IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ BOOKS, READ THIS..
For the past 7 years or so, I volunteered as a re-stocker in one of the ‘biggest book sale in the southern United States.’
Anyway, I’m not here to tell you about books. But I’ll tell you stories of people I encountered as a volunteer selling books.
The first time I was a volunteer at FOL (friends of the library, that’s the official name), I was assigned to the “Psychology” section.
As I was stocking books in the table, a young guy, with “Nirvana” shirt and sporting a long blonde hair asked me, “do you have books about serial killers?”.
It’s funny when you volunteer at FOL, because they assume that you know the inventory of books. It’s hard to know since these books were donated by people moving out of Gainesville.
You see, Gainesville is a university town. When students graduate, they moved to different places for work, and the first thing they dump are their heavy books.
“Serial killers? Let me check” I said and stared at the kid. With his long blonde hair, he can be the next Kurt Cobain, a rock star, or be the next Ted Bundy, an infamous serial killer.
Should I call 911 now?
He probably noticed I was staring at him, so he said, “Oh, I’m researching serial killers for my English class.”
He later told me he was taking classes from a nearby community college.
Okay then. But I already have a detailed profile of this kid in my mind, in case a series of killing happens in Gainesville or neighboring towns.
One time, I was assigned to “Religion/Philosophy” section and an old lady was particularly looking for a book “about 40 nights”. I asked what is it about.
She said, it’s about “Jesus in the desert meditating for 40 nights as the devil tempted Him.”
Then later on, a guy was looking for a Buddhism book, particularly about “Buddha meditating under the Bodhi tree as Mara tempted him.”
“Who’s Mara?” I asked.
“That’s the devil figure in Buddhism.”
Interesting.
Jesus was tempted by the devil while meditating in the desert, and Buddha was seduced by Mara while meditating under the Bodhi tree.
There are similarities.
Those insights came to me like I studied the 3 major religions in the world, but I never took a class about religion in college. That leads me to believe that I was a Professor in Comparative Religion in my previous life.
I really do believe.
Anyway, there’s always these classic academicians who discuss things in the book sale, saying like “oh, Voltaire never said that….blah, blah, blah.” Or “Existentialism is dead, it blah blah, blah.”
What’s interesting too is that in the other aisle, just across Religion/Philosophy section, is the “New Age” genre.
People browsing here are different. White teenagers with tattoos covering their arms crowd this table.
These girls show as much skin as they can and sport purple hairs including nose, tongue and belly piercings. I mean there’s probably metal piercing in different parts of their body that the public don’t see.
Use your imagination.
I checked what “New Age” was and it looks like it’s just another name for cult books. I may be wrong.
Volunteers take breaks in the break room. In this particular day, I took a sandwich and chips, sat down, and listen to conversations around the table.
For starters, I live in Florida, and most of the volunteers here are retired, so the conversations revolve around activities of retirees. (I’m one of the youngest by the way so they love me around because I do the heavy lifting of big boxes of books).
One retired lady was recounting her hike through the Appalachian mountain that summer.
“You hiked all the way to Massachusetts?” one person asked.
“No, just Georgia to North Carolina.”
“Still, that’s what? 200 miles.” Another said. “Were you hiking alone?”.
“I was alone but there’s plenty of hikers so when it’s time to sleep, you are in a group of hikers putting tents together.”
“How did you bring your food?”
“My husband met me in stations along the way and handed me canned foods.”
“Where did your husband sleep?”
“In hotels along the way.”
That conversation gave me an idea: When I retire, I will hike that Appalachian trail from Georgia to Maine.
Bucket list.
In one particular instance, I was eating a donut in the break room when this elder gentleman struck a conversation with me.
“I’m headed to another volunteering work”, the guy told me as he finished his coke.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a retired neurosurgeon but I volunteer burying people.”
“What do you mean?” I was totally confused.
“We bury people in an isolated piece of land, this land is approved by the government and there’s no grave markings.”
“No grave markings?”
“There are families who can’t afford funeral services, so we bury their dead for free in this land.” He said. “We just hand them a GPS location, so when they need to visit the grave, they just use a GPS.”
There was a pause. I can’t believe what I was hearing.
“I hate capitalism of funeral services,” he said later.
My train of thought was “if the cost of dying is as expensive as the cost of living, I wanna be immortal, like Duncan MacLeod of Highlanders..”
So there it goes, my experiences as a volunteer in book sales.
I know reading books is fun and informative, but talking to people who love books is very entertaining too.
Try volunteering in your local bookstore.
