1-10-09 "the best kind of time machine is the kind with pages"

      I spent much of today at thrift stores. The first store was a general second-hand store at which my family and I were volunteering. The time at the second store was a quiet hour spent rifling among dusty, forgotton old books in a tiny corner of a used book shop. I collect antique books. It's a small collection, true; and not very valuable, but what was useless just a few decades ago is pricless today. That's my philosephy. Besides, I love the hard, gold-stamped spines and the musty, yellowed pages that smell of memories other people's houses from a long time ago. I like to find the oldest book in the store. Today's was from the late 1880's- I bought it. I could not resist. There's something about things from another century that is so magical. I love to read the inscriptions that are hand-written inside the books' covers; "Happy birthday, Jane! Love, Mama and Dad, 1889" or , "To Dick- I hope you will learn to love good poetry." I wonder about these people and about their lives. The inscriptions may bring down the worth of the book, but the faded words MEAN something. They remind me of people long forgotten. Where are they now? Many are not even still living. But the book remembers them. Now I remember, too. And sometimes, just for a moment, it is 1889, and I am Jane; it is my 9th birthday, and I am unwrapping a new, crisp book.....