Traumas at the Library Check-out Desk

I got my hot button pressed today. Had to rant and rave, take a trip down memory lane, and investigate a few rabbit trails along the way. Get a cup of coffee and settle in, this is gonna take a while.

Karen Blados blogged that her first-grade son, "The Punk," was all excited because he had checked out a "chapter book" from the library. There was a substitute librarian on duty at the time who didn't know first-graders weren't allowed to get books from the yellow section.

Well bully for him! I hope he sneaks over to the yellow section every time he's in there. I hope he can manage to tote out stacks and stacks of chapter books that are supposedly too advanced for him. Because if a kid has a burning desire to read a chapter book, he shouldn't be limited to Fuzzy Bunny's Adventures in ten pages with more pictures than words.

Yep, this is a big ol' hot button for me...The Yellow Section Restriction. Brought back a particularly hateful memory which I've never forgotten or forgiven. Trailing on its heels was another library moment as a little kid that turned out OK, and another which happened just recently. Childhood traumas are not easily forgotten it seems.

Let's start this story at the beginning, shall we? Nana, my sister, is twelve years older. She was born a teacher and I was her star pupil and teaching guinea pig. She instilled in me a love of reading. She would bring me the good stuff, Newberry Award winners like Charlotte's Web and Dr. Doolittle, and a mystery series with five kids, The Happy Hollisters. (Yes, I remember this like it was yesterday, are you impressed Nana?) I sucked them up like a sponge. Thank you Nana!

My real passion for reading started somewhere around the third grade. That's when I became too nearsighted to see the world beyond the length of my arm. I could live out my childhood adventures in the pages of books. I read everything I could get my hands on. Our house was full of books and I was free to read anything I wanted. Mother probably didn't realize I was reading Valley of the Dolls at age eleven, but it kept me out of her hair and that was fine with her.

Nana and Pris (the middle sister) brought home their worn out high school Literature books the school was replacing. From those I got my first taste of Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Speckled Band. I also got bits of Pygmalion, Cheaper by the Dozen, The Ransom of Red Chief, and other great classics. I read those Lit books cover to cover at least three times.

I also discovered a cache of the complete Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series in a dusty corner of the church basement. Every Wednesday after choir practice I'd get three and return them Sunday morning. Took me about a year to read through the whole collection.

On Saturday morning Mom did the grocery shopping. She didn't want to lug me through the grocery store so she dropped me at the library and picked me up when she finished. I had about 40 minutes to snatch up a week's worth of reading material, somewhere in the neighborhood of ten to twelve books. That would last me from Saturday to Wednesday until I got to choir practice.

Suffice it to say I was an avid reader and read well beyond my grade level. One of the first "adult" books I was allowed to buy was Shakespeare's Four Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. (It's still in my bookcase to this day.) I was in elementary school at the time. I was looking for something a little meatier to read. I chose well. Shakespeare is a bit meaty for a grade-schooler. I remember Mom raising an eyebrow and asking if I rillyrilly wanted *that* book. I said yes. She shrugged her shoulders and paid for it which is very unlike my Mother now that I think about it. I guess she figured if I wanted to try to tackle Shakespeare it was worth the 60 cents.

So, that's my background on books and reading. Now we get to the nasty memory.

Third grade, class trip to the library. The school library is one small room. Low bookcases under the windows for Grades 1-3, tall cases on the opposite wall for Grades 4-6. Every person in the class gets to check out a book to take back to the classroom for the week. The books stay on a reading table and we can read any of them after we finish our work. I always finish early and snatch up a book. Had the whole pile read in a matter of days. By the time I reached third grade I had read most of the books in the Grade 1-3 section.

This particular library trip I'm searching in vain for fresh reading material. I realize I've either read everything at my level, or what I haven't read is below my level. I need to hurry and pick something because time is running out. I turn to the big stacks on the other side of the room. Ah ha! Big books, chapter books, books I won't finish in fifteen minutes. Fantastic! I wander over and gaze in wonderment at all the marvelous books in front of me, scanning the titles, trying to decide on just one.

Then the evil librarian catches me in The Forbidden Zone.

"Hey! You can't be over there! You have to get a book from this section!" she snarls, pointing at the low bookcases.

"But I've read all those books. They're all to simple." I reply.

"It doesn't matter. You can't have a book from over there. Pick one from over here...and hurry up about it."

So, frustrated, I walk to the low bookcases and grab whatever my hand lands on. What I really wanted to do was scream, "Look bitch, I'm slogging my way through a high school Lit book at home and you are forcing me to take Fuzzy Ducky's Bathtime? Are you crazy???" But I was only eight and didn't have adequate vocabulary at the time.

"This one. I'll take this one," handing it to her to check out for me.

"You didn't even look at it!" she says, accusing me of being a smart-ass with her glare.

"It doesn't matter. I won't read it anyway. It's too simple."

She checks it out to me, still glaring, and I'm almost in tears. I want more than anything to read, but I want a big book, one with chapters and no pictures, one that will entertain and enlighten for longer than 15 minutes. But that's forbidden just because I'm in third grade, not fourth grade.

I hated that woman from that day forward. She was the librarian, someone who is supposed to nurture and encourage a child's love for reading and books, not smash it flat with stoopid rules. I thought she should be fired. When I read her obit in the hometown paper I had a satisfied smirk for the rest of the day. Good riddance.

Fast forward a year or two. Saturday morning county library/grocery trip. I have collected my dozen or so books for the week and go to the checkout counter. I'm barely tall enough to see over the top. I set my stash on the counter along with my library card as I have done for weeks and weeks and weeks. The lady at the counter (new, not the librarian) peers over the counter at me and says, "Oh, little girl, you can't check out all these books. There's a three-book limit."

"But, but, but, I always check out this many."

"There's a limit, only three a day."

"But I'll finish three by this afternoon!" I say, my bottom lip quivering and tears welling in my eyes imagining a week with no books to read.

The new lady, who is actually very nice about it all, sees my panic and tries to explain again. I try to explain again to her.

"But, but, but, I get this many every week. I always get this many. Look at my card!"

By this time Miss Baker, the librarian, steps out from the office to see about the commotion. (Yes, at our quiet little county library this would be considered a commotion.) The nice lady explains to her, pointing at my mountain of books, that I'm over the limit.

Miss Baker is something like second cousin once removed to my father and is approaching a hunnert years old. She is the quintessential old-maid librarian who has devoted her entire life to books, the library, and her library patrons. She has checked me out every Saturday for most of my life and has never batted an eye at my carnivorous reading habit. That's why I was clueless about the three-book limit.

Miss Baker adjusts her bi-focals (complete with the little chain that clips on the earpieces and goes around her neck, draping across the shoulders of her ancient cardigan) and peers over the counter at me. Then she smiles a little smile. She turns to the nice lady and says, "It's OK, I know her. She can check out all she wants."

Tears of joy, tears of relief. I got my books but not without some much remembered trauma. I sniffled all the way home.

Fast forward lots and lots of decades to a year ago. I'm at the community college library checking out four art and drawing books.

Nice lady at the counter says, "I'm sorry, but there's a three-book limit."

Just for an instant I am that little girl at the county library again and I get an adrenalin rush of panic. My eyes moisten in an involuntary reaction. My lower lip runs out just a smidge. The library check-out trauma I had as a child has bubbled once again to the surface. Somebody with stoopid rules is trying to restrict my access to books. I know kindly old Miss Baker will not be here to rescue me this time.

But I relax when I realize I'm a big girl now. The three-book limit is not a problem. I probably won't finish three before the due date anyway. I can come back and get more books any time I want. I have a car and can drive myself. Life is good.

I think about Miss Baker as I hand over one to go back to the stacks. Kids need more librarians like her, somebody who understands that just because you are little it doesn't mean your brain is; somebody who understands that sometimes three books just ain't enough, and that they need to have more words than pictures.

Maybe The Punk found his Miss Baker today in the substitute librarian when she let him check out his chapter book from the yellow section. I hope so.

Valuing the Little Guy

In the business world, the folks who work in the bowels of the company don't often get the appreciation they deserve and rarely even get acknowledged: the accounting department, the warehouse crew, the janitorial staff. They are the heart and the guts of the business without whom there would be no business. It hacks me off that they are so easily overlooked.

I was once one of those people, toiling away in a dark cubicle on the financial paperwork of the little company. My boss, and owner of the company, told me I didn't deserve a raise because I was the accountant and, "didn't generate any revenue." The computer guy, who also didn't generate revenue and had been there less years with less experience and education, did get a raise to a salary greater than mine because, 1) he was a guy; and 2) he had a family to support. I was hacked. I gave my notice the next day.

That brings me to a bright spot email I received recently. I ordered some books through Amazon.com Marketplace where you pay Amazon, but the books come from another company. I received a shipping confirmation email with the standard verbiage: thanks for your order, this got shipped, it will arrive soon, come again.

But there at the bottom was a sig line, the likes of such I had never seen before. A sig line that shows this little company recognizes and appreciates the little guy. The little guy without whom the books would not arrive on my doorstep. The little guy who has a vested interest in my customer satisfaction. The little guy who is valued in this company.

This little company appreciates and honors all their "little guys" so much they include all their names in the email, including Buddy the Warehouse Cat. How cool is that???

Thank you once again from Sonja & Ed Mondazzi, Buddy & Staff............
Justin, Operations Manager, Techno Sound Engineer & Runs this place when Ed is away buying books and stuff.
Nicole, General Manager & Scientifically proven to be "Smarter" than Ed
Irene, Internet Manager & "Smartest" person Ed Knows!
Joanne, Inventory Manager & the "Silent Wisdom" for Ed
Leda, Shipping Expert & "Commentator"
Mike, Warehouse manager & Ed's Right Hand & Everyone's "Go to" Person
Sarah, Going to College and will be "Smarter" than Ed
John, Computer IT genius, Proofs Ed's E mails and needs a tan
Sonja, Wife of Ed, much "Better Looking" than Ed and plays with Buddy
Buddy, Internet Blogger, Boars Head Chicken favorite food (rejects store brands) and Loved by all :)
Ed, No one Knows what Ed does but he looks busy all the time:)

Mondazzi Books
570 Hayden Station Road
Windsor, CT 06095
(860) 285 0538

I would work there.

Southern Belle Circadian Rhythms

I like to sleep. I am a power sleeper. However, unlike most of the civilized world, I like to sleep from about 3:00 a.m. until about 11:00 a.m. Hubby teases me about getting up at the crack of noon.

My brain doesn't start functioning well until the sun goes down. Moonbeams cause the creative juices to flow and the higher-level thinking skills to ramp up into gear. My best mental work happens in the wee small hours of midnight. Cousin Tommy Darrel says I'm livin' on Tokyo time. Sissy says I just have different circadian rhythms from other people. I tell folks I'm second cousin to a vampire.

It's been problematic I'll admit. College classes at 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. were real killers. Do civilized people actually think about perpetual inventory systems at that hour? Later, in the corporate world, trying to read a three-inch thick contract at 7:30 a.m. was pretty pointless. The ol' gray matter was still congealed.

I discovered my night-owl habits are merely my biological imperative to be a proper Southern Belle. Validation was found in Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral, by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays (edited here for space considerations):

"Like Count Dracula, who was from a lovely old family, Southern ladies of a certain ilk and age only come alive at night. One or two in the morning is the normal bedtime for the night-owl belle. She sits up all night smoking cigarettes, watching TV, or drinking gin. While the rest of us are in bed getting our zzz's, the night-owl belle is flipping through her TV Guide, searching for Dynasty reruns, and not even thinking about applying her Swiss Performing lotion for another hour or so. The night-owl belle won't want to make conversation at an hour she regards as daybreak, which, roughly translated, is any time before midday."

Yes! Sing it sister! I have been vindicated. I just knew there was a reason for my night-owliness; I am a true Southern Belle. My momma raised me right.

New Book Ritual

New books just came in the mail. One is a hardback. I remove the book from its plastic shipping prison and immediately stick my nose to the edges of the pages. The heady aroma of printing ink and crisp, clean paper swirl me away on a bibliophile head trip. There is a world of wonder inside and it's all mine!

I perform the New Book Ritual without thinking. It is no longer a concious effort, just a natural reaction. I may be the only person in the world who does this. After I'm finished I get tickled at myself. I've done the Ritual since I was seven years old.

It is the first day of school in third grade. We are assigned our textbooks. This year we have a new social studies book; new, clean, unblemished by decades of grimy little third-grade hands. One that doesn't declare Eisenhower to be the newly elected President. I immediately stick it to my nose taking in a big huff of printing ink and paper. I am eager to open it and look at the pictures, but no, we must open it properly says teacher.

There's a proper way to open a book? Other than turn the cover? Apparently so. Teacher says we must open the book carefully so as not to break the spine.

Oh.

Here's how that's done:

• Position the book in front of you on the desk, front cover facing you.
• Open the front cover and ease it all the way open so it is flat, running your hand down the valley to crease it open.
• Close the book and turn it over.
• Repeat the procedure with the back cover.
• Close the book and hold it upright on its spine so the page edges point up.
• Find the midway point in the pages and open the book out flat; crease the valley.
• Stand the book back up on its spine closed, pick a point halfway between the midpoint and the front cover.
• Open the book flat and crease.
• Stand the book back up on its spine closed, pick a point halfway between the midpoint and the back cover.
• Open the book flat and crease.

The book can now be used without fear of breaking the spine. I didn't know what "breaking the spine" meant in third grade, but it seemed to be a terrible doom both for the book and the spine breaker kid.

The final step in the New Book Ritual is carefully penning your full name and date on the inside cover. I'm not sure of the importance of the date, but who am I to fiddle around with a time honored tradition?

With my New Book Ritual completed, I am off to the porch rocker to immerse myself in southern culture. It will be a Good Day.