The Public Library
The kids who like to read need a place to go, too.
I have some very faint memories of spending my summer days at the Wahoo Public Library. So faint, sometimes I question if they actually happened. But then I dig deep, and I know for certain they did.
The public library, such a magical place. Full of new ideas, new places, new people, and new worlds. All able to be accessed for almost nothing at all. What a concept. An institution where the market cannot reach.
When I was a kid, I’d spend lots of time there, inside away from the humid summer days.
It was dark, musty, quiet, and (mostly) empty. This was small-town America, where the population was concerned with more American type things — swimming pools, ball fields, video games, and I can only assume drugs of some sort.
If only they had heard of the Dewey Decimal System.
Searching the shelves for the perfect book to take in at a particular moment was one of my favorite activities. Until one summer it just wasn’t anymore.
For reasons I am unaware, the public library became a place I no longer went. I blame Junior High, which is the cause of so much strife in the life of so many American kids.
Even though my memories of that place are scattered and faint, when the town invested in a new Wahoo Public Library a few years back, I was ecstatic. The sentiment in most of the town was that it was a waste of money. It can be a very short-sighted selfish place, so that’s not surprising.
But hopefully the new library offers even more great adventures for the few thrill-seeking book readers out there in the next generation. Certainly there are some. And like the kids who prefer to swim and play ball, the kids who like to read need a place to go, too. Which, of course, is a great investment.
