A magic place

By Craig Wells

I was stirred by Joe Sullivan's recent column: "A big world in small type." I too found new paths through the doors of a public library.

My first books were those my grandmother would read while my brother and I sat on her lap, books that we had picked out at the library. My grandmother taught all her grandchildren bout the power and possibilities that a love for books can bring to life.

The library was a magic place from the towering grandfather clock, with its rotating sun and moon, to the stacks where a young explorer could find mind-filling treasures. These books had the power to open new worlds, take me places I might never see, as through the doors of the heart and mind.

When I was older, I would spend Saturdays at the library, taking a sack lunch with me that I could eat on the front steps between two massive columns supporting the name "Carnegie" above them. I know many would think it rather nerdy, but for a kid in a small town it was even better than watching people at the train station and wondering where they were going.

Not limited by the number of pixels or channels of sound, the library showed me ways to experience without boundaries. Things such as feeling the limitations placed on those in parts of society that I could never walk.

There is something democratic about our public library. It is a guardian by the public and for the public that safeguards our very way of life in this country, a tonic against evils that would diminish our republic. Among the keys of freedom and opportunity is one to the door of learning. Our public library may be that key.

The library also preserves the printed word. In a time where we must emote for the sake of rapid response, where will written communication fit? Where will the true art of conversation be recorded? Will the appreciation for a well-crafted phrase or the impact of a masterful first line be electrolyzed? Surely, not if we preserve our library.

Courtrooms and churches, as with libraries, are a few of the places where silence is expected as a sign of respect for the hallowed power that is present: the power of books.

I attempt to spark in my own sons the love of books passed to me from my grandmother. The only gift we give each other on Christmas or birthdays is a book. It must be one that the giver has read and in the front written a note to the receiver about what makes that book special.

I recently gave my youngest son a copy of "Who Walk Alone," a story about a soldier in the Spanish-American War who comes home only to discover he has contracted leprosy. He is separated from his family and banished for life to a leper colony. Through personal courage he goes on to improve the conditions at his colony and to tell the world about the disease (one not unlike AIDS). The copy I gave my son had been signed by the author. At the time he wrote it we would have all feared that any who touched that book would also become lepers. In a way that no e-book can impart, my son understood. The message was made real in a way that only holding a book can convey.

My grandmother has passed away. She often went barefoot in the yard, proud of her Ozark hills heritage. Never having had many worldly possessions of value, one she would have counted was her library card. Pursuing the gift of books, she finally had the chance to go to college and earned her degree after retirement. One of our valued possessions is her list written over many years, from many pens, of the many books she had read from the library. At her funeral my sister read a poem about transcending to a better place, not unlike her shared love of books that transformed the lives of us her grandchildren. Of significance was the book my sister read those words from, one checked out from our library.

We had wonderful news Wednesday morning: The tax for the expansion of the Cape Girardeau Public Library passed. I am proud of Cape Girardeau and this community that is striving to be its best. My grandmother would be proud, as I am, to know that communities still value their fellow citizens enough to ensure that the keys to a future of open possibilities will continue to be available to all who enter a library.

Craig Wells of Cape Girardeau is a financial consultant. He grew up in Joplin, Mo., where the Carnegie library of his youth still stands.