I first encountered mobile libraries in the early Fifties and came to love them. Discovered Ray Bradbury in one of them circa `53 and my life was never the same.
I lived close enough to a library in Indianapolis (about 0.3 miles--and right next door to the elementary school I attended) that I don't think I even knew whether Indianapolis had bookmobiles. Spent a lot of time in that Library, though.
Not really a bookmobile, but my great-grandfather would hook up his wagon once a week, pick up library books from his neighbors, drive into town, drop the books off at the town library, and pick up whatever books the neighbors wanted next.
When I was growing up, you had to be ten years old to get a library card and the library was open only two afternoons a week. The library had been open for at least half a century and I was the 1,048th person to have a library card from it. The librarians, Mrs. Ball and Miss Pickles, let me take books not only from the children's section, but also from the adult section. I FELT I HAD ARRIVED!
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That was my first library.
I first encountered mobile libraries in the early Fifties and came to love them. Discovered Ray Bradbury in one of them circa `53 and my life was never the same.
The last one I ever saw was on a military base in Guam back in 1972.
I lived close enough to a library in Indianapolis (about 0.3 miles--and right next door to the elementary school I attended) that I don't think I even knew whether Indianapolis had bookmobiles. Spent a lot of time in that Library, though.
Not really a bookmobile, but my great-grandfather would hook up his wagon once a week, pick up library books from his neighbors, drive into town, drop the books off at the town library, and pick up whatever books the neighbors wanted next.
When I was growing up, you had to be ten years old to get a library card and the library was open only two afternoons a week. The library had been open for at least half a century and I was the 1,048th person to have a library card from it. The librarians, Mrs. Ball and Miss Pickles, let me take books not only from the children's section, but also from the adult section. I FELT I HAD ARRIVED!
I miss the old days.
It won't surprise you to learn that Diane calls my vehicle "The Bookmobile." I always have dozens of books in the backseat.
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