Radio Psychedelica

Two years ago, my wife showed up after a local auction was over to help her father load his purchases. It had been the estate sale of a batchelor that died without progeny. He'd been a heavy reader, and they had been selling paperbacks by the box full. Too bad I missed that part.
While walking through the house, Liz noticed several lots that had'nt sold because no-one wanted them: three bookcases full of science and astronomy books.
Needless to say, she grabbed the auctioneer, and in two minutes was the proud owner.
Then she called me.
We filled the back of the Volvo station wagon until the springs bottomed out. We also filled the passenger side of Liz's pickup. Seven empty bookcases were included, and a complete set of Hockey News from November 1952.
Total price ? $62.50.
Now -- ignoring of the bookcases and the sports magazine -- the science books were still there because nobody wanted to haul them away, let alone pay 25 cents for them. I could understand ignoring the books on string theory - they went to the Salvation Army shortly there after - but several hundred books on stars and dinosaurs and lasers and particle physics and, and -- (deep breath).
The astronomy/ astrophysics section alone was about ten times larger then the local librarys.
They would have been thrown out; the man's surviving family did not want them, the hundred-odd people attending the auction didnt want them, and his cat could'nt read them.
Its easy to ask ' what does that say about this town?' but conversely, this man was a resident of this town, and very few people knew about this hoard.
Makes you wonder how many 'closet scientifiphiles' there are in North America.