This week is National Library Week in the United States. Yesterday I visited one of our local public libraries and borrowed a book. Visiting libraries has always been a religious experience for me. I grew up next to the Arcade Free Library. I spent much of my youth there. It was in that library and others that my imagination was piqued. I remember a book whose title I have long since forgotten where a little boy carved a dugout canoe complete with an indigenous person paddling it. He placed it in a creek and miraculously it made its way all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. That story inspired me to try the same. I don’t know if my primitive dugout ever made it to the gulf but I gave it a try.
After retiring from public education nearly eight years ago I started volunteering in our local library. That led to a stint on the board of trustees. Later I became a trustee of the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System. In the past nearly eight years I have been spending a lot of time in libraries again. I’m enjoying that association with public libraries that began so many years ago. I don’t know how much you read but I’m grateful that my life has been spent in public libraries reading and learning.
I encourage you to visit your local public library this week and borrow a book.