~~Library~~ By Marjorie A. Bowley

© 1980 Published Nov. 30, 1981....Seacoast Scene.....I love libraries and spend an unreasonable part of my time in them. I love small towns and have spent much of my life in them also, but when the two are put together, like vinegar and vanilla wafers, the results may sound workable but are in fact somewhat less than satisfactory. For instance, would you like me to tell you about the first time I visited a small town library? Of course you would, otherwise you never would have read this far! This happened years ago, (how many years ago supplied upon request), in a relatively tax-free northern N.E. state, (name of state supplied upon request), in a small town, (forget it…wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me.) But since neither the location, nor the librarian, nor the stock of books has changed a bit, the experience remains fresh. This particular small town library was one half of an old one-room schoolhouse located on the bumpiest dirt road in town. After parking beside the road –or I might have been in it for all I know…it wasn’t plowed –I labored through three snow drifts which would have given Hannibal pause, and stumbled into the unlit vestibule. After wiping my feet on several important bond issues which our selectmen –sterling gentlemen all- had laughingly misplaced some years back, I lurched into the library itself. This was traumatic since the difference between the inside and outside temperatures was roughly one hundred degrees due to the fact that the building was heated by something that looked like one of the boilers on the old Orient Express or the Great God Baal. It occupied one entire quarter of the room, and the librarian’s husband, who must have had tendencies toward arson or a definite death wish, and who should undoubtedly be investigated, kept shoving logs, boxes, papers into it at a wondrous rate. I remember thinking that someday he would lay his great sawdusty hands on some youngster who wasn’t too fleet of foot, and POP! Just like Hansel and Gretel. To continue. Head reeling and adrenaline pumping I plunged into the cultural center of our town. Now I wasn’t foolish enough to expect an Alexandria West, but my word, Uncle Ephraim! To begin with, the library was open one hour a week and the librarian served without pay, which was the only thing that kept her from being thrown out for malfeasance of office. Moreover, the library budget was fifty dollars a year, and was bitterly contested at each Town Meeting. The avante garde, (there’s only one…Smith ’29), argued that this was no where near enough, and was in favor of transferring the entire winter road maintenance appropriation to the library fund. On the other hand, the vast majority of voters, who were so old that they were clearly beyond the help of new ideas and trifocals, maintained that even fifty dollars was too much because everything worth knowing is contained either in a bank book, or the Vital Statistics section of the Town Report. However, I digress. Bravely I edged my way past Stove (and Stovekeeper), and began to search for certain books I wanted. I wasn’t at all surprised not to find Masters and Johnson or The Best of Hustler, strewn about, but the library was a bottomless pit of information, spewing forth nuggets such as Roughing It In Arizona (pub. 1918), Clay Modeling For The Whole Family, and What’s Happening At The U.N., this last embossed with a dripping hammer and sickle, so apparently it’s nothing good. I had no trouble locating complete sections of Harold Robbins and Rosemary Rogers, they were everywhere, breeding precipitously perhaps in the unholy heat. I wondered what miscegenation might produce, and decided it would probably result in slim offspring called rodmckuens. I also quickly spied seven Bibles, (all Protestant, all King James), a 1969 U.N.H. catalogue, and a box of Rdr’s Dgst Cndnsd Bks, interestingly bound in strawberry jam, gravy, fingerprints, and dust. I finally did locate Crime And Punishment (with the mysteries, where else?), but the first seventy pages were missing and I think there were a couple of Steinbecks behind Stove but having left home without my welder’s hood, I passed them by. My attention was drawn to the juvenile section and a snickering group of pre-teens who hurriedly replaced their books and dispersed as I approached. There I found Children Of The Evening, Wifey, and My Secret Garden randomly interspersed with Heidi and Charlotte’s Web. Apparently the librarian, doing the Dewey Decimal System one better, classified the books by glancing briefly at the titles and shoving them in the handiest empty space. The gaggle of young people had fallen upon the periodical table, and while I hated to keep spoiling their fun, I drifted over as they scattered like minnows. Casually I flipped through Living Off The Land. (“Although the spiny toadtongue plant may discourage the city dweller, country folk delight in finding, gathering, cleaning, washing, scraping, peeling, chopping, soaking, boiling, draining, seasoning, and nibbling these tiny morsels”.) I was country folk. Bet me! Curiously I glanced at Bucolic Bulletin, on the cover a farmer and his splendid cow, highest butter-fat producer in New England, he swollen with pride, she swollen with, apparently, butter-fat. A True Confessions Magazine slyly queried, “Is One Enough?” but as I was about to peek inside to find out, the librarian snatched it and jammed it into the knitting bag, switching off the light, a hint I suppose, that the library was about to close. As I stumbled out clutching two-thirds of Crime and Punishment (by Earl Stanley Doestoevsky) and cringing from the hellish glare cast by Stove, I wondered if it had really ever opened. But the whole experience was neatly summed up by one of my good friends whose opinion was, “Forget it, Margie; you read too many a’ them creepy books anyways. That’s how come you’re crazy like you are.” You know, she may be right.

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