Went to Yesterday's Friends of the Library Sale in Gainesville

Yesterday my son and I went to the Friends of the Library book sale on Main Street, here in Gainesville.  Will wanted to get there early on the first day of the sale, which lasts through Wednesday.  I'm glad he was keeping up with it, for I had forgotten about the sale.  We drove over there and found that parking was a bit of a problem, but managed to find an available space a healthy walking distance from the site.  When we finally walked across Main Street, we found a very, very long line of people waiting for the impending opening of the building warehousing the thousands of books that would be for sale.  The line actually went to the end of the block and curled around the corner.  One of the crossing guards said that we might as well just stand there and let the line catch up with us, but Will and I decided to just go ahead and get in line...entailing another considerable walk.  When the sale opened and we finally got inside, the place was predictably packed with book fiends (I wonder what the fire code's maximum limit of people was).  It was almost impossible to get anywhere because of the density of customers, but eventually I was able to make my way to the areas I was the most interested in.  I found a couple of 50-cent mystery novels and three foreign language Bibles: a 10-cent Spanish version, a $1 French version, and, best of all, a $1.50 Chinese/English dual translation version.  And I was able to find a book on the history of Christianity that I hope will help Melissa in her studies.  Will was also able to find some good books, and we were both satisfied with our purchases, not to mention finally getting out of that overly congested building.

The Friends of the Library sale is held each April and October.  The event's organizers were expecting a crowd yesterday, but according to an article in the local newspaper Gainesville Sun today, the turnout was much, much larger than they had anticipated.  Of course, with a good public library system like we have here in Alachua County,  I can check out books for free and then return them when finished..hoarding piles of cheaply bought books can be a bit troublesome in the long run. So I'm not quite as much of fan of the FOL sale as others...but that Chinese/English Bible was a special find...