Libraries – Booking Through Thursday
This week’s Booking Through Thursday question is:
Whether you usually read off of your own book pile or from the library shelves NOW, chances are you started off with trips to the library. (There’s no way my parents could otherwise have kept up with my book habit when I was 10.) So … What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?
Rather pathetic story to follow. But it was either answer the question honestly or not at all or completely change the question. I only change the question when I don’t have an answer for the original question, so between answering the question honestly or not at all I chose honestly.
I was about 10 years old…give or take a year. My mom had dropped me off but didn’t realize the library closed at 6pm rather than 9pm. So around 7pm, unable to get ahold of my mom, I was sitting outside of the library sobbing, walking to the stoplight and holding up my arm as if I could will my mom to come get me with determination alone. I was afraid my mom would never come get me, that I’d been abandoned. Finally, somebody pulled over and asked me what was wrong. “I…I…I ddddon’t know where my mmmmom iiiiisss!” *hysterical sobbing* The stranger asked for my phone number and went and called my home (no one had cell phones at this time). My dad came and picked me up, unaware of me waiting and waiting at the library for someone to come get me.
That’s the most that I remember from that night. I guess I didn’t have money to call home.
Other than that, the next memories I have of the library are going there to study, usually with my friend Genet.
Lucky for me I’ll have an opportunity to make new memories when I have my own children.
Am I safe to assume your memories are better than my own?
| Tags: Books, library, memories 30 comments »
August 21st, 2008 at 12:32 am
All mine are good:) I enjoyed your story, though.
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August 21st, 2008 at 12:52 am
Oh innocent times, strangers stopping to help children! Or perhaps not so innocent as they would have given you a lift back rather then make a phone call.
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August 21st, 2008 at 1:19 am
Oh that is scary when you are that little!
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August 21st, 2008 at 2:37 am
This isn’t my first library but here goes:
I was a frequent visitor to the post library when I was a middle schooler. My father was stationed in Germany at the time. When you checked out a book, you had to give the clerk your library card number. I still remember mine: “Seven-seven-eight.” I was in there so much that one evening about the time I was finishing 8th grade, one of the librarians asked me if I wanted to work in the summer program. I didn’t make any money, but I was thrilled and definitely consider it my first job. They got a lot of work out of a very enthusiastic girl after they taught me the Dewey Decimal system, they didn’t have to shelve for the rest of the summer!
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August 21st, 2008 at 3:47 am
All my memories are good ones…glad you recovered from your ordeal ;0)
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August 21st, 2008 at 3:51 am
That was a scary experience! I don’t think I had any bad experience in the libraries but I can remember very well I was lost in the market while waiting for my mom!
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August 21st, 2008 at 4:37 am
Oh, this breaks my heart, because I have so many wonderful memories of the library. And, yes, you’ll get the chance to make great news ones with your kids…I love, love taking my nieces to storytime!
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August 21st, 2008 at 4:46 am
That sounds scary!
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August 21st, 2008 at 4:55 am
Oh, how awful! And to have it be the library of all places. Your story reminds me of a book my daughter read last year, called Help, I’m a Prisoner in the Library, about kids who get stuck in the library overnight. Yikes!
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:07 am
That was too bad! I almost went off tyo sleep once in a corner!
http://readingandmorereading.blogspot.com/2008/08/booking-through-libraries.html
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:17 am
Oh, how scary for you!
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:37 am
You poor thing. It’s good that you found a helpful stranger.
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:47 am
Nope all my memories were good ones. That sounds scary though.
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:55 am
Yep, my library memories are significantly happier than those, particularly since I got married in a library back in January. See pics in today’s post.
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:56 am
What a horrific story. I cannot even imagine how scared you were.
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August 21st, 2008 at 6:36 am
Oh, how horrible – poor child!
And you story is the opposite of every book-lover’s dream of being locked IN the library.
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August 21st, 2008 at 7:11 am
Much better than yours but I was always on my own to get to and from the library when I was 10. Of course it was in the 50′s so the world was a different place then.
Nice writing!
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August 21st, 2008 at 8:02 am
That could have put you off libraries for good! I’m so glad the stranger helped you. I used to cycle to the library on my own when I was 10 – as Linda says the world was a different place then.
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August 21st, 2008 at 8:14 am
that is so terrible! I still get the library hours confused. When I was little I would beg my parents to drive me to the library and they never would. I learned the bike route and started going alone. When I was 9 my parents got me a typewriter so that I could make my own stories and not have to make the trip. ya right!
I love taking my kids to the library now, because the never want to leave!
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August 21st, 2008 at 9:31 am
Sorry you had such a bad experience. I hope you enjoy the libraries more now though.
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August 21st, 2008 at 10:10 am
Oh that’s a horrible experience! I can remember that feeling. I hope you can make good library memories in the future.
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August 21st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Aww, I’m so sorry for your experience. At least that was your only bad experience! ^_^
~ Popin
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August 21st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I think I might not have become a reader if that happened to me!
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Aww, that is a bad memory, but I’m glad you can make new memories with your kids.
Here is mine
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August 21st, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I’m sure now you enjoy your library experience, but that haunting patch of memory will always stays with you. I got lost in a shopping mall when I was 4. I didn’t remember much but I probably wasn’t old enough to get freaked out.
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August 21st, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Jeez, Trish, that’s so sad! My hair is standing on end.
I used to have the opposite problem. I would go to the library on my way home from school, two blocks from our apartment, and I’d stay so late that my mom would send my brothers to come get me and drag me home for dinner.
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August 22nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I’m happy to hear you weren’t traumatized for life by this event
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August 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 am
That sounds pretty frightening, for a kid. I’m glad it didn’t put you off reading!
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August 23rd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
What a terrible memory! I am sure you will build many happy memories with your own children when the time comes.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 6:21 am
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