Sunday, December 20, 2009

Tales from the Bookstore: Found Picture

We find stuff stuck inside books all the time at the used bookstore where I volunteer. Most of the time, it's forgotten notes or other pieces of paper. I find lots of business cards from all over the world. The older ladies tell me that they sometimes find money (once a $100 bill), although I've never been so lucky.

By far, my favorite thing to find (barring that magical day I ever find money) is pictures.

Once I found this fantastic 1980s prom picture. It was very 80s-rific and I loved it. I grabbed the book I found it in (Pride and Prejudice) and took it home with me. However, on my way home, with all the windows rolled down on the car, a particularly strong wind blew through, ripped open the pages of the book, and my lovely 1980s prom picture flew out the window. I was sad.

At any rate, one of my fellow volunteers found this particular picture in a book yesterday and I brought it home with me. I have a real fondness for other peoples' photos:





This photo is great. It begs all kind of questions. Who is this man? Why is he holding two pineapples? Did he sell pineapples? What's up with his hat? What has happened to this man - what has his life been like?

I told the ladies at the bookstore, someday I'll die and someone will be going through my things and they'll wonder how I'm related to all these strange people that I have pictures of. But I like to keep the pictures that I find randomly discarded. I feel like I'm honoring these people in some way.

1 comment:

Patricia said...

I do too! Once at a Max stop I found a great Polaroid with a woman making an exclaiming gesture and someone had written on it, "watch out, Jesse!" or some such thing. I put it in my bookcase and it would fall out at random moments, surprising and delighting me all over again.