Old Books

     I am of the age that antique stores are becoming a trip down memory lane. It’s like answering questions in a Trivial Pursuit game when the history category covers events you have personally lived through. It is interesting to me to realize the cyclical evolution of “things” within the framework of society–where they begin and ultimately where they end up. Often, contemporary evaluation misses the boat. Once an item has lost points on the scale of usefulness, usually because something more useful has been invented, that item is prime for a new beginning and sometimes an even greater value because as a society we discard so hastily, and we so readily adapt to new technology. Look at the way we purchase cell phones. We like our things to continually do more with less. It isn’t so much that we align with the thinking Less is more, it’s more like Less with more Apps.
     Has anyone else noticed that since everyone (except me…I am not a Luddite, I am just technologically inept) is reading from Kindles and Nooks and downloading E-books from personal computers that are also phones, calendars, game stops, and television screens, how many magazines (the hard copy kind) are using old books in their layouts? Old Books are everywhere–in window displays at Pottery Barn and Main Street. Girls are standing on them in high heels to promote the fashion of J Crew. Old Books are used to support table tops and as support beams for the shelves that used to house them. I’ve even seen them used as room dividers to define our open concept floor plans.
     Recently, I have ventured into a major bookstore chain store that is going out of business and one of the local variety that is a haven for vintage books that is, sadly, going out of business as well. Seeing all those books on the shelves for the last time evokes that “Toy Story 3″ emotion of experiencing something soon-to-be-nostalgic for a last time. I wonder if my grandchildren will cut their first teeth on actual books as my children did? Can a baby drool in a Kindle? The day will very likely come when no one will  have ever seen a church hymnal except in an antique store and no one will read their Bibles from well….Bibles. The Word is the same regardless of the medium…I know this. Before there was even the written word, there was the Word.
    I can’t help but hold to the belief, however backward, that books are precious and that in their archaic-ness, their value might become invaluable. And I can’t help but pray that my grandchildren will grow up to know the difference between a book and a brick, a history that is, for me, vital to my being because I have lived it. Old Books know best.