They had a row of little signs like this posted outside the sale.

This past weekend, actually Thursday through Sunday, was the 16th annual Friends of the Guelph Public Library Book Sale. I’ve written about this before in 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2023 (they took some time off in 2020 and 2021 for some reason I can’t remember). I’d mentioned in my posts on the last couple of sales that the space they were using was too small. I also talked about how long a hike it was for me, especially coming uphill on the way back with several heavy bags of books to carry!

Well, this year sort of took care of both problems. The FGPL got to use a warehouse that a local cabinet manufacturer hadn’t moved into yet, so there was lots of space. But the location was really out in the back of beyond (meaning the city’s industrial park) so while there was no walking involved there was a really long bus ride. I much preferred the long walk uphill.

In fact, I found the bus ride so depressing on the first day that I never went back. Usually I attend at least three days of the sale, and sometimes four. This time I just showed up on the opening day.

There were lots of people and not much parking so the road the warehouse was on was double-parked for miles. I had to shake my head at people who were driving up ten minutes before the doors opened. They were going to have to park at least a good twenty-minute walk away. What were they thinking?

The one highlight was that the fellow in line behind me waiting for the sale to start was a middle-aged retail minister. Or I don’t know what you’d call him. Covered in tattoos all down his arms and up his neck. He was coming to the sale to buy Bibles that he gave away to people because when he tried to get people to accept Jesus he thought the word of God did a better job than he could. I’m not so sure he was right about that. He seemed quite a talker, and people today aren’t great readers. Especially of the Bible, a lot of which can be hard to get through.

What puzzled me though was that if you’re in that line of work there are plenty of places out there where you can get Bibles for free. Also, having attended these sales for the last several years I was hard put to recall ever seeing any Bibles for sale. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if they accepted them for donation. I hope the fellow wasn’t too disappointed. But I never saw him again.

As he was talking to the people who were behind him in line he did say something that made me turn my head around in baffled surprise. He made the modest but confident claim that when he went before the seat of judgment he hoped he would have all the people he had converted standing behind him. Maybe 50 people, he thought. Maybe 20. Maybe only 5. Whatever the number, he knew he’d done enough to get his mansion. But, he wanted his listeners to know, even though he would live in a mansion he “would not be a dictator.”

I said it was a WTF? moment.

Not a bad haul, but I didn’t pick up anything too impressive. I even bought one book I already owned. I thought I might have already had it, but for $3 I thought it was worth the risk. Oh well. I’ll donate it to next year’s sale.