Booking at the Schenectady County New York Public Library Sale. Part One

Ordinarily, book lovers are a tame bunch. Put them in a dungeon with only crusts of bread to eat and water to drink, and they will be happy as long as you keep them supplied with books. There is one time, however, when they undergo a personality change, and that is when their sensitive noses pick up the mildly mildewed scent of a used book sale.

While the change is not as drastic as Dr. Jekyll turning into to Mr. Hyde or vice-versa, it is noticeable. At least it was at the semi-annual Schenectady County Public Library sale, which my son and I attended on May 1. Nobody camped overnight to be the first to purchase several thousand books at fifty cents each for hard covers and a quarter each for soft covers. Nor was there any odor of marijuana in the air, but the line that formed before the doors opened bore a certain resemblance to Dead-heads lining up for concert tickets. Possibly Russians queuing up for food would be a better comparison or maybe horses at Saratoga: antsy, nervous, waiting for the gates to open.

When the gates did open, you could tell who the veterans of the library sale were. They came with bags and boxes and already knew the shortest route to that spot in the McChesney Room where their favorite genre of books was located. Most of the veterans filled their boxes and bags in a matter of minutes, even seconds. While no one got trampled, a certain amount of decorum was temporarily suspended as book lovers of all sizes, shapes and ages reached around and across each other; dodging flying elbows, ignoring smelly armpits; and grabbing books as if they were hundred-dollar bills. Buyers with long arms had a definite advantage.

After the sale, we all went home to tell our incredulous spouses, or whomever else would listen, stories of triumph and of the one that got away; the acquisition of a first edition of Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea," and the loss of "The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson" to a spry senior citizen.

My son and I spent a good part of the evening looking through the seventy new additions to our home library. My treasures included a book of poetry by one of my favorite poets, Phyllis McGinley, a badly needed book on resume writing, Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men," and four Bibles that I didn't want to see end up in a dumpster. I also picked up several old novels simply because their dust jackets were so beautiful.

One of my favorite finds at book sales are books I remember from my childhood. From the day I picked my first book off of the shelf of the Sidney Center, New York Public Library, books have played an important role in my life.

My father's refusal to buy a television forced me to become a bookworm, often chewing my way through five or six books a week. At past book sales, I have found Hardy Boy books, a story of Charles Lindbergh's life called "Ride on the Wind," and several other book that educated and entertained me as a boy. This year I found "Death Be Not Proud," John Gunther's moving story of his son's fatal battle with cancer. I remember it because it was not only a good book, but also because I gave one of my better oral reports on it back in Mrs. Gibb's sixth grade class.

Every great event in life has to have a morning after, and a book sale is no exception. The anxiety about someone getting to a good book before I did was gone. The excitement over my new treasures had also died down, leaving a slightly hungover feeling. However, as the day after advanced, a sense of contentment returned. After all, I had enough reading material to keep me busy for months, and the next Schenectady County Library sale was only six months away.