Books

For two people who have lived here as long as we have, it was high time we got around to going to the local Library and getting our library cards! We've talked about it for years – today, we finally made it.

Even though we have a nice new facility to house the local library, I still have fond memories of the former building. As a kid, I always had a library card. Especially in the summer, I looked forward to our weekly trips to town on Saturday so I could make a trip to the library and check out books.

The only negative about my trips to the library was that they limited me to checking out three books at a time. I would start reading on the trip home (sometimes even sooner, while the folks were doing our grocery shopping) and have one book nearly finished by the time we pulled into the driveway. By Sunday evening, I would have all three books read. It was a long wait for the next Saturday!

I had a few books of my own at home. Mom bought me a few of the Bobbsey Twins books. A friend had a good library of Trixie Belden books that she gladly shared. I also had a couple of books on the Lennon Sisters – from the Lawrence Welk Show.

As I got older, I was able to order paperback books from the Weekly Reader Book Club. I loved when those book orders came in! I can't remember too many of those books now, but I do remember how much use I got out of “101 Elephant Jokes”. Evidently as a child I was easily amused!

At school, we utilized the same library from grade 7 through grade 12. I may not have read every book in that library, but by my senior year I must have been close! I enjoyed the rare times when we would receive a shipment of new books.

I've never lost my love of reading. There was a time, when my kids were little, that I didn't have time for extra things. But it's easy now for me to become lost in a good book. I own several books – an overloaded bookshelf full, actually. I've been a member of a book club for many years. I've sometimes “played the game” and cancelled my membership, only to get a stack of free books for renewing my membership.

I've always had the dream of having a house with walls lined with bookshelves. To me, that's just about perfection! My kids have inherited my love of reading, and the girls and I trade books back and forth. In fact, last month when older daughter and her hubby went on their cruise, she left me one of her library books that she knew I'd love. I enjoyed reading it.

Thanks to hubby's generosity, I now have a tablet with an Amazon Kindle app. And thanks to the further generosity of a college friend, I get daily emails from two sources that have free book downloads. I'm looking forward to getting back to that reading once I'm done with my class. I can also hit the Library then and start catching up on books by some of my favorite authors.

I find the tablet app handy, but I'm “old school” enough that nothing really beats the feel and smell of a real hard copy book. That's a sensation you just can't copy!