Child that I was, my whereabouts were a perpetual source of worry for my parents. My preoccupations were not mischief but curious phenomena and imaginary worlds. I will admit these two often led me far afield, but ill intent and juvenile delinquency were not my modus operandi.
There was only one place I could go that gave my parents peace of mind. One place they did not have to worry about me or the consequences of my explorations. One place to go which, when I asked permission, they would say “Yes,” like an a cappella street-corner doo-wop duo.
The library.
I loved going to the library. I have the eyeglass prescription to prove it.
The library in town occupied a building that had been the “Little Red School House.” It sat on a corner across from the post office and just down the street from the county courthouse.
People are also reading…
On Saturdays, Mom would head downtown to do the weekly grocery shopping. While she gladdened the hearts of the merchants, I was free to go to the library.
As I have said, I loved the library, but the feeling was not reciprocated, at least not by the librarian, Mr. Pennington. Parsimonious with his smile, he would greet the goofy kid with a flattop haircut and a melon for a head with a look that said, “Silence or death.”
I knew where all my favorite books were located and I was always delighted when my favorite table was unoccupied, the one beneath the big window where a rectangle of sunlight made me feel like a cat curled on a comforter.
But first, I had to address a predicament that plagues me to this day. Whenever I visit a library, I must, please forgive the subject matter, use the restroom. It’s a mystery.
“May I have the key to the men’s room, please?”
Mr. Pennington, public servant that he was, could not utter the words that his facial tics suggested were at his lips. Instead, silently, he would retrieve the men’s room key from his desk drawer and hand it to me.
My business concluded and my hands washed, I would return the key to him with a polite, “Thank you.” He would take the key with two fingers and place it in the drawer, graciously waiting until I turned away before he used a tissue to clean his fingers and the key.
Those Saturday afternoons it was not uncommon for us, Mr. Pennington and me, to be the only occupants in the library. If the big clock ticked, I did not hear it. I was too busy looking at books about clipper ships, or cowboys, or an atlas, or, or, or ...
One afternoon while I was immersed, Mr. Pennington placed a book before me and said, “You might enjoy this writer.”
I read the name out loud, “Arthur C. Clarke.” He nodded and returned to his desk.
He was right.
As much as anything else, I am who I am because of libraries. Thank you, libraries and librarians.
