EGO DEFLATION —EXHIBIT A

  

I’m always on the lookout for Bargain Books.

Part of this stems from scarcity of funds for textbooks when I was in college and seminary.  Often, I resorted to borrowing a book or trying to find it in the campus library.

Also, for the past several years, my wife Pansy has been collecting gently used books to take to an Appalachian mission ministry.  She makes regular trips to Good Will and Habitat for Humanity Re-Store along with locally sponsored charity shops.

Often a need arises for repair, so she takes those not-so-gently used books to her book hospital in the laundry room.

To remove writing and marks, she uses Q-tips, erasers, invisible tape, quick dry correction fluid, peroxide, alcohol, and Goo Gone to remove stickers, grease, tar and crayon marks.  To cover problems she cannot remove, she also uses stick-um name tags and attractive stickers that suggest connections with the stories. 

For my part in searching for inexpensive books, I regularly go to the book store in our county library. Most of their children’s books — either donated to the library or discarded by the library — sell for ten, twenty-five, or fifty cents apiece.  

Many of these originally sold in bookstores for twelve, fifteen, or nineteen dollars.  So I have congratulated myself for being a smart shopper, paying tiny fractions of the list price for books.

And then something happened on a recent visit to the library store that made me think or re-think these prices.

They have books for youth and adults as well as for children, and I browsed in other sections.  On a shelf of Christmas books, I was surprised to see a copy of one of my books,  Christmas Memories from Seven to Seventy, that I wrote in 2008.

I got a second surprise when I saw the price tag: one dollar! One dollar for a book amazon.com lists for twelve dollars!

Then a third surprise when I saw the name of the person whose name was in the book.  I had personally inscribed the book: “To Esmeralda, a dear friend and colleague.”

So two blows to my ego in a matter of a few seconds.

Seeing my book sell for a dollar?  Why, sure, I know we get kids’ books all the time for a quarter.  But mine for a measly buck? That’s another story.  

And then a longtime friend devaluing my writing by giving it away!  Would I do that to her if she wrote a  book?  Possibly, but probably not, unless it became necessary to downsize my personal library. I’m too sentimental. I shudder and grab for a tissue to wipe away my tears as we put in the trash or take to the recycling center.

Both these aspects of finding my book in the get-rid-of-these-quick corner were genuine.  But I did not feel insulted or put down.  In fact, after I saw whose name is in the book, I stepped over to the counter, identified myself  to the volunteer workers and showed them what I had found.

We chatted and laughed about the price. Then one of the volunteers bought it for the dollar price and got me to sign it a second time, this time for her.

Bottom line: If I give something to someone or sell something to someone, of course, that person can and should do what she pleases with the gift or purchase, whatever impact that decision may have on my ego.

So I will continue going to charity shops and yard sales in search of rock bottom prices for children’s books to take to Appalachian children, and I will continue writing books for the widest possible readership, even for those who give the books away, even for those who buy one for a dollar.