Library Adventure
I have edited the story below first published Sept 28–2021.
I am editing it in light of the recent attacks on library collections and demands to ban books or move them behind the counter.
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I have always been an avid read, so much so that when I was a kid and sent to bed, I’d pull out a flashlight and continue reading under the covers until caught.
People in Muskegon know Hackley Public Library. I have fond memories of the Hackley Public Library in Muskegon, MI. I used to spend hours there. For those that don’t know it, it’s an 1800s era building financed by Charles Hackley, a lumber baron of the era. As you enter the building, one would turn right and go into the main library. The ‘youth’ library was upstairs at the end of a winding staircase.
I am not trying to sound like I am bragging, but my parents had me reading-tested in 5th grade and was told I had an 11th grade reading aptitude. I was almost enrolled in a speed reading class at the local community college until the MCC decided to not allow me to take the class. This was in 1970.
In any event, by fifth grade I had pretty much maxed out my use of the ‘youth’ section of the library. One day I went to the library and as I entered the foyer, I opted to turn right and go into the main library rather than climb the stairs to the kid’s section. I was a bit nervous.
The elderly librarian was standing at the counter as I walked by. In hindsight, it was a bit like Frodo and Sam entering Mordor and having the gargoyle scream as they passed. I thought for sure she was going to stop me and make me go upstairs. But she didn’t and a whole new world of more advanced literature opened up. Intricate science fiction, Henry Miller as I got into high school, philosophy, and yes, Tolkien in junior high.
With the current torch & pitchfork activity among some self-styled “activists” insisting on purging the libraries of whatever doesn’t pass their litmus test, one activist commented that the books weren’t banned, but merely put behind the counter. If parents wanted their kids to read them, they could still check them out. These people are acting like the libraries are making Penthouse available to any patron simply browsing! Jeez, get a grip.
Half the fun for me as I browsed the main library stacks during the next several years was skimming the covers and seeing if a title caught my eye. Books by Heinlein, Vonnegut. Keith Laumer’s Retief series in the sci-fi genre. I read Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, books by Anais Nin. There was On the Road by Jack Kerouac which not a very good book, in my opinion. I tell some people that and they are offended. Kerouc just strikes me as something people think they should like so reading him is trendy. There was, of course, the Tolkien books as well. There was the Alexander Kent Bolitho series about the British naval officer Richard Bolitho spanning the late 1700s through the Napoleonic Wars.
But I did this same browsing when I was using the Kid’s section upstairs and found books like Johnny Reb (which in hindsight plays into the Lost Cause mythology), the Irish Setter trilogy by Jim Kjelgaard. And many more. If books are removed, that “catch one’s eye” element is now gone.
I ended up reading the Bolitho books and Irish setter trilogy to my son when he was a child.
As to my reading choices, I only rarely read fiction now. I mostly read non-fiction, but the right fiction will catch my eye. I read Game of Thrones first five books on my mobile device while living in Shenzhen China in 2015- kind of like an adult Lord of the Rings for me at that point and quite fun! Last year I read “ The Secret Guests “ — a sort of light thriller in which, fictionally, the British Royal Family send princesses Elizabeth and Margaret to a country estate in Ireland to avoid the German bombing and the IRA catch a wiff and plot to kidnap them. I didn’t see the ending coming, which I really like- when it isn’t predictable.
Anyway- Hoping YOU enjoy reading as much as I do.
Originally published at http://dennisbmurphy.blogspot.com.
