In the Beginning...

I know that I picked up my first Betty Neels book at the Hillsboro, Oregon Goodwill outlet. A Goodwill outlet is like where all the swanky Goodwills send their leavings and a better primordial ooze I cannot imagine. From those humble beginnings is the genesis of this blog.

Goodwill is a mad adventure and I have an inexplicable passion for it. Nothing on hangers, nothing with prices, nothing sorted or tagged. It is not for the faint of heart but Bettys are never that. Books are fixed prices and nearly everything else is priced by the pound. Everything is chucked into a bin with only these delineations:
Books, Glass, Fabric items, Shoes and Other (sweet, sweet, awesome Other).

It was maybe four or five years ago and I don't remember which book it was. It cost me 50 cents, I know. I'm sure I didn't keep it. I read so many Goodwill books that I would save a few and send the others back to Goodwill--the karmic wheel, the Circle of Life. I don't even know which book it was that made me want to start collecting them (maybe the one where she's getting on a bit and has worked for him forever but is engaged to another fella and then they get married and Scotland is involved--that should narrow it down) but that's what I did, digging through piles of Cooking the Microwave Way, A Comprehensive Guide to Needlework and Planning Your Perfect Wedding in Three Easy Steps--building my library one and two books at a time.

My biggest score: I walked past The Book People--semi-scary regulars that scan bar codes and re-sell on ebay or to used book stores--and saw a copy of Caroline's Waterloo in someone's cart. "Drat!" I thought to myself, 'I'm practically sure the author was Neels." (I was a collector now.) Resisting the impulse to snatch the novel from her neglected shopping cart (Which you agree would probably have been the wrong choice?), I turned dejectedly towards the bins--6 of them and that was likely the only Betty in the lot.

I must have found 20 books that day. One of which is my own beloved copy of Caroline's Waterloo--a book with pages so loose that I handle it with all the care that a curator does the Gutenberg Bible. I feel sad that an old lady most likely had to die to let me have her windfall. But they're in a good home.
**Usually the books are willy-nilly but sometimes I get lucky and the Book Fairy will have come to magically sort them--spines up and faced properly. I wish he were as agreeable as the name I have given him but he is not. He is obsessive compulsive though and I'm pretty sure his wife kicks him out of the house when his cleaning becomes too much for her.