a good murtle, a good book - life is good

Julie came down to spend some time with me the other day and we went on a murtle. (sp?) The Mancine family lexicon is rich with words that are either re-purposed, mis-used, or just plain made up. "Murtle" is one of the latter, and it means, roughly, to wander about, when used as a verb, or an outing, when used as a noun, as it is here. Anyway. We wanted to drive down to Catonsville proper to find the local yarn shop, Cloverhill. We found it easily enough, and were pleased to find it bustling with customers who were both buying yarn and sitting and knitting.

We were delighted to find that there is a downtown Catonsville with shops and restaurants and off-street parking. Definitely something to explore another day. We were most excited to find the local public library, and, in fact, Julie pulled in the parking lot so we could check it out. We found it to be architecturally reminiscent of the Elyria Public Library on Washington Avenue. A large one-story box of a building with a local history room in the basement, the Catonsville library is actually a branch of the Baltimore Public Library System. This is exciting to me because it means I have that whole system to draw from.

I went to the reference desk to apply for a library card and was delighted to find that with the proper identification (which I had) I could get my card right away instead of having to wait for mail to arrive at my new address. So I got a library card! And I checked out a book! Yes, it's all that exciting to me. And it was not just any book that I checked out - it was a book by my favorite mystery writer, Carol O'Connell, that I had not yet read.

Carol O'Connell is the author of the Mallory books, a hard-boiled detective series set in contemporary New York City. I love everything about that 9-volume series (all of which Ben gave to me one Christmas) except for the fact that the ninth book, Find Me, seems to be pretty clearly the end of the series. O'Connell also wrote Judas Child, a stand-alone book that was so compelling and so incredibly well-written that as soon as I finished reading the last page, I flipped the book over and read it all again. I almost never do that.

This is all prelude to saying that the book I checked out of the library the other day is another stand-alone entitled Bone by Bone. O'Connell's books are not for the faint of heart - not so much because they are violent or gory, which they sometimes are - but because they are so heartbreaking. The author deals with "the damage that humans can do to each other" as the Library Journal says in its review of this book. O'Connell's characters are badly damaged, but, for the most part, manage to function in spite of that, frequently in ways that will break your heart.

In Bone by Bone, a man is summoned back to the small resort town where he grew up - a town he has not seen in the twenty years since his teenage brother disappeared there. His brother is returning home, "bone by bone" and the protagonist must determine why. There are perhaps too many suspects and too many red herrings, but having read all of O'Connell's other books, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. This was a book to be read slowly and carefully, and now that I have finished it, perhaps for a second time. Yes, it's that good.

looks at books, as Ben would say

When we moved here, one of the first places our family went en masse was to the local public library to get library cards. Some of my previous posts have stressed the importance of libraries in our daily lives. It has been an ongoing struggle for me, however, to learn to appreciate the library here, and one of the many things I have found lacking is an established book discussion group.

That first summer we moved here, I approached the reference desk to ask the reference librarian for a list of book discussion groups. The dapper and hirsute little reference guy looked up from his reading and told me the library didn't have any book discussion groups, but that he thought the local independent book store might have one. He seemed somewhat surprised that I even thought the library would provide such a service.

I tried the group at the book store, and while I found the other ladies there friendly and welcoming, I found the book store owner who led the discussions to be somewhat distant and off-putting, and not too surprisingly, more interested in selling books than discussing them. In the event, the store soon closed, and I was left without a book discussion group. No big deal, you might think, but I had previously belonged to two groups for a number of years, and I missed the intellectual give and take. Plus, it was the best way I knew to meet people with interests similar to my own.

The groups I had belonged to were about as different from each other as they could be. One of them was at the public library where I worked, and was led by my friend and supervisor, Ruth, the Reader's Advisor. The group was open to the public and met monthly throughout the school year. The group members were a mixed bag, mostly women, mostly middle-aged, but ranging in age from early twenties to quite elderly. The group dynamics were those familiar to everyone who has every participated in discussions of this kind.

A group of people is a group of individuals, after all, and we had every type: the woman who attended every session and read every book, but never spoke a word; the woman who thought she was clever, but was sly instead, and tried to take over every discussion with recollections of her life; the radical who was no longer young, but espoused the causes of her youth, and found links to them in every book we read. We had the elderly, emaciated woman who was wealthy and quite prominent in our small town. She couldn't remember if she had read the book, but ate the cookies provided like she hadn't eaten all week, then promptly fell asleep. We had the young mothers who brought their restless children to the group, and promised the kids would read quietly, although they never did.

The library staff members took turns leading the discussions, which kept things fresh and interesting. It was an adventure and a pleasure to lead the group, but I learned not to lead discussions about my favorite books because I just took it too personally if everyone didn't love the book as much as I did. I learned to ask a question and wait patiently for an answer, even though my instinct was to hurry on to the next thing. I learned that in a group of that kind, the discussion leader needed to lead with a firm hand; and that the people who were most offensive were also the most difficult to offend so subtlety was not the answer. Good life lessons, all.

My other discussion group was led by Ruth, as well, but it was a private group, with the members hand-picked from among our co-workers at the library and close friends of Ruth's. We were all about the same age - I would say maybe ten years separated the oldest member of the group from the youngest. We met in each other's homes every six weeks. There were probably eight to ten of us in the group at any given time, and we grew to know each other quite initmately. Our December discussions were held at the country club over a Christmas dinner, and our July discussions always included a picnic or a barbecue. It was hard to leave this group of friends when we moved. Harder still when I realized that there would be no replacement group in my new home town. And so it has been - until last week when an article in the local newspaper caught my eye.

To be continued...

libraries (day three)

Yesterday's list was not meant to be an exhaustive one of all the libraries I have ever been in, of course. I have been in most of the public libraries in Lorain County at one time or another, for example, and I remember that Ben, Julie and I went to a branch library somewhere in Columbus one time when Tom was participating in some sort of academic competition. (Help me out here, guys. I don't think it was Academic Challenge - some sort of math competition, maybe?) I remember my dad taking us into the Carnegie Library in Oberlin once when we were kids, and being quite awed by it.

Of course, there are the libraries I have tried to visit, but found them closed. Ben and I stopped several times as we drove through Wellington to check out the lovely little Herrick Memorial Library, but it was never open when we were there. Julie and I found the Reed Memorial Library in Ravenna not yet open at 10:00 a.m. on a weekday morning, and decided it wasn't, perhaps, the library for us. I think we tried to visit the Bowling Green Public Library one weekend when we were there, as well. And we did wait in the parking lot of the Athens Public Library while Julie went in to pick up her Phi Beta Kappa cord right before commencement, but I don't really think that counts.

As Julie pointed out in her comment, there are the university libraries I have visited. Our landmark library at KSU, of course, and the library at LCCC, to begin with. I have been in the libraries at BGSU, OU, and the U of D, and, also, it occurs to me, the Mudd Resource Center at Oberlin College. I may well have gone into the library at University of Chicago with my brother, but, alas, that is too long ago for me to remember now.

And, you know, I want to say that I feel guilty that I have damned the Elyria Public Library with faint praise in my earlier posts. It is a fine little library, and what makes it that way is its collection of books, of course - and everything else a library has to have nowadays. But equally important is the library staff. Some of the women on that staff have made it their life's work to serve at that library, and they have done a damn fine job. I mentioned the wonderful children's librarians who enriched my kids' lives in an earlier comment, but I also want to recognize the outstanding reference staff of Rose Burton and Eve Major and Marianne Mahl. And I can't forget Terri Miller, who has been ably running the circ desk all these years. If each of these women has not yet reached twenty years at the library - and I know some of them have passed that milestone - they are real close. They are just as crucial to the library as the bricks and posts of the building and the books that are housed there.

I thank you for your time. *steps down off soap box*

libraries (cont.)

My family often chides me that I make my posts "so long that no one will read them," but I was not finished with all I had to say about libraries.

Although my heart will always belong to the old library on Third Street, I do love libraries in general. For eleven years while Tom and Julie were growing up, I worked in the square, brick box the library re-located to in 1968, when the old one was torn down. The library had followed the YMCA to the wealthier north side of town from their central locations near the town square. The YMCA closed its doors several years ago, and the library has long since outgrown the small lot it occupies, so I can't think the city planners were very forward-thinking, but that's often the way of things.

On the vacations we took when the kids were younger, we often stopped at local public libraries in the places we visited. We have been in a small branch of the Morgantown, West Virginia library, near where my sister-in-law and her family used to live. We have been to the small Chincoteague, Virginia library on Main Street, and on days that it rained, we left Chincoteague, and visited some of the libraries farther south on the Eastern Shore. We have been to the library near Ben's parents' house in Tampa. (If I am forgetting any, you guys just jump right in and tell me.)

More recently, we have been to the Harold Washington Public Library in downtown Chicago, and Julie took me to the very nice Bel Air, Maryland library, where she and Andrew now live. Tom and Kristy live right next door to a library, just like Ben and I did when we were first married, although I am sorry to say I did not find time to stop in there when I was in Chicago last year. Next time for sure.

There are other libraries I have missed seeing, as well, and I regret that. I never went to the library when I was in New York City, and I have never been to the Library of Congress. I would love to go there and request the book we wrote, which I know is there, because I have searched for it on line. If Las Vegas has a public library - and I assume that they do - it would have been fun to see what that looked like.

Well, perhaps tomorrow, we will examine university and college libraries. Who knows?

I love my library

I went to the local public library today. Although, here in Kent we don't have a "public" library, we have a "free" library. Now, I like that distinction, but my cousin, Dave, says it is just like us fucking hippies in Kent to have a free library. I have tried to explain to him that it is called the "free" library to differentiate it from the old concept of paid subscription libraries, but those of you who know Dave know how he would react to that.

I have tried to like the library in Kent, and I am still trying. The good citizens here actually passed a levy to build a big, fancy, new library. They have attached it to the old Carnegie library, which I feel was a mistake. The old library sits forlornly off to one side, looking dowdy and small and slightly embarrassed. Maybe I am just resentful of the fact that the old library here in Kent was saved, while my beloved old library in Elyria was thoughtlessly torn down.

Words fail me when I try to describe how much I loved that library. It was in the old Reefy house on Third Street across from the old YMCA. The house had a big wraparound porch, and the late return box was actually a big wooden box that sat on the front porch. To get to the children's room, we had to go outside and down the steps on the side of the porch. There was a separate entrance, and inside the door, sandstone steps led down to the Longfellow Room, as the children's basement room was called. The sandstone steps glittered and crunched underfoot as we walked down them. Miss Vivian Hackett was the children's librarian, and Miss Yarish - who liked my brother, but not me - worked there, checking out books, until she got married.

My family always walked to the library - which was a good thing, as there was virtually no parking. I walked there with my dad, I walked there with my mother, and when we got a little older, my brother, Thomas, and I walked there together many times. When we were children, we were only welcome in the children's room, and our cards would only check out books down there. Needless to say, there were no CDs or DVDs or video games. The books were enough. And how proud we were when we were allowed to switch to adult library cards and check out books from the big upstairs library. After that, we never went back to the children's room.

There were small reading rooms across from the circulation desk, and old men sat at the long wooden tables there, reading the newspaper on wooden dowel rods. I longed to be a grown-up and read my newspapers that way. Alas, by the time I grew up, that library was long gone, and I have always had to read my newspapers the regular way. A new library was built in the late 60s, and the church next door bought the property and demolished the old one.

Of all the places now lost to me, the door to that old library is the one I long to walk through more than any other. With Thomas Wolfe, I lament, "O lost."