16 October 2007

night life in Frakes

Today has been an interesting day.

Last week was pretty boring in the library--the kids were on fall break, so much of the staff in the Outreach Department was on vacation, so I was just doing some work with donations--dispersing and adding books to the collection. I was beginning to think that I was working out a system to start to get ahead and clean things up.

Boy, was I wrong.

This morning we unloaded a moving truck full of stuff. And when I say, "full of stuff," I mean that there were upwards of 500 boxes and bags full of things like clothes, VBS material, toys, blankets, Christmas gifts, baby items, fishing poles......and books. When all the boxes of books were unloaded, they filled an area in the hallway roughly four feet high, twelve feet long, and six feet deep. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed. About half of those books were gradeschool textbooks, and we are able to do NOTHING with them. Thanks to Better World Books, however, I'm hoping that they will end up serving some good! The rest I will have to deal with, though--leaving me right back where I started when I arrived. Oh, well--as one of the work campers put it today, it's good job security!

This week at work camp there are *gasp* a few young people! There are three people (Stewart, Jennifer, and Seth) that we kind of clicked with, and we hung out with them for a while tonight. Because Brenda is on vacation this week, we were without our Tuesday night homemade ice cream, so we decided to walk to the local gas station/convenient mart/pizza place to get a snack. As we were checking out, Seth noticed a jar of pickled eggs on the counter. "I love pickled eggs!" he said, and right away the guy behind the counter (Terry) said, "Then I have a deal for you."

Apparently, Terry's been issuing the Pickled Egg Challenge to work campers for two years, and nobody had taken him up on it. He bet that Seth couldn't eat more pickled eggs than he could, and right away Seth said that he'd try it. There were sixteen eggs in the jar. We couldn't believe it--keep in mind that Seth had just eaten an ice cream cone and had eaten meatloaf and green beans for supper. But he did it! Terry and Seth each downed eight pickled eggs--an amazing scene to watch. Terry offered to continue the contest by drinking the brine left in the jar, or by opening up a new gallon-sized jar of pickled eggs, but ultimately it was declared a tie.

We have found the best entertainment in Frakes.

Oh, and we'll make sure to report on whether or not Seth makes it through the night tonight without puking.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

FYI: I will not be eating pickled eggs or brine when I visit. :-)

Anonymous said...

It was well worth waiting to read the blog rather than hear it in bits and pieces. I laughed out loud while reading it and only wish that you had captured the whole thing with your camera/video. We definitely need to see pictures of Seth and Terry, though, to complete the picture we have in our minds. On the other hand, I am sorry to hear about the huge volume of books and hope it does not cost the mission a fortune to dispose of this stuff. love you lots, mom:)

John Dawe said...

Better World Books -- wooo!

Also:
http://www.roomtoread.org/
http://www.booksforafrica.org/

<3 J

Aunt Barbie said...

Yikes to the tales of both pickled eggs and excess books! I second Penny's plea for pictures. You need to have your camera at hand at all times, me thinks.

I'd like to see photos of your library as well. Sounds as if you will be spending the next several weeks digging through the boxes. Maybe one of the things that you need to do is develop and DISTRIBUTE (to churches or wherever most of your stuff comes from) a Gifts/Donations Policy. Or maybe one needs to be developed for the whole settlement if they don't already have one. (Do other areas of Henderson have the same problem; i.e., getting "junk" kinds of things that aren't really useful?) That way you would be able to get the word out about what you do need and won't be deluged with what you don't.

Tara said...

I love pickled eggs AND books. Both with hot sauce.

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you have a place to get ice cream! The pickled eggs I can live without. Sounds like great fun.
Mom Y

Anonymous said...

sounds sorta like the lisle inn.-Dad Y.