My Miss Brooks

Surely there is a character in a book named Miss Brooks.  She would be thin, gray haired, wear wire rim glasses and be quietly unassuming.  She would work in a library.  She would be those things because she was in my young life just those things.  My brother and I would arrive at the limestone Carnegie Library across the street from the courthouse and hike up the stairs to the room with a linoleum compass rose over which my Miss Brooks presided.  She was the librarian who led me to the orange bound biographies that I so loved.  I don't recall library cards or details like checking out. I suspect she and Mom just took care of it.  I just recall that she knew her books and she knew me. Years after she retired, my brother and I ran across her at one of those club bake sales that JC Penneys always allowed  near the stairs that went to the basement.  There in the blue tiled building, ten years or more since we frequented the room with the compass rose, she still knew us.

Miss Brooks was the beginning of my love of books and libraries.  We lived in another place for a couple of years and our family economy only included trips to the library in the summer when the school library was closed.  The school librarian refused to let me check out The Secret Garden when I was in second grade.  I suppose she thought I would not be able to read and make sense of words like; mystified, brilliant, contrary and sentiment.  I suppose that she wanted to keep a small supply of books appropriately apportioned so that older students would have something that would appeal to them.  But I had heard about this story and wanted to read it.  I tried twice at school and when it came to the check out line that librarian whose name I have forgotten turned me away.  I could not understand why I couldn't check out any book I wanted to check out and persuaded my mother to take me to the big downtown public library in the middle of the school year so I could check out this coveted book.  I read it and learned the meaning of words by reading sentences in which those words that seemed beyond the abilities of a seven year old had a meaning.  I don't remember the reading being hard.  I had heard some of those words even if I hadn't read them before. 


We moved back to the town with the limestone library and behold the school now had a library.  It was wonderful to go listen to the warm rich black voice of Mrs. DeGrate (sorry Mrs. D - I don't know how to spell it) read to us.  I felt a little out of step with other kids because I had not read the Laura Ingalls Wilder series in 3rd grade.  So back I went to the linoleum compass room and Miss Brooks to find them.  I don't remember when Miss Brooks retired.  During Jr High and High School, the library became a convenient place for my parents to pick me up if I walked downtown after school. The room with the compass rose had been replaced with another limestone building.  One summer while waiting for a parent the tornado sirens went off and the library staff rounded everyone up and took us about three stories down to a civil defense shelter that I had not known was there. I read late into the night in those summer months, books by James Michner, Victor Hugo, Harper Lee.... 

The Library always had an art exhibit and I began to want to do creative things because of what I saw there. I loved the linsey woolsey coverlets and learned to weave. I planned a trip to Turkey with the help of a library and shopped for a new washer with the help of a library.  I have watched movies and listened to music.  I have driven the highways of the west listening to PG Wodehouse - checked out from the library.  I have planned hikes, designed quilts, grown vegetables and painted watercolors with the help of a library.  Because the library has digitial subscriptions I have researched my ancestors while sitting in my living room, warmed by my laptop.  I have relaxed at the end of many days over many years with a library book in my hand.

I have read countless books from the library to my own children and peeked in the door as one of them acted out at bedtime the songs from a library CD.  We sang along with Charlotte Diamond on a tape cassette as we traveled; "I am a pizza," "Four Hugs a Day".... on long car trips; I have enjoyed the sharing of the great story or doing the fun science experiment that we found in  a library book.   We came to love Raven, Anansi and Brier Rabbit as the characters of many cultures became our friends.  We went to community events that we saw advertised and posted in the library.  We touched pythons and played didgereedoos at special library events.

I have browsed art books and poetry and read books that were healing as I read someone else's words.  I have learned some things to avoid from the characters in books. Characters in books made some mistakes so I didn't have to try that. I learned about racism and bigotry.  I learned about greed and infidelity.  I also learned admirable ways to behave. I learned about generosity and forgiveness about courage and curiousity. I registered to vote at the library.

In my college years, I was fortunate to work in the campus library. So libraries even got me through college, both financially and emotionally.  I found quiet places to study in the library and places that had upholstered furniture. My student apartments were often lacking in that luxury.  I liked to find the quiet places on campus to sit in a comfortable chair and just read.  I could pretend my life was not always surrounded by thousands of other young adults.  I made friends in the library, met fellows that I dated and even the man that I married all in the library.

I now live with that man in a place with one of the best library systems I can imagine.  I never walk in the door without finding several things that I would like to read.  Things that I didn't know I wanted to read or had an interest in before I walked in the door past that "Explore More" shelf.   We are looking at retirement and as we consider places to live.  I'm always asking "What is the library system like?"  "Is there a system?" "Is that community part of the system?"  "How far away would the house be from the library?"  "How does the library feel?"  "What kind of books do they buy?"   "do they exhibit art?"  "What is their programming like?" "Will I find that place where the community comes together there?" 

Libraries have become the measure by which I measure a healthy community.  Libraries are the place where someone knows my name and where I have become who I am.. Thank you, Miss Brooks.