love those books

 Today is "National Library Workers Day" and a great chance to salute library workers everywhere.  I have a long history with libraries, starting with the books on our shelves at home, continuing to the shelves in our classrooms and on to the real libraries.  It was in our elementary school library (a set of shelves in our classroom) that I discovered the existence and joy of multiple books about the same people with the "Little House" series.  I still love to read a series of books about the same characters, but I've only ever visited the graves of Laura's family.  Our small town library was still reigned over by Miss Tremp during my youth.  Talk about type casting.  With the gray hair pulled into a bun and pencil behind the ear, and glasses of course, she was a character from central casting, but very nice and patient with a shy girl who just wanted to browse all the shelves.  She remembered my father as a child coming into the library and 'reading every book in the place.'  In high school we were allowed to volunteer in the library during our study hall period.  I managed to spend at least four or five periods a week in the library.  I did all the usual like shelving books, but I also had plenty of time to browse the shelves.  I'm sure I never would have read "Kristen Lavransdatter" if I hadn't found it on a bottom shelf.  It was something like 800 pages but I like a book that lasts a while.  It was also in the high school library that I discovered "A Town Like Alice" printed under its American title "The Legacy."  It is my all time favorite book.  When I think about it, it's a wonder that I didn't become a librarian.  I suspect it was a deep down knowledge that I loved to read, not shelve books, although I did think it was cool when Miss Tremp would use her little stamp, first rubbed on an ink pad, to stamp the due date on a card that she would slide into the little envelope inside the cover of the book.  Woe be to you if you lost the card or brought the book back late.