A Fond Memory

When I was in grade school I loved to read. Anything my chubby brown hands could get a hold of to read, I'd read. Because of my high reading and language scores I was selected to help out in the library sorting books, tidying up the place and helping the other students check out books. The librarian (I never thought I'd forget her name) was very kind to me. I don't know if it was because I was painfully shy or if because she could pretty much give me limited supervision and the chores would get done w/o a lot of follow up on her part.

I remember her as being a tall, slim, model-like blonde who was always stylish in dress and had perfect hair. She and the music teacher (never thought I'd forget his name either. See what age and time does to you?) were good friends and often took their lunches together in her office located in the back of the library.

The music teacher was an attractive, soft=spoken black man who always wore neckties and jackets, even during music class. I thought he was one of the handsomest men I'd ever seen and because he was a writer and musician, and single, he should meet my single aunt and marry her. When I told my mother my ideas of matchmaking Minnie to the music teacher, I remember her thinking that was one of the funniest things I had ever told her. My aunt Minnie shared Momma's view but she was a lot nicer in bursting my bubble than Momma.

At the end of the school year I was tasked with helping the librarian take inventory of every book in the library. The school was to receive a new set of Encyclopedia Britannica and the old set discarded. When the librarian (why can't I remember her name?) asked if I'd like to have the old set of encyclopedias I was elated!

I don't know exactly how the books made it to the house but I remember my parents let me store them, all in a row, on a rickety wooden bookshelf that sat prominently in our living room for everyone to see. And you know what? My sister and I tried to read every one of those books! A lifetime before the Internet where we can Google or Yahoo or Bing every concept known to man, my family had a set of encyclopedias and we were proud to have them!

I would spend hours reading through those books, learning about everything from astronomy to zoology, Presidents of the U.S., the Civil War, and everything in between.

Last week while looking for papers, I found two of those encyclopedias. I had managed to keep them somehow, all these years. I've sat them aside and may glance through them just to compare the listings to today's language and verbiage. Maybe I'll do it on a rainy day or maybe I'll read them to Butterfly. I don't know why I'm saving them, all that info is a mouse click away.

Maybe I'm saving them to remember how special I felt lining them up on that rickety bookshelf, or how we had to take special care to dust them and not damage them. Whatever the reason, they're right over there, another fond memory of days gone.