There are many things I have taken for granted over the years, and one of those things is the local public library. It has always just been there, a source of a wide selection of reading material and a wonderful place for research. When I was in the third and fourth grades I had a working mother, a very unusual thing in the 50s. She was a widow, and had to work to make her way in the world. She would drop me off at a street car stop on her way to her job, and I would catch a ride that took me almost to the door of my school. The afternoons, however, were another matter. She managed these by arranging a series of activities to which I would wend my way on the same street car at the end of the school day. From there she would pick me up when her work day was done. One day was piano lessons, two were taken up by ballet (in which I was a reluctant and very unskilled participant), and one more was devoted to horseback riding (that I embraced and in which I was more proficient), which left one more day to fill. That day I went to the library. I loved that afternoon filled with the silent possibilities of any book I wanted to read. I was supposed to do my homework, but that never happened. Instead I roamed the stacks browsing through picture books, atlases, in general anything that caught my eye before engaging in my current book. The afternoon stretched in front of me with no one assigning me a chore, asking if I had practiced the piano, or telling me it was time for bed. It was unencumbered time.
After I got married, the first place I located on the Marine base we called home was the library. It was very small, located in a rather dingy room above the post exchange. However, it had all I needed and I happily checked out books giving my husband's military ID number as required at the checkout. Unfortunately, I did not return one of these books on time, which I discovered when my husband returned home from work one night reporting that he had been reprimanded for an overdue book at the library. I knew without a doubt that the offending book was mine. In a weak attempt to assuage the situation, I commented that all involved might be glad that I was a reader. He firmly indicated that fact had brought no joy to the situation. I must say my book returning was very prompt after that.
Years later we found ourselves in Beirut, Lebanon where I entered the world of no public libraries at all. However, there were some upsides to this lack. (Remember this was the world before e-books and Kindles.) The reading community became a web-like circle passing around books until they were literally falling apart. A newly recommended book was always welcome, and I was introduced to authors I had never tried and subjects as yet unexplored.
But when the family eventually returned home to a new duty station and the local library, it was with a new appreciation for both the country in which we were privileged to have been born, and that building down the road which housed all the fiction and facts which were ours to explore always.