believed was God because she was strong and believed Jadie and didn't leave her. The teacher, Torey, couldn't really do anything without any evidence and the girl refused to talk to anyone about it. At the end (SPOILER), Torey was able to convince Jadie that she also needed to help herself and tell the social services lady everything that she had told Torey. Jadie and her sisters were put into foster homes, and Jadie was able to grow up happily and even go to college to study English Literature. Her father, who like two years after the kids were taken away, was arrested for molesting a little girl in their neighborhood. It was definitely a good book to read.
So anyways, even though I hate the thought of having to wake up early to go to yard sales, I guess I'm thankful cause I've been able to read so many new books and have made so many memories, such as the encyclopedias that kept me entertained when I was little, and the books by Piers Anthony who opened up a whole new world for me. So even though summer's at an end and I won't be able to look for new books at yard sales, I can wait till next summer, and for the meantime, look for new books at Goodwill, and continue reading manga, which is what I mostly do during the fall and winter seasons.
Labels: books, childhood, memories, reading, yard sales
