Blog 9-10-12

Growing Up in the Library

My father didn’t believe in buying books.  I don’t know why.  He was a gifted student himself and graduated from high school at 16 because he was allowed to skip a grade.  He didn’t attend college because he graduated from high school in 1928 on the eve of the depression, his father lost the farm in central Indiana and Dad wanted a job.  He worked for one company 45 years, hard to imagine today.

We did have three or four books, other than the Bible, that were stored in a box on the top shelf of the front room closet.  My Mom read to me before I was sent packing to kindergarten.   I loved the special time and attention that reading represented.  To this day I believe that Mom is my source for the love of reading.

Those few books didn’t last long.   I discovered both the library at Foreman Elementary School and many of the teachers kept books in their classrooms that we could borrow, I did.  Summer was a bleak time until I discovered the Public Library which I found only because it was across the street from the Methodist Church we attended.  I had to get my parents’ permission to get a library card.  I guess the word was out that we didn’t have any books at home and I would be a risk to not return books to the library.  I was steeped in the honor system and there was no risk of that.

A kind librarian taught me the Dewey decimal system because they tired quickly of me asking where a book was located.  I thought the process to categorize and then shelve books was pure genius.  I was a known person at the library by 6th grade.

The library out grew its original building and a brand new concrete library was built near the shore of Lake George.   It was an ugly building but had twice the space of the old library.  Most important it was air conditioned.  My father also didn’t believe in air conditioning.  In the summer I was allowed to ride my bike to the library to bask in the air conditioning and read in peace.

Any library is still one of my favorite places.  When visiting Ireland I visited the Library at Trinity College.  The library is 300 years old and the Long Room contains 200,000 old books and manuscripts.  I also saw the Book of Kells, which because of the lighting to protect it from deterioration, was disappointing.