Library

Although, for the most part, I was a good kid in school, I did get my share of detentions. Sometimes the teacher who gave you detention was not going to be able to stay after school to preside over it, so they would have you serve your detention in the school library and let the librarian act as your "jailer."

Most kids would sleep, or write notes or even sneak out the first time the librarian turned her head, but I always felt a little different about it. It was not surprising to find me in the library before school, during the day and sometimes after school anyway, so being "sentenced" to serve detention in one of my favorite places was more of a pleasure than a punishment. How could it be otherwise when you were in a room filled with books, each one waiting to take you to another world, inform you and teach you or entertain you?

Today, the Internet functions as a sort of world-wide library, providing access to much more than my school libraries ever did. I use it extensively. But there is still something about walking into a library that, don't laugh now, causes a tingle inside me, just like it did the very first time I entered one and saw the possibilities before me.



An unending room full of books containing entertainment and information would be, if I believed in such a thing, heaven to me.

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