For decades, I've had a pink dot attached to my driver's license, which indicates that I'm a proud donor of all my organs and body parts. (not that they're any good anymore) Take my heart as an example, it's old and very tired after pumping the same two gallons of blood forever. It's been beating a trillion times. Not to mention all deceptions and betrayals that it's been suffering for so many years. Such an innocent victim.
I could also donate my liver. I bet it's swollen and tired too, after filtering alcohol for many decades (I'm not saying how many.) Anyway, most of my body parts belong in a junkyard, it'd be very difficult to find a useful part.
My eyes have seen a lot of ugly stuff, but they're probably my best organs, and they don't get easily disturbed. My lungs wouldn't work good enough for my body to run a single block. Although, I used them a lot in my younger years, even when I smoked like a chimney when they thought tobacco didn't cause cancer. My kidneys, I don't know what they do, but they must be as lazy as I am, and useless too. I doubt my blood is red anymore, it must be contaminated with poisons, parasites, bacteria, viruses and all kinds of contagious diseases. If I wanted to kill you, all I had to do was to offer you my blood. My brains? Good luck, as might as well get a monkey's brain instead.
If I were at the receptive end, I wouldn't accept any of my parts. But enough about my sickly body, and my honorable intentions and unselfish wishes. I feel like a fraud, donating my body it's like donating useless stuff just to save a trip to the city dump. But I might be wrong, the last time I went for a check-up, I looked better than my doctor. (I don't need to mention that he is eighty and I'm sixty.)
Other stuff worth donating, like clothes, would be a joke because I wear them until they're so old, I couldn't even use them to wash my car. I'm still thinking about donating my VCR and cassettes, and my Walkman. I bet you don't know what I'm talking about.
As for my modest book collection, I wouldn't get rid of them until I die. Sensible people would be glad to donate their books so they can be read repeatedly. Nothing better than to recycle knowledge, but I wouldn't donate my books because I might want to read them again. I've read a few books twice, A Hundred Years of Solitude, As I lay dying, Angela's Ashes, Crime and Punishment, Candide, The House of the Spirits, Beloved, Lolita, Roots and a few others. No, I wouldn't want to get rid of them, even though I bought some of them at discount prices at the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores. (It's good to accept donations too.)
If I could donate something of real value, it would be my desire to make everyone read.
A good book can make you try to split a page in two, or read the same line twice, or go back a page or chapter, or better yet, it can urge you to read the entire book again.
Anyway, you can take my entire decrepit body at your own risk. But don't get near my dear book collection. No, you can't borrow them either.
EDMUNDO BARRAZA
Visalia, Ca. 05-03-2012
http://edbar1952-accomplishedignorant.blogspot.com/
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