I'm a Western novel reader. - RV-Dreams Community Forum

el Rojo and Pam · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm a Western novel reader.

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Red,

It was heartbreaking for me to get rid of my shelves of books on an earlier move so I can relate. Many RV Parks have book exchanges and Westerns are very popular. You might keep some for exchanging as there's an occasional diamond on those shelves.

Your 1/2 price books idea is good. More and more hospitals and doctors offices don't even have magazines anymore because of germs.

Sherry

53 Merc · RV-Dreams Family Member

I am thinking about donating the same type of books, (Elmer Kelton especially) to the local library. We also have a Senior Citizens center here in our little town. I just hate to give away my Kelton books. Especially The Time It Never Rained. I am sure I knew most of the characters in it, even though he said they were each an amalgamation of several people. Ain't gonna get rid of the signed copies.

el Rojo and Pam · RV-Dreams Family Member

53 Merc,

It's funny you mention The Time It Never Rained. I could never get into that book, so I haven't read it. I'm going to did it back out and start again.

Merc, thanks for the motivation.

Red

el Rojo and Pam · RV-Dreams Family Member

WestWardHo wrote:
Red,

It was heartbreaking for me to get rid of my shelves of books on an earlier move so I can relate. Many RV Parks have book exchanges and Westerns are very popular. You might keep some for exchanging as there's an occasional diamond on those shelves.

Your 1/2 price books idea is good. More and more hospitals and doctors offices don't even have magazines anymore because of germs.

Sherry

Thanks for the kind words Sherry.

But I think I'm starting to feel the freedom.

Red

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Red - don't expect a lot of from 1/2 Price Books. 7 boxes of books, including some classics, lots of cook books, reference books, etc. resulted in $42 for us. I think I could have gotten more if I had waited to get rid of them during the moving sale I had. I was shocked at how little we received for the books at 1/2 Price, less than .25/book given the number of books we donated.

We also donated some of our novels (mysteries, sci-fi, not westerns) to a local nursing home. The director said they were always looking for books for their lending library as they have some avid readers.

el Rojo and Pam · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hi Ruth,

To be honest I wasn't really expecting much at all. I just can't throw them away. I had a set of golf clubs in the driveway last Sat. We had multiple garage sales in the neighborhood, so lots of traffic. Nobody stopped for a $30.00 deal. I took them to the local golf course yesterday and told them to give them to somebody in need. I received a warm smile and a thank you, that to me was worth more than $30.00.

53 Merc · RV-Dreams Family Member

el Rojo wrote:
53 Merc,

It's funny you mention The Time It Never Rained. I could never get into that book, so I haven't read it. I'm going to did it back out and start again.

Merc, thanks for the motivation.

Red

I know, it is hard for the first 50 or so pages. However, I lived through the 50's drought in West Texas. When the drought broke in 57, a lot of crusty ranchers cried like babies. I knew them, and it just broke your heart to see hard nosed men weeping and unashamed. To say the 50's drought was a hard time is the understatement of the year. Thinking back on it now, I am amazed there were few suicides. I guess the men of then were stronger than some now. They just "hung and rattled", and never gave room for the thought of "I can't do this any more".

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Red,

As you can see, I've moved this post at your request, but now I've got to comment as well. I can certainly relate to your comments and to Ken's (53 Merc) comment. I've got all of Louis L'Amour's books that were out at the time of his death. When we did our downsizing, I got rid of a lot of books, but the Louis L'Amour books and a few hardbacks by an Oklahoma author are all that I kept.

I won't be trading mine. Jo mentioned selling the L'Amour books and getting electronic versions, but I refuse to sell perfectly good books at really cheap prices and then buy back electronically for more than the pocket books cost me. The Oklahoma author wrote fiction about folks in Oklahoma, so I really enjoy those as well. His name, at least as an author, was Weldon Hill.

Like Ken, I grew up in an area that saw its own difficulties. The Oklahoma Panhandle, specifically Cimarron County (where I grew up) and western Texas County, were the epicenter of the Dust Bowl back in the '30's. We also suffered through the "Gritty Fifties" as they were called locally. It takes a special breed of folks to either pack up the entire family and move to California (or anywhere else) without a promise of a job, or to stay where it is rough as all get out in a drought area with not certain future of when rains would come again.

From those people that I knew when I grew up, I learned that I would never allow myself to become a "victim" of someone's words. In my opinion, being called an Okie is a badge of honor, because I knew those people and what they suffered through, which included my parents and Jo's parents.

Terry