my grandmother's shelves

Old books, new books every kind of book. As our culture changes into a more modern one, driven by technology, we still find ourselves in love with the print on those musty pages. I was in south Texas last weekend for a wedding and stayed in my Grandmother’s house on our ranch. My aunts and uncles had just finished redoing the house for her and I was happy to sleep in a bedroom that did not have the smell of old age, but instead, newly painted walls. One morning, after breakfast, she took me into the storage room and asked me to help her sort through some boxes. She later explained that my Mother had paid for an archivist to sort through every book in the house and sort them all. Not only that, but each page of every book had been cleaned up as to preserve the old relics. I sat there thinking that my family had gone insane but also how neat it was that they were so willing to protect those old pages. My Grandmother pulled out a few copies of older books and showed me signatures of famous people that had written to her or my great Grandfather. There was even a copy of Huck Finn signed by Mark Twain (that’ll be worth something one day)! She explained that she wanted to preserve those books so that her grandchildren could always go to the shelves and find whatever they wanted in mint condition, whether it be an encyclopedia, a book on history, or a copy of Huck Finn. She really valued what these books had given her and wanted so many generations after her to feel the same way.