Wonderland

     I don't know if they still have Bookmobiles but one may have been my first real contact with the library. It was also the reason for the only time I ever went to the principal's office in elementary school. I was never one to get in trouble at school. I figured out early on about that honey and vinegar thing, and it was more fun to be the teacher's pet anyway.
     The Bookmobile came to our grade school once a month and if you have never been in one you have missed a wonderful capsule of time. It was kind of like an early RV, was probably a bus at one time, but all the seats had been removed and shelves of books added. Only the driver's seat was left. I never figured out how they kept the books from falling out when they went around a corner. I loved it.
     The library lady (I never saw a man in one in spite of the huge vehicle with the equally huge steering wheel) would take her metal stool, set it up with a little table at the foot of the bus steps, ready to check out the books with her rubber date stamp, and open the door to Wonderland. Classes took turns going in and I think there were times for individuals because the aisles were so small. My mom didn't want me to get a regular library card because she was convinced the books would get lost or at the very least be kept out too long and she had heard there were fines involved. But you didn't have to have a regular library card to use the Bookmobile at school.
     I think I was in sixth grade and I had read all the books in the Bookmobile that were classified "Juvenile". I don't know how old you had to be before you got an "Adult" card but grade school age was not it. There were some books in there, though, that I had not read. They were in the "Adult" section. It only made sense that I should start on those.
     I honestly don't know how "Adult" the books were that I wanted. They may have been near pornographic or they may have just been boring grown-up subject matter, but either way, that librarian was not going to let me check them out. And this is where I got myself in trouble: I argued with her.
     It was the fifties. You probably can't even imagine it now, but back then, kids DID NOT argue with adults. I told her that if a book was so unsuitable that it should not be read by kids it should not be read by grown-ups either. I wasn't going to leave till she let me have my books. I didn't win, of course, but I didn't give up easily and somehow the principal wound up dragging me out of there.  You know what? I still believe I was right.
     There was no Bookmobile when school was out, of course, but the public library was within walking distance of our house so that summer I found a way around the system. I went to the library early in the morning, got books I wanted from whatever section I chose, Adult or not, and sat there in their comfy chairs and read all day. No need to check them out. Nobody came to see what I was reading. The summer between sixth grade and Junior High I read all of Ernest Hemingway and all of F. Scott Fitzgerald and some others I can't remember. It was a remarkable time.
     I still find libraries the most magical of places. You can go in a library in California, or Kansas or anywhere and they are pretty much alike in all the ways that matter. They still  have that special book smell, like paste and printing ink and number two pencils. And though the big cabinets with their deep little drawers and thousands of little cards have been replaced by computers and there are racks of videos and audios that were never heard of by the bookmobile lady, there are still comfy chairs and you could stay all day and never be bored.
     I took my kids there when they were little, and my grandchildren too. We went to Story Time and sometimes we lay on the floor in the aisles and read to each other. I let them get their own library cards as soon as they could write their names on the signature line. They loved that there were sections of books just for them. I don't think they ever ran out of  books of their own so that they needed to go into the "Adult" section, but if they had wanted to, I would have gone there and read the books they wanted and maybe gotten them for them if they were suitable for both kids and grown-ups.
     These days you can get online, access the library catalogue, even read a synopsis of the book you're interested in. You request the book, and when it gets to your local library branch a robot of some kinds calls and leaves a message on your answering machine, or sends you an e-mail. If you need to,  you just can run in, grab the book with your name on it, check it out by running a bar code over an automated electronic check-out machine and never speak to a real person if you don't have the time. Or you can get a book on your I-pad or your phone or you can listen to one while you are doing other things.
    For me, I've got to have that book in my hand. I want to feel the binding, turn the pages, keep my place with a rubber band holding down the part that I've read. I want the smell and the experience of touching history or what may become history. I've finally reached an age where if a book is boring I can stop and get another  (I used to think I had to finish it if I started it, but there aren't enough years left for that.) But the books are still the same. They give you knowledge, take you to far away places, comfort you, make you think or let you escape from thinking.
     And  you can go in any library and nobody argues about whether you are allowed to check out any book you want.