By ELIZABETH ANDERSON
Observer Staff
March 5, 2008

Lois Zuckerman scored double-big at a Bethesda, Md., used-book sale. She searched multiple tables stacked with books for a copy of “The South Beach Diet.” Zuckerman hit the jackpot by finding two copies: one hardback and one paperback version. Those two books lightened her wallet by $1.50.

Zuckerman and hundreds of other visitors chose from roughly 3,500 books collected by Eric Weisberg and Alan Mascarenhas, both seniors at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.

The sale was sponsored by the Whitman High chapter of Distributive Education Club of America, which is a national marketing association for students.

“We usually try to hold a variety of fund-raisers to make money for charity and for our chapter at school. It was Eric’s idea to hold a big, massive book sale,” Mascarenhas said.

Distributive Education Club of America chapter advisor Demetra Marafatsos supported the idea.

“If you guys can make it work, let’s try it,” Marafatsos said.

The two seniors gave the project lots of effort from the beginning.

“Since last spring, we drove around the Bethesda area and did pickups for books from people’s houses. And a lot of people just came and donated their boxes of books to us at Eric’s house and my house,” Mascarenhas said.

Eric Weisberg was already an avid book collector.

“Books are something I really like and it’s a lot of fun when you get a box in and you can just go through them and you really never know what’s going to be in that box. You can find some really cool stuff.”

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One gem Weisberg found and bought was a first edition of General John Joseph Pershing’s memoirs from World War I.

“It’s something that I enjoy doing, so there’s no better combination than raising money for charity and doing something you enjoy,” Weisberg said.

They posted fliers on neighborhood phone poles and also got the word out through listservs, e-mails and phone calls.

The community got the message. On opening day, Mascarenhas said the halls outside the Whitman school cafeteria were packed two hours before opening time.

Another club member suggested the raised funds benefit Team River Runner, an organization founded by Whitman teacher, Joe Mornini. Team River Runner is a Washington, D.C., organization dedicated to helping wounded veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars recover through kayaking.

“We polled our members to see where we should send the money and we just pretty much had a consensus that Team River Runner was the best option,” Mascarenhas said. “Pretty much everyone agreed that the best way to help out in the world is to support the people who are defending this country.”

Community customers look to score ‘Bag Day’ deals

Collecting books is a hobby for Mac Carey. He was browsing books with his 5-year-old son Merrick.

“I’m finding a lot of great hardback books and books I’ve been looking for years for my collection,” Carey said. “We’ve only been here 45 minutes and we’ve found a tremendous amount.”

“We tend to go to a fair number of book events when we hear about them,” he said. “It’s my hobby, but it also helps for business, too.”

Carey runs The Lexington Institute, an Arlington-based think tank.

Between Mac, his wife Melissa and son Merrick, they amassed five bags, one which was filled with kid’s books.

“Not bad, huh? We figure that will keep him busy for at least a year,” Carey said, smiling.

John Jay Daly was searching through the dictionary section along the back wall of the cafeteria. He was one of many customers looking to score big at the Sunday afternoon “Bag Day” sale. Customers could fill one bag full of books for $10. Each bag after that cost $5. Daly filled three bags with hardcover and paperback dictionaries.

“I get used dictionaries and I have a sheet that I type out that fits inside the front of them that tells people how to develop a robust vocabulary and I take it down to several schools in the district.”

He’s been doing this for approximately six years.

Daly inherited the love of vocabulary-building from his parents. While raising eight children, he said, he kept an unabridged dictionary on each floor and dictionary in every room of their home. A dictionary was even kept in the trunk of the car.

“When we were discussing something, if one of the kids were to use the word wrong or mispronounce it we’d stop, go to the dictionary, and discuss it. We may never get back to the original topic,” Daly said, laughing. “But the result is they’re now 36 to 56, and they are doing it with their kids. The idea is to have a robust vocabulary.”

Daly said having a well-developed vocabulary is necessary no matter what career path one chooses. Daly also said children shouldn’t have to wait to get to school in order to use a dictionary.

“My theory is you shouldn’t have to wait more than 20 seconds to look the word up. And it is in the looking up that makes the difference.”

In the age of online dictionaries, Daly considers the hard copy dictionary faster than the computer. He also said it provides serendipitous discovery of words kids weren’t necessarily trying to find.

“It’s the idea of not having a dictionary is a sin. … A venial sin,” he said. “Words are the tools we use to get educated.”