The Library

I've been in love with libraries for as long as I remember. The Rosenberg library was my second home when I was growing up in Galveston. It was to me a massive building surrounded by live oak trees with a big statue of Mr. Rosenberg sitting on a chair right in front. I never had the nerve to climb up on the pedestal and sit on his lap but many others did. The children's area was upstairs and I think I knew every book up there. Laura Ingalls Wilder and Maud Hart Lovelace were my best friends. It was a cool quiet place. I took stacks of books home regularly.

When I was in junior high school, instead of P.E. I had the enviable position of library assistant for that period each day. It was heaven; when everyone else was getting hot and sweaty, I was in the library reading (and eating a forbidden Twinkie) with my friend Lois. We stamped in and out books for the classes that came in for a library period. I did the same thing one year in high school. Just give me library instead of P.E. any day!!

I've had several paying jobs at libraries. I worked one year at UH while I was in college. And one summer I had a wonderful job at my beloved Rosenberg library in Galveston cataloguing in the Archives; it was like being turned loose in Galveston's family attic. The last library job was at the church library. That job was very frustrating because the pay was for part time but the work was never-ending and then there was a lot of bickering among the volunteer staff.

Now it is so convenient to use the library on-line to request books and they are sent to the nearest branch. One can read and learn and enjoy to heart's content. And it is free!!

Thought for the day:

"The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being."

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama