the yard and book sale. ran an ad saying, 8-2. walking the dog at 7:30 and someone stops me to ask where the sale is. so drag the dog back, hey! a year ago we did a sale, and little scifi or mystery sold, really surprised me. that stuff being so plentiful and disposable. this year it all went. people paying pennies to the dollar and looking for more. a chipper for sale, which immediately brought one person (a wag) to speak of that scene in the movie Fargo. a selling angle I hadn't considered. I said 5 bucks to the person who was interested, but he wasn't sure. he wanted to plug it in and all, but I was too busy to accomodate. he finally took it. a woman, while paying for her books, confided to me (rather loudly, actually) that that guy would never give what you set as the price. and he had been disapproving of what she offered at her garage sale. someone actually walked off with a terracotta bird bath that was in the garden. the guy who ran the used booktore in town, now retired and the store gone, came and brought his son, also a book dealer. I cannot guess what percenage of my trove came from the old man's store. a tall thin man with long hair and tie-dyed Jimmy Buffet tshirt asked if any records were available. it occurred to me I could sell mine, I have no turntable. he only took 6. he said it is hard to find something new when you have 40,000 records. of course he may be yakking but the bookdealers knew the man well. he just looks for records. several people bought all sorts of items, I mean across the board in taste. nice to see books go to people who are interested in reading them. even the bookdealers appeared to be buying more for themselves. a tottering, elderly woman was weary of life. one foot was swollen and ashen, as if leprosy. she was a friend of the elder bookdealer, who is 90, but just talked about people who'd recently died. I had to carry her 3 books to the car for her. a young girl was captivated by the dragonflies flicking around in the garden. she tried to sneak up on them, managed to touch one. I should've said after a sale, nowI can get that operation. this brace on my leg has me stumping about, seemingly worse than is. it doesn't hurt but if I do a natural thing like stand up pushing with my right leg it is a sharp, draining pain. a steel rod in the brace, I noticed. I didn't think that much stability was needed, but then, it's not a nuclear titanium rod like quarterbacks must wear. dunno how to disperse the leftover overbooks. I think the library will take donations to sell, and hospitals might want some. one guy says he reads mostly scifi then sends them to his friend in Montana, who has 14,000 books, all catalogued in alphabetical order. Eileen Tabios take note! an older woman said her husband has 1000s of books, with quite a library of books about Native Amerians (I offered none for sale of such that I have). but he'll never sell, nor will he move from the big house in the high tax town they live in. the 1st guy I spoke with asked about my leg, then regaled me with details of a gruesome injury of his own. oh, then there was the guy who, like last year, sought (as well as books), broken mechanical items, to twiddle with. I couldn't accomodate. I'm recounting this stuff because it simply interests me how people are. and thank goodness we have Carl Annarummo patrolling Somerville and environs, documenting the resident weirdness and vibration. I do not claim to do as good a job.