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Copyright © 2010 Andrea Langworthy
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Every time I travel along South Robert Trail, I strain my neck to see what is going on with the new library. So far, I haven’t seen any books, but I keep looking just the same. I can’t wait to check out my first book. Libraries are like penny candy stores to me. So affordable. So many sweet choices. I always come home with more than I can devour in the allotted time.
As a young girl, the library was the farthest place I was allowed to go on my bike. My best friend and I spent many summer days at the Linden Hills branch where we took hours making our selections. Those were the days librarians were quick to shush anything above a whisper, especially from children, so my friend and I developed our own signals to let each other know when we found a must-read. After the librarian stamped the due dates in our books, we strapped our books tightly into our saddle bags and pedaled home as fast as we could to solve mysteries with Nancy Drew. Find out what Betsy and Tacy were up to. What hardship would beset the prairie family in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series.
My family moved to the other side of Minneapolis when I was in seventh grade. I went in search of a new library. By then, I was old enough to take the city bus so my new friends and I often rode downtown to the modern new library on Nicollet Avenue. Mom had given us firm instructions not to talk to any of the men who slept on the benches inside the front door. She didn’t need to, though. With two stories of books to browse, we didn’t want to tarry in the lobby, anyway. Plus, there was a show in the planetarium and we couldn’t be late for that.
As fancy as that downtown building was, it was the neighborhood library on East Lake Street, the one my mother had used as a girl, that became my favorite. It had long wood tables with chairs where my friends and I pretended to do our homework. My boyfriend, at another table with his friends, made eyes at me until I giggled and the librarian told me, “Shush.” Going to the library to study was the only reason my parents let me go out on school nights. I did it so often, you’d think my grades would have been stellar. They weren’t.
When I went back to school in my 40s, I applied for what I thought was the perfect job: working in a library. I sorted the returned books and shelved them in their proper places. Day after day, I pushed my cart through the stacks, happy I knew the alphabet so I could put fiction in order. Much easier than the decimal system used for non-fiction. Here’s what I can tell you about my dream job: After a few months of turning my head sideways to put away books, my neck got a painful crick. Worse than that, though, at the end of the day my hands were filthy.
Even so, when the Robert Trail Library opens in February, I’ll be there with my library card clutched tightly in my clean little hand. You too, I hope. If we see someone pushing a cart piled high with books to put away, we should say thank you. The librarians won’t even tell us to shush.