libraries
once upon a time I was little and lived in northeastern Brasil, and had never seen a library. going to Baton Rouge for a year in 1948-9 wouldn't have helped much. my granddaddy's house was stuffed with books. what would I have needed to go to the library for? my Baptist school in Recife probably had a library, but I don't remember it. my point is that in 1955, I was innocent of libraries. I vaguely knew that there had been a Library in Alexandria a hundred million years before, that it was stuffed full of scrolls and clay tablets, that a Great Fire burned the building and its contents to the ground, and that that was a Great Loss. I remember trying to imagine a large building stuffed to the gills with books, and wondering whatever grownups would do with them. and then, while we lived in that little nondescript house in Clovis, New Mexico, I discovered the county library. ooo! wait! let me paint you the picture. somewhere in the middle of Clovis, New Mexico, our nondescript little house stood across the street from a largely empty city block. more or less in the middle of that city block stood a giant shoe-box, a three-story oblong rectangular prism that probably looked more like a prison than anything else. that was the court house for whatever county Clovis was the seat for. between the county court house and our little house stood a much more modest almost house-shaped building that was, unbeknownst to me, the county library. one day, not knowing any better, I poked my head into the strange little building across the street. nobody shooed me away, so I went in. oh my god! books! books to the ceiling! books on shelves so high people had to climb ladders to get to them! books about fertilizer and books about irrigation and books about World War II tanks, and books about women's fashions in Chicago in the 1910s. books about the Old West. books about the New West. books about traveling across the country from New York City to Los Angeles. ooo! and a huge room of books for children. (anyone who hadn't turned eighteen was a child.) books about rebuilding a car. books about dogs. books about detectives. detective stories, Army officer stories, cowboy stories, hell, cowgirl stories! ooo! and best of all a bookshelf-ful of books I wasn't supposed to read. I think I nearly fainted. I stayed in that building and explored as much of it as I could until I knew I was late for supper. damn! I went home and took my scolding hoping, hoping, hoping the inside of that building stayed the same until the next time I could get there. I became familiar with the library. heck, I became familiar with many of the books I wasn't supposed to read! I learned I could register with the library and check out books and read them at home! I suppressed falling on my butt over that. sure enough, they let me register and let me check out so many books I could hardly get them out the door and across the street to my house. oh man! we moved to Albuquerque, and Albuquerque not only had a library - a big building downtown bigger than the court house in Clovis! - but it had libraries! little libraries out in the sticks where we lived, or ten miles away where a friend of mine lived! I never found Albuquerque's equivalent of the shelves of books I wasn't supposed to read, but I looked for them. I have been a patron, a friend, and an admirer of libraries ever since! appreciate them? ooo!
Libraries are such an awesome window to the world. :)
ReplyDelete