I don’t need these any more, but it seems a shame to just throw them away. One of the bookends needs minor gluing repair and a spot of black paint touch up.

The bookend on the right was trying to imagine what it could do with this, and its head exploded. An object lesson in not “overthinking” things, folks.

I have a few King James bibles to give away for free. I don’t believe in that stuff anymore, so if you know of someone who can use these, you’re welcome to them. If they aren’t gone by Sunday, they’re going to the recycling bin in the sky.

It’s sad to see someone lose her faith, but the picture tells the story. The ongoing recession of ’08 is bad, but it’s not the only downturn the country has faced in the past decade. When the great Beanie Baby Crash of ’99 came along, hitting collectors like a ton of stuffed toy bricks, people like this poster lost their shirts. Those bears above the bibles? There was a time in ’98 when they were worth over a thousand bucks apiece. Retirement was planned. A modest one, to be sure – to a creekfront home in North Dakota – but it was a future, all the same.

All good things end, all bubbles burst, and the bears? Well, their stock plunged like . . . well, like pretty much every stock did just recently. The kids were even allowed to play with them.

We spoke to her: “Eventually, the deposit on the cabin was lost, and my faith went with it. Sure, bad things happen to good people, but when it gets this bad, well, what do you expect? If my green bear won’t even bring 50 cents at a yard sale, you’re not convincing me there’s a God.”