In the end, I was awarded with my very own library card, under the conditions I understood how very important a responsibility it was. My mother came up and they had a bit of a chat.
“I think we can make an exception to the rule for you.” I can still hear her voice in my head forty years later. When I was done, she folded her hands on her desk and nodded. Helped me pronounce a word I stumbled on, and listened patiently while I read the entire book. She smiled again, but was not convinced, so I took a book from the top of the stack, stepped back away from her desk, and proceeded to read it aloud to her. Seuss and the like, board books for early readers. I told the librarian I understood her reasons, but that I was an excellent reader and that the books would not likely last the week. I didn’t know my mother was in the next row of books and heard this whole exchange, so this story was repeated a bit in our family. She went on to say that she was sure I was a good reader, but that reading that many books in a week seemed a bit unreasonable for a child my age. If I took so many, it would be unfair to the other children. She smiled, said okay, and proceeded to explain that children tended to be forgetful with their books, and not read more than two a week. I told her I was not a little kid, and I was quite smart enough to understand the rules. I have a stubborn streak a mile wide, as my friends can attest to. She said she’d find my mother and explain it to me, since I was not allowed to check out books on my own and she’d help me understand the reasoning for the rules. She smiled at me sweetly, patted my hand and carefully explained that while I was certainly ambitious, the library had a policy of only allowing children to check out two books at a time. I remember the first time I walked up to her with a stack of 30 books to check out.
We tiptoed past her desk when going from one room of books to another, fearing her wrath. She spoke in hushed whispers and could freeze a child with a look. She was an older woman with grey hair and her chained glasses. At five, I fell in love with the librarian. I thought the chains were fascinating – shiny and exotic.
They were stoic women who sat at these tall desks, with their glasses perched on their noses, or hanging around their necks on little chains. The gate-keepers to this world of magic, of course, was the librarian. I could fall into a book and leave this world completely. My mother read to us - Robin Hood, Hardy Boys - adventure books that she thought boys would love. Every one of those books held adventures I’d never be able to experience any other way.
Even at five years old, I knew it was a magical place. She’d let me wander around for a couple of hours. My mother would take us over to this library near my grandparents when it first opened on Sundays, before we went over to Sunday dinner. When I was a kid, I fell in love with the library.
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