April 30, 2016.2
At the Indianapolis Public Library for the afternoon. The capitol city of Indiana is one of our favorite cities. A great sports town (NCAA tournaments, Big Ten Championships, and Pro Teams), it has an active downtown, numerous good restaurants, and walkable downtown. Today, we took our niece to study at the main branch of their library, and decided to stay to write, read, and browse.
We came to the Hoosier state yesterday to see our great niece and great nephew have major roles in their school’s production of Anything Goes, an old Broadway musical. Both of the teens have considerable talent, and displayed it with their performances last night. What makes the visits so special, is that the kids and their mom are positive and pleasant people who are a joy to be around.
Late April, Indianapolis is a couple weeks ahead of Lansing in the blossoming of spring. Sitting on the second floor, we have an overview of green lawns and trees, bustling streets, and skyscrapers only blocks away. In the middle of the city surrounded by books, learning, and Saturday’s families, we have found a quiet spot to observe and bask in the warmth of knowledge.
I’ve always liked libraries. With little reading material in the farmhouse, the set of encyclopedias more than doubled the family stockpile of books. What came before the nineteen-fifty-seven World Books consisted of my father’s old eighth grade textbooks, an ancient dictionary, and the family Bible.
The small one-room library at Trinity Lutheran thrilled me, once I learned to read (only in 1st grade, but I picked it up with ease). A few years later, from hearing someone at school, I learned about the Bay City Sage Library, and after some youthful cajoling, got my mother to drop me off their while she shopped. Three stories of books, magazines, and newspapers! I understood what heaven might be like.
Reading proved to be the best way to discover the world. With my parents mired in old ways (their church did not allow women to vote in church elections until 1957) my life without reading materials would have been limited to church, school, and euchre. Television, certainly, brought an element of the outside world. During the early years, limited choices and a father’s control of what we watched kept the walls high and the exploration limited.
Novels didn’t have those shortcomings. I read (devoured) The Three Musketeers, Black Beauty, Kidnapped, Grimm’s Fairy Tales (at least the junior editions), and more. By seventh grade I read adult works by Lloyd C. Douglas, Thomas B. Costain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Samuel Sheelabarger, and Alexander Dumas among others. My imagination soared, and I even started writing my own fiction. Characters created in my head became part of my circle. (A fellow writer has a tee-shirt emblazoned with a saying appropriate for me, then and now. “Some of my best friends are fictional.)
In high school I discovered The Lord of the Rings trilogy and fell even more in love with story-telling. Frodo and Sam, Bilbo and the rest lived inside of me. Even rereading the books in my fifties, and again in my sixties, I thrilled at the adventures and the challenges the intrepid hobbits and friends faced. The creativity of the tale amazed me, as the author wove life lessons into the saga.
I also worked through War and Peace, after failing to be able to finish it in eighth grade (the complexity of the story and the multitude of characters overwhelmed me). Tolstoi stood as a virtuoso, deserving a spot on the Mount Rushmore of writers.
The love affair with reading has continued. One college instructor described Fitzgerald as brilliant, Hemingway as a genius, and Faulkner as god. Their books lifted me, taught me, and changed me. Over the last few years John Irving, Wally Lamb, Jane Smiley, Margaret Attwood and Scott Turow have taken turns as my favorites. I don’t know if I have one now, there are so many I need to explore.
We live in transitional times. Over the last years, bookstores, video stores, and other traditional places have decreased or all but died. Libraries exist that have no physical books in them! I am getting old.
But the idea behind libraries will only cease when we end these beings called human. It is in our DNA to seek knowledge, to explore, to discover. In whatever way one carries on the quest for understanding, it is vital that we continue to absorb ideas and knowledge. Life is about learning, and growth, and becoming the best we can be. Let us all move forward into the wonderful worlds of tomorrows yet unknown.