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'When
I get a little money I buy books;
and if any is left,
I buy food and
clothes"
-Erasmus
'It's here!" I heard my friend say as soon as I picked up
the phone.
'Be there in 10 minutes," I said as I hung up and went
flying out the screen door as only a twelve year old can. My
mother yelled after me, 'Don't slam the door!" but it was
too late.
I hurried down the road to meet my girlfriend. It was
summer break, school had been out for a couple of weeks, and
now the bookmobile was here!
Like opening the doors of the wardrobe in C.S. Lewis' Narnia
series, so it was to enter the huge enclosed bus-like
vehicle and reach up to the shelf, open a book, and enter
another world.
The bookmobile came to our town during the summer and it was
always parked next to the curb, sideways, taking up several
parking spaces in front of the Baring Hotel. There were
bicycles along the curb also as children showed up to check
out books. I would usually see people outside visiting with
each other as they waited because there wasn't room for
everyone to be inside at the same time. It was a social
opportunity as well as a chance to check out new reading
material. The bookmobile had air-conditioning, at least when
it wasn't on the fritz, so most people weren't in a great
hurry to leave anyway since not many had air conditioning at
that time.
We had books in our home and a library in our small school
but the bookmobile brought more books on almost any subject
you could think of, from biographies to historical novels.
If you wanted a book that wasn't there, the librarian would
write it down and try to bring it on the bookmobile's next
trip.
Many people in rural areas had very little access to books
unless they went to a city and that didn't happen very
often. In the 1950s there wasn't a Hastings, Barnes & Noble,
or even a Wal-Mart with a book section like there is today.
My love of books probably came from my parents who both
liked to read and my mother being a schoolteacher may have
had a lot to do with it. She began teaching in a one-room
schoolhouse and finished her career as school librarian so
books were always around our house.
It wasn't long until I had read most of the books that were
at home and in the classrooms at school. Some of us were
hooked on reading from the time Miss Marie taught us 'See
Spot run! Run! Run! Run!" in the first grade.
After the Dick and Jane books, I had moved on through
all the series books such as Cherry Ames, Nancy
Drew, and Little House on the Prairie. I remember
my cousin once managed to borrow her sister's book, Gone
With The Wind, and we both read it when we were only 12
years old. Now that we had the bookmobile, we knew we would
be able to read more such books.
Although we think of the bookmobile as beginning in the
1950s, the idea had been around a long time. I have been
told that books were once distributed to schools and
communities by horse-drawn wagons. After World War II books
were sometimes carried in the trunks of cars to different
areas. The first bookmobiles were probably the ones that
were made from school buses that were converted for this
purpose.
The bookmobile no longer comes to town but we still have
libraries. Books are always better than the movies because
they have a lot more detail than can be put into a two-hour
film. As author John Le carre once said, 'Having your book
turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into
bouillon cubes."
Years ago, before television and video games, families would
have 'reading time" together. This summer why not turn off
the TV, get out some of the classics like
Tom Sawyer
or Little
Women and read with your children or
grandchildren. If you don't have the books, your local
library does.
You may not have a magic wardrobe or a bookmobile but if you
just open a good book and begin to read, the book has a
magic all it's own to transport you to faraway places even
though you have not moved from where you sit.
I've
traveled the world twice over,
Met the famous; saints and sinners,
Poets and artists, kings and queens,
Old stars and hopeful beginners,
I've been where no-one's been before,
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books.
-Unknown
blaines.us/PamyPlace.htm
e-mail:
pamyblaine@blaines.us
*????)
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( ??.?·?? (??.?·?? ??.?·??
`?·-?»Pamy
NO ONE IS USELESS IN THIS WORLD
WHO LIGHTENS THE BURDEN OF ANYONE ELSE.
blaines.us/PamyPlace.htm
e-mail:
pamyblaine@blaines.us
*????)
??.?·?? ??.?·????) ??.?·*??)
( ??.?·?? (??.?·?? ??.?·??
`?·-?»Pamy
NO ONE IS USELESS IN THIS WORLD
WHO LIGHTENS THE BURDEN OF ANYONE ELSE. |
