This could be a chapter in Shelf Life: A Book about an Overabundance of Books. This is what’s happening, I am sure, world-wide. There may be more dismantling than remantling (is this a word?) going on.

This is why The Bright Lights Book Project exists, and I hope, will in time serve as a model for those who are concerned about book overabundance.

What got me to thinking about this – this morning Pete and I drove over to Mountain Rose Estates, which is series of houses/condos situated on the outskirts of Palmer, right near the railroad tracks (the train has not run in years). There are 62 residences. You have be 55 or over in order to purchase one of the many one story houses. The lawns are perfectly manicured – this could be a part of the ownership agreement.

I was told that the one house for sale just sold in a day.

The question that both Pete and I asked ourselves was, could we live here? I liked the quietude but suspected that I would not be able to fence the front and back yard, and thus keep my animals with me.

There is an office/meeting space. I gave a talk a few months ago at a luncheon tea. This was the talk in which I brought the wayback machine on site.

The Mountain Rose retirement community has a board and they meet regularly. They decided to part company with their library of 700 or so books, the reason being that the property owners/residents were not using the library. So they called me. I had looked the library over when I previously visited, so I had an idea of what was on the shelves.

I had gotten some sturdy banker boxes from a woman named Cheryl Chapman who was parting with 12 boxes of books. Yesterday I loaded these boxes into the car. Today we arrived with boxes and filled them, and as well filled the boxes that the two board members, Sherri and Sandy, had on time. A fellow who’s name I didn’t catch, joined us.

We loaded up Sandy’s car and our car and brought the books to the hotel. I spent the afternoon reboxing paperback and hardback fiction books, so that we might more easily stamp and again rebox them. I also stamped and put the nonfiction books (which contained a smattering of Alaskana books) in the boxes on the shelves.

As I worked, I thought about the fate of books at retirement communities like this one. Those who live at Mountain Rose are (I was told) getting older and therefore not as interested in reading as they used to be.

It seems to me that the populations in retirement communities like this are fairly homogeneous. I’m wondering if they ought not be more mixed. This is a surprise, this statement, coming from me, an individual who doesn’t like having neighbors at all.

It may be a better idea to have mixed age, gender, and income levels in such places. The fact that this library was disassembled may indicate that homogeneous retirement communities are not sustainable over the long haul.

Next: 277. 10/12/24: Columbus Day