Evidently, inanimate objects may not celebrate 20 years the same way the rest of us do. At the twentieth anniversary celebration of the opening of the Oak Grove Public Library, my library card gave up the ghost.
When we moved to Oak Grove, on the outskirts of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in the summer of 2001, the nearest public libraries were twenty and twenty-two minutes away on a good day with no traffic. But there were rumors that a closer one was coming, and we began our watch. Through 2003, we saw the walls going up, the roof rising, and the big welcoming double doors being hung – eight minutes from my front door to theirs!
If you know me at all, you have already guessed that I was early in line for a library card, membership in Friends of the Oak Grove Public Library, and a heavy stack of books ranging from picture books to my favorite adult mysteries and historical fiction.
This month we celebrated twenty years for the library, and I recalled significant memories, in no particular order:
· Early frustration reported to the Friends meeting about difficulty with numerous delays in getting the sign finished to go over the front door and giving an easy solution to the problem by volunteering my husband who would do a fine sign in a prompt manner
· Volunteering in the summer reading program
· Working at used book sales to fund programs at the library
· Somebody finding a copy of A Snowy Day in Japanese in one of those sales and saving it for me
· A classics book club with interesting discussions of old beloved books
· Weekly visits with a grandson who spent afternoons with me after his morning preschool program
· Sharing the joy and signing the library’s copy of my book, Becoming Ezra Jack Keats
For twenty years, my library card hung from my keychain. I wish I had kept track of how many books it had checked out. You can tell from the picture that it wore out instead of rusting out. Who knew it would turn up its toes and die at the 20th anniversary celebration?
You can also see my new library cards, one for my keychain and one for my billfold. The thought comes that this is twice as many ways to check out a book, so does this indicate that I am now entitled to check out twice as many books?
In any case, here’s wishing the Oak Grove Public Library a happy 20th anniversary with wishes for many more to come!