It All Began with the Bookmobile!

I've been traveling down memory lane again.  It's a beautiful trip!  This particular trip was first inspired by a couple of blog posts I read from Novel Matters.  Then I read in our local newspaper that the library is about to move to its new location later this month.  As a result my thoughts have been consumed with memories of trips to the library, of the sights and smells of all those books!  Of the absolute delight I have always felt when surrounded by books. 

The thrill goes back to early childhood.  I loved being read to by my parents.  I still giggle over memories of my daddy, tired from long days at work and probably really tired of reading the same stories over and over and over, as he tried (in vain!) to skip a page or two!  It didn't work!  I caught him every time!

I remember being absolutely beside myself with delight when our next door neighbor Eileen, who was a few years older than I, loaned me her Dick & Jane books.  I remember sitting out in the back yard under a big oak tree, feeling like such a "big girl" (I was about three years old at the time) because I could read the book myself!  Look!  Look!  See Spot run!  Does anybody else remember those books?

When I was very young we didn't have a library in our little town.  We had the Bookmobile!  I don't remember how often it came, but I do remember that it parked at the end of our street.  I have vivid memories of climbing up into that mobile library with my mother and checking out books that we could read and read and read again before taking them back and getting some more.  I loved it!

Eventually we got our own branch of the Spartanburg County Library.  It was a very small building, about the size of an average bedroom, and was open two afternoons a week.....Tuesday and Saturday.  Mrs. Christopher was the Librarian.  She sat behind a table by the door and stamped due dates onto that little white flap glued into the back of the book.  The Children's Section was just to the right of the front door.  It was there that I formed friendships with Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and the Bobbsey Twins.  Where I got to know people like Florence Nightingale and George Washington Carver and Julie Lowe and Clara Barton and Benjamin Franklin.  Where Louisa May Alcott became a favorite author.  It is quite likely that  I read every book on those shelves at least once! 

I also spent some time in Mysteries and Westerns.  These were for my granddaddy, who lived with us part of the year.  He was confined to his room as a result of multiple strokes, but he loved to read mysteries and westerns.  Twice a week I went to the library and got our books.  If I ever made the mistake of getting him a book he had already read, I was in big trouble!  The town now has a beautiful library building, full of wonderful books and magazines and computers.  But my memories of the Landrum Library always go to that little building from my childhood.

Over the years I have had opportunity to spend time in many libraries.  When I was a little girl I often visited my second counsin Anne Sevier, who taught English at Winthrop College (now Winthrop University).  While Anne was teaching, she would drop me off at the college library and leave me in the care of Miss Schinn, the College Librarian.  That library has moved from building to building over the years, but my memories take me back to what I think is now known as the Rutledge Building......to quiet whispers, big library tables with uncomfortable wooden chairs, and to a children's section on the first floor, back corner on the right, with more books than were housed in the entire Landrum Library!  I remember sitting in the floor, surrounded by books, complete oblivious to anything that might be going on around me.  That continues to happen to this day when there's a good book in my hand!

My library memories take me to the ultra-modern building in Aurora, Colorado.  To the more-than-100-year-old and newly renovated building in Mystic.  I loved that one!  It even had a resident cat!  To a small white building on top of the hill in Ledyard.  Brick buildings and glass buildings and stucco buildings.  It has never been about the building.  It's all about the books!

I confess that I have not spent a lot of time in our local library.  It's a relatively small library as might be expected in a small town.  I confess that I was not particularly impressed with the selections the few times I was there.  But that isn't what has kept me away.  It has more to do with the allergies that have plagued my adult life.  Old buildings, old books.....a recipe for sneezing!  That and the librarian's attitude.......one of those "you're not from around here" moments......have led me to getting my books from other sources.

Shortly after moving here, I discovered a website called PaperbackSwap.  It's a place where you can trade books.  I have loved that website and have read some really good books as a result of using that website.  And as I have grown older, I have discovered that I love KEEPING the books I like......something a library doesn't permit!  So I'm spending less time in libraries, and more time in book stores!

I even broke down and bought a Kindle.  I didn't think I would like it, but I do!  It's great for travel, which was the real reason I bought it in the first place.  The down side is that I really miss the feel of a book, the sound of the pages turning, the smell of the book.  Oh, the sacrifices we make for convenience........

One of my favorite things about libraries, and book stores as well, other than the obvious - books! - is the smell.  I love the smell of that many books all in the same confined space.  Call me crazy, but there it is.......I love the smell of books!  I love the feel of a book in my hand.  I love the sound of pages turning - quietly, mind you.  I don't like the sound of pages being "flipped"!  It seems disrespectful to the book.  (Again, go ahead, call me crazy!)  The smell is my favorite......I love that!

The thing I love even more is the combination of smells at Barnes and Noble.  Books and coffee together.  Two of my very favorite things.  An absolute delight to my senses.  And it all began with the Bookmobile!

"I cannot live without books." - Thomas Jefferson