I love meeting the diversity of people. I don't know how to do just one thing at a time.
For 15 years, besides my accounting (that's always been the core of what I do), I had a rare, out of print book business. I went to book auctions, dug into the social scene of Newport and served on chair committees like the Redwood Library's committee. The Redwood Library is the oldest lending library in its original building in the United States.
Unfortunately, when you're dealing with rare, out of print books, you're dealing with fights in the family. People often have total disregard for their family's legacy. They only care about the value of the book.
For instance, I bought some books in Connecticut. As I loaded the books in the trailer a man interrupted me.
The man I purchased the books for told me, "You missed a whole room. You have to take what's in this room or it goes in the dumpster."
Turns out, the man's aunt was an author and playwright. She wrote 30 young adult books and was the first author in America to put girls into sports in a book. His aunt kept every contract, first edition and proof of her authorship from her publisher. The man was going to trash all of that.
I told him, "Your aunt made history!"
"I could care less about that," he said.
So I took them all. I did a lot of research and wrote a book about her life as an author. I checked the Yale University Library's stock and saw it didn't have this woman's books. I was able to donate them to the historic library.
When I closed the book business, I stopped being part of the social scene. I thought I was going to retire and live a quiet life. I did that for a few years, then the innkeeping came up. After being an innkeeper, I realized how much I missed that interaction with people. I thrive on it, and I learn a lot.
