On the first weekend in March every year the Aiken branch of the American Association of University Women put on a Books & Things Fair. They never keep an accurate record of the number of books on sale, but estimates range around 50,000. Everything is donated, so 99% are used, but the variety is staggering. The sale runs on Friday and Saturday from 9 AM until around 5PM. Donna and I go every year on Saturday and putter around until we each get an armload of books and usually end up spending any where from $10 to $15.
This year is the first time it coincided with our Friday off so we decided to go and see if we might have a better selection to choose from. We arrived at ten o’clock and the joint was hopping. Good thing we walked over because parking was at a premium. The real early birds were already in a checkout line that stretched to the back wall of the old Club Fitness building. These folks had boxes and wheeled luggage brimming with books. Obviously the serious collectors or eBay resellers were waiting outside the building waiting to get in like Black Friday shoppers outside Best Buy hoping to get one of ten $200 laptops available. We both made a couple of rounds looking and when were ready to leave ourselves the line had shortened considerably. After checking out and spending a whopping ten bucks, we took a few more minutes to poke through the dozens of boxes of free-for-the-taking books by the door.
Donna’s big find was a stack of Golden Books a half a foot high at a quarter a piece for later mailing to nephew James. My prize purchase was two dollars spent on a jumbo book of South Carolina County Maps. I think it is around 20 years old and I’m sure there are a lot of changes around the large towns, but in the more rural parts of the state (of which there are many) it is still seems pretty accurate. As a matter of fact we already got our money back in finding a shorter route than the state map showed from Summerton to Davis Station and then Davis Station to Greeleyville.That was on Saturday, Sunday we used it to find a direct route from Turbeville to New Zion.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 63