I love my libraryI

Back in 2008 the library here ran a writing contest
based on library membership. My entry won that contest and was featured in the since discontinued newsletter. I ran across it the other day.

I LOVE MY LIBRARY

Miss Powers was the children's librarian.  She was cool before the word came into popular use. Very tailored and in charge, her fashionably penciled eyebrows gave her the sophisticated look of a modern woman of her generation. When I played library with my little playmates, we all wanted to be Miss Powers.

One day, my classmates and I walked across the street and down the steps to get our first library cards My name, Anglin, put me first in a long line of second graders. My nose barely cleared the top of the commanding desk.. It seemed like the library lamp on her blotter was the only light in the room and it shown down on me like a spotlight . The overhead lighting was dim with individual lights hung over the stacks of books and larger lamps on tables. After  typing fast and with a small smile, Miss Powers handed me my first, treasured, library card.

I recall reading picture books and looking through strange devices called stereopticans. They were like early viewfinders only clunkier.

In my elementary years we moved about five blocks from the library .I  walked there as often as I could. Mystery books became my new passion. Nancy Drew was very popular, but I was more interested in an adventure writer named Augusta H. Seaman. To get the full effect, I would read after bedtime , by flashlight, under my blanket until I got caught.

In the teen years, one did not want to be seen in the library I went anyway because I couldn't afford my own copies of Jane Eyre ,Ivanhoe ,and  Wuthering Heights. My kid brother was really into James Thurber's humor. He used to wake me up at three in the morning to read me "something hilarious.  I had to laugh and act interested or pay the painful consequences.

I taught myself to knit from a library book when there were few needlework books in the library .Suddenly all the popular girls were knitting. Canasta was a big card game craze in teen circles when I was interested in cute boys who played cards. guess where I got the best card plays?

When I was a young married woman, my cooking fears were calmed by "Better Homes and Gardens" cookbook from the library. The ideas on gardening, sewing, crafts and the little entertaining we did all came from there.

Through the years books on building a house, maintaining lake property, historical traveling, sailing, greenhouse growing,antiques, exercising, starting a business, computers, and on and on. In between all of these, I checked out books on baby and child care.

After my husband died, the library helped fill the void. There were writing groups that helped with family stories for genealogy, computer classes, meetings on meditation and cooking...all helping to make new friends. Just walking to the library was and is a comforting experience.

I still find promise in that little card from Miss Powers. I love my library even more, now, than before.