I remember a long time ago the term White Elephant Sale used to fascinate me. My mom used to bring me everywhere she went and this included the university where she (and subsequently, I) attended. One of the best memories I have of that was when my mom brought me to the Christmas bazaar of the university. There was a White Elephant Book Sale, wherein we swam in the musty scented lobby of the old library and searched for books to buy and bring home. I still have the book my mom purchased for me from 1984, entitled Splendid Journey, a collection of children's stories from various authors. I especially loved An Old Story From Hawaii by Mary Kawena Pukui, Aesop's Fables on The The North Wind and the Sun and The Milkmaid, and the song "On Top of Spaghetti".
This weekend, I went to the mall and made a side trip to the Book Sale. I systematically scanned the shelves, but found no book "calling out to me". Undeterred, I crouched and looked under the shelves and to my delight, found some interesting books at less that $0.75 (USD). I got a used library copy of C.A. Belmond's A Rather Lovely Inheritance and a dog-eared, food-stained, truly used copy of Bill Richardson's Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast. I'm pretty excited of getting more than my money's worth of traveling in these worlds.
By the way, about the White Elephant Sale, I googled what it actually means. Here's what google answers says: White Elephant: Something that is costly to obtain or maintain and provides little benefit or value... If you want to know more, click on the link. There's a little bit of history to the term.
Well, books are great White Elephants. Sometimes, we have to dispose of them if it takes too much space and collects dust. Somebody is sure to benefit from it the way we benefit from other people's "junk" or excess.
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