Libraries of my youth.

People today question the need for library funding. They think that this antiquated relic of the past is ready to be sent out to pasture. I could talk for hours on why libraries today are more needed than ever. How their free eBooks, on line access, free resume and job fairs are life lines for many but that is for another day. Today I want to talk about why they hold such a fond place in my heart. There are three libraries that shaped my childhood, The Lilly Pike Sullivan Municipal Library in Enfield, the Whitakers Public Library, and the library in my old K-12 school. Each holds special memories.

My parents, sister, and grandparents were avid readers. Daddy as well as Papa loved westerns and mysteries. Funny they were father and son in law yet their tastes were nearly identical. Zane Grey was always to be found in both homes. Now grandmama usually read magazines, and those Janet Oak style books but truthfully catalogues where her medium of choice. She was one of the last hold outs from another era, thumbing fervently thru the inchs-thick Belk Tyler’s or Sears Books. Sissy made her way thru all the unspoked required readings for adolescent girls leaning heavy on Judy Blume before moving on to her required school reading lists. Now as an adult sissy likes stories with a moral message and happy ending. Mama and I would ready anything and everything. War and Peace? Check. Shakespeare? Check. Dime store novels? Check. Any print was fair game as far as we were concerned.

On Friday’s grandmama had her weekly rinse and set at Laine’s Beauty Shop right off Rail Road Street in Enfield. Usually I road with her, bare legs sticking to the Hawaiian Blue vinyl in the front seat of her 1976 Pontiac Catalina. Man, I miss that land yacht! Once grandmama was settled in to a chair to wait I would look thru the stacks of magazines liberally scattered around. I mean there was good stuff! Not just all Woman’s Circle and Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, National Geographic, and the occasional catalogue. Usually as the summer wore on I would become bored as I reread each article. I am not sure when it occurred but soon I discovered the Lilly Pike Sullivan Library right down the street. From that day forward my Fridays during the summer changed.

Each week as soon as I said hello to the ladies in the shop I would head to the Library. This was the early to mid-80s in a small town so kids were allowed to walk a few blocks by themselves unsupervised. I only had to take a right at the old Masonic Lodge/theater that grandmama said she went to a few times as a teen ager, walk past my Great-Great Uncle Ralph’s derelict hardware store, past the police station and into the cool arctic blast of an 1,800-square foot wonderland. The two picture windows in the front looked out over Railroad street and of course the train tracks that ran thru the middle of town. The librarians sat on the left and there were tables for patrons on the right. The remainder of that one room was packed with books. A smorgasbord of knowledge. Tickets to anywhere in and when I could ever hope to visit.

My first trips found me in the extreme back, concentrating on the children’s section but I soon moved to more adventuresome things in the adult isles. I attended school with the two librarian’s sons, both older than I, we did not share a social circle but we all knew of each other. That is part of small town life. Everyone knows everyone else. Neither woman ever questioned my book choices but instead made chit chat and asked about my family. They knew an avid reader when they encountered one. Often, they would assist me in listening to books on tape. Yes, at one time we had these things called cassettes that required you to manually flip partway thru to hear the entire recording. They were marvelous. My favorite cassette was about Army Ants, a deadly group of insects that ate a path thru jungles, farms, and even people if they did not move fast enough. What small child didn’t love to hear about tiny trivial things destroying huge creatures?! It was a metaphor I suppose for how helpless all children feel at times. Tiny Davids up against adult Goliaths.

That sleepy little building was where the world first opened to me and filled my childhood summers with wonder. There I could find almost anything or so I thought. It was not until years and a driver’s license later I discovered this was itself and ant in the world of literature repositories.

The second library was the Whitakers Public Library. My school was down the street and some Fridays mama would allow me to walk from my class room the few blocks to the pharmacy where she worked. Some days I would walk along the railroad tracks, the same line that ran by the library in my home town, and pick up old rusty rail spikes. Other days I would “work” at the pharmacy dusting shelves and facing merchandise. If none of these exploits kept me busy I would run to the little white clapboard library.

The Whitakers Library was a quiet place. I never remember seeing anyone other than the librarian inside that building. Maybe I was not going during peak hours or maybe it was simply limping along, already a dinosaur. The librarian was an older lady. I could not tell you today her name or age. She was small with the typical grandmotherly look about her thin frame. I remember sitting with her at a table reading books and she would share her bag of shelled sunflower seeds. Often on rainy afternoons we would sit without speaking and just stare at the rain. I did not visit often. Usually it was a Friday afternoon or a random day that school was out and I wanted to go to work with mama. That library was a quiet place to escape for a few hours.

The K-12 school that my sister and I attended no longer exists. The original building built in the 20s gone due to years of neglect and the actual organization as well. The building that housed the 8-12th grades on the two main floors and the 4th-5 in the basement was a red brick affair with marble accents and gargoyles. The main floor, which was actually the second floor of the building since the basement was only partially subterranean, housed the library for all grades. Elementary students used the left and high school the left. In the middle sate the librarian. She has served in that capacity forever it seemed. Later they even named the school library after her due to her years of service.

We went to the library once a week and by the time I was allowed to use the library at school I was an old hand. Grab the wall paper covered cardboard marker to identify where the book I selected came from in the stacks, read a bit, return, repeat. I do not remember the book limit only that the stern librarian would critic your choices. I generally flew under her radar. I returned books each week with no damage and always said thank you. When I was in sixth grade I wanted a book on the high school side. No. I needed a book. I had heard my mother and her maternal uncle discussing Giants in the Earth by Ole Edvart Rolvaag and had to read it. I wanted to see in black and white the scene where the body is found in the hay stack. I knew there was a copy at school because frankly the book selection was severely dated and seldom purged. I asked the librarian for help finding the novel and she informed me that I was too young to read it. I scoffed but she stood firm. I was livid. Did she not realize she was doing irreparable harm to my mental development? Most educators would be enthralled that someone wanted to read above their perceived level of comprehension. I blame her for my life of crime.

Well not crime in the formal sense I suppose though it would have been frowned upon if I had been caught. I decided that no one was going to keep me from reading this book. It was a book for crying out loud. I knew she went to the bathroom frequently, often went to the teachers’ lounge to gossip, and was very busy when the elementary students came in for their items. I hatched the perfect plan. I used the card catalogue to discover where the book was in the stacks. Then I waited. It took a few days but finally I caught her out and the library open. I waltzed in, selected my book which indeed was on the high school side, far right, bottom shelf, and walked out. It was pure gold. I devoured that tome in record time and then just dropped it back off in the same spot.

What I never understood was why was she trying to keep me from reading? Was it the archaic adult situations? Murder? Theft? What? The Bible had more action than this book. I never understood. In retrospect I know think it boiled down to “adults know better” syndrome. I was a child. She was an adult and therefore correct and I needed to listen to her. My unrecorded borrowing spree continued until she finally retired. Her replacement could not have cared less what you borrowed. Oddly after the school closed and its merger assists liquidized I dreamed for years about those books in that small two room library.

I am still an avid reader. Some weeks I devour multiple books and other times it may take me a few weeks to plod thru. It depends on my emotional state and what is going on in my life. Sometimes you simply do not have the energy to read. Reading is mentally strenuous. Creating that fantasy in your head takes effort. I wish I could end this by telling you my favorite book but truthfully, I do not have one. I have numerous books I have read multiple times but none are worthier of your time than others. Even shabbiest library contains a world worth exploring. Sometimes you even find yourself.