You
learn the most important things at the library, and I’m not talking about the
“reading is knowledge” spiel educators use to inform the public on the benefits
of tax-paid books. It’s the kind of things that only a public environment,
filled with anyone and everyone, can share to the less informed, and more
sheltered individuals such as myself. I’ve expanded my vocabulary by learning
new words such as “bong” or “macking”. I’ve observed that black leggings with
white underwear are considered suitable legwear. I’ve encountered multitasking
by running away from a couples’ fight while simultaneously noting that people
still use Myspace and use Myspace to write down nasty messages that start
fights.
Yet,
if I think about it, I could have learned these facts from anywhere. You just
have to step outside your front door to encounter the best and brightest possibilities
the public world has to offer to you. School life has been famous for its
second education, the kind taught by your more informed peers. I admit I’ve garnered
some information from my public schools, mostly how long I can procrastinate
before doing my assignments. I’m sure parks and malls are just as suitable
education grounds. I just happened to latch onto the library.
It
happened just like an addiction. I wasn’t introduced to the library when I was
a little kid. Instead, my mother bought me picture books which slowly
progressed to chapter books. She had me hooked on Harry Potter, which she read
to my sister and me every night. I didn’t get my first real visit to a library
until the family moved from a big city in Missouri to a small town in Kansas. The
school I went to in Kansas was horrible, but they had a great library, so I
went there to start getting my real book rush, which was aided by new and
frequent trips to the public library with my mom. We left that small town in
Kansas in less than a year, but my need for books wasn’t settled as I moved to
a middle school with an even better library. It was in middle school when my
book addiction helped me with the special public-environment education.
The
first rule was never turn the computer on during after-school hours. Computers
are the holy instruments of the library and not to be touched when off except
by those who work there. I didn’t realize I had done anything wrong until I
heard the librarian say, “Who turned that on?” and I shift around in my seat to
see her standing behind my back, staring down at me. I made a sort of sideways
glance to the other line of six computers, hoping I wasn’t the only one here. I
was, so I looked up at her and said, “me”. She leaned over me to reach the
computer and pressed the power button before the computer had even finished
starting. “You don’t turn the computer on after I turn them off,” she said and
I nodded, then scooted out of there and walked briskly down the fluorescent
light and linoleum floor hallway without the book I was hoping to find.
After
my first lesson I had some reservations about going to the library again, but
when you have an addiction your self-preservation instincts are put on the
back-burner. It didn’t help that my mom had decided to start taking my sister
and me to a public library nearby our house, where I encountered a teen book
section for people around my age. However, I spent infrequent amounts of time
in the library, so my education was not as prolific as it was later on, when my
addiction would require stable doses of library visitation to satisfy my book
needs.
I’d
never heard of volunteering at the library before until I was almost thirteen.
I was with my parents and my sister in the children’s department at the library
near our house. My dad was talking to the librarian there, looking for a book
for my sister. He liked to talk though, so the conversation, while I was looking
for a book, had veered toward my age and before I knew what was going on he
called me over to the desk. My mother, my father, and the librarian stood
around me in a semi-circle, smiling like they had good news for me. It felt
like a ritual, the kind that requires a sacrifice, and it was. It was the
ritual of getting your first job. My dad spoke first. “Mrs. Brown would like to
tell you something,” he said. The librarian looked at me, “Hi Sunshine, how are
you?” she started. “Fine,” I replied, clasping my hands over the books I was
holding. “We have a program where people your age can help out at the library.
I have a paper here and if you fill this out with your parents you can volunteer
here every week. How does that sound?” I shrugged my shoulders which wasn’t the
right answer. The librarian turned to the people who mattered, my parents, and
handed them the paper. “Turn it in whenever you’re ready,” she said and walked
back to her desk.
My parents
looked at me, and I knew that the decision had already been made. “I’m not old enough
to volunteer, and they wouldn’t want me to work because I’m a bad worker. They’ll
fire me,” I said and my dad laughed. “You’re working for free. They’d never
fire someone like you,” he said. I just shook my head, all of my unreasonable
defenses had already been said. “How do you know unless you try,” he told me. I
looked over to my mom. “Dad’s right,” she said.
Wanting
to avoid the topic, I stomped up the four steps that separated the children’s
department from the rest of the library and checked out my books at the desk.
My parents, after getting my sister, followed me. One year later I stepped into
the main library branch for volunteer orientation. It was my second lesson.
The
lessons grew more numerous as I spent more time at the library. The man in the
flowered hat wasn’t actually all that bad, you could never find a book someone
was looking for in nonfiction, and yes, your name was still “Sunshine” no
matter how many people asked when looking at your name tag, and the list
continued. I went from volunteer to employee where longer hours brought more
responsibilities.
I
often ask myself if I it was worth learning that the kid on computer nine was
watching porn or that John, a regular visitor, had once drunk Kool-Aid with two
packages worth of cough drops melted inside it. I think about these
public-environment lessons, which are really just part of any life lessons, and
I say to myself “sure, why not,” because it keeps life interesting. It keeps it
moving forward.
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