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 |   This stuffed Beanie Baby dog came tagged "tracker" which fits my search for knowledge. |
| April 24, 2024 Wednesday 5:30 am  PROMPT: A lot of things started on April 24. See link or write about the libraries you knew as a child. (Warning: 677 words) I loved going to the library. My mom passed on her love of books to the five kids in my family. I was seven when our town's public library was built. The design was quite modern at the time. As a child, I was restricted to checking out only two books at a time. During summer vacation I borrowed two books twice a week. Beverly Cleary wrote many books including a favorite, "Ramona Quimby Age 8." My favorite book, written by different authors, "Cheaper by the Dozen," was based on a true story and instrumental in my lifelong highly developed organizational skills. The library had a special odor. The smell of books, the best of which was a new one, combined with the smell of newly sharpened pencils, were thirstily inhaled while I browsed the shelves reading book blurbs. That was almost as much fun as reading a book because I would leave the library victorious discovering the perfect book among throngs. When I arrived at the check-out counter, there was a hint of lilac in the air coming from the direction of the librarian. Our librarian wore reading glasses on a hand-crafted beaded crystal chain. For a long time, I thought being a librarian was the best job in the world. To have the answer to everything would be so neat. We had a set of the Encyclopedia Americana at home, which was second to the best, according to my mother, the Britannica. She "splurged" on the encyclopedia set when a salesman came to our door. The desired set was slightly out of her price range. The Americana, however, was far superior to the latest set to come out, The World Book Encyclopedia. That is the one I used to copy from for my school assignments. I felt like a traitor using it at the time. The only problem with the set at home, I did not understand most of what it said, using technical language and words I never heard of. Many years later, as a newlywed, I appeared on the television show by the same name. I chuckled when the prize we won was a two-volume set of the World Book Encyclopedia. We used it often to learn before the advent of the internet. In adulthood, the public library allowed an unlimited number of books to be checked out. I was in my heyday of reading at least one book a day. Writing about the library and my favorite author motivated me to do some research. I found Cleary started a program called D.E.A.R. which was for Drop Everything And Read. I listened to a fifteen-minute interview with her from 2006. She said she was glad she was young before television and before many had radios. Her mom would read to Beverly and her father every night. It was wonderful to hear her tell how she came up with her characters. The more popular one, Ramona, was based on a little girl, about seven years old, who lived near her in her neighborhood. She told how the girl while walking home from the grocery store, was eating the pound of butter she had been sent to the store to buy. The name, Ramona, came from hearing someone in the neighborhood calling out for a girl by that name. Aunt Adele, my mom's sister, was a librarian for decades in their hometown of York, Pennsylvania. An avid reader herself, she told me she knew many facts from looking up answers to the same questions. Their mother worked as an elementary school teacher long before most women worked outside the home. She needed to provide for her children after my grandfather died young. It was long before social security was instituted. Being well-educated was a high priority. I have digressed just a smidgen which has been a joy for me as I recalled such fond memories from my youth. |
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