Some of the fondest memories of my childhood came in a library.
I always thought it was an old Carnegie Library, one of the 2,509 built in the U.S. with grants from the richest man in the world. It turns out Crestline, Ohio, wasn’t on the list, but the library there — whoever built it — was one of the most wonderful places in the world to me.
Whenever I was visiting my grandparents in the summer, I would walk to the library, check out five or six books on my mother’s old card and take them home to read them. It usually took me two or three days and then I was back for more.
I loved reading so much, probably more than anything in the world, and I enjoy it as much at 73 as I did at 9. Think about that for a minute. How many things other than eating and sleeping have you enjoyed for your entire life?
For me? Reading and baseball.
I was goofy. I thought all kids loved to read. How else were we supposed to develop our imaginations? How else could we visit any place in the world at any time in history? How else could we imagine ourselves exploring outer space?
The relatively new southern Ohio community in which I spend much of my childhood (1957-63) didn’t yet have a library, but what we had was much better than nothing.
Bookmobiles.
Once every week or two, mostly in the summer, a vehicle about the size of a city bus would come to our neighborhood from the Dayton Public Library and park. Kids would get on, pick out books, check them out and leave.
I was sure every kid worth his salt would love eating.
Turns out I was wrong. Plenty of kids didn’t enjoy it at all, and like me, they grew up and became adults. We live in a country where roughly two of every three adults don’t read for pleasure, a country were 40 percent or more are functionally illiterate.
About 15 years ago, Ohio started having big problems. The governor cut the budget for state libraries by 30 percent. Shorter hours, fewer days open, fewer people working there.
It was all pretty stupid and short-sighted. We went through it in Los Angeles County as well. Since so few people read anymore, libraries are a luxury. Besides, folks who enjoy reading can usually buy their own books.
But what about the kids who haven’t discovered the joy of reading yet? If they’re to find it, it’s probably going to be in a library — if it’s open.
I would imagine if you asked Ohio voters — or voters in a lot of states — where the budget cuts should have come, they probably wouldn’t have chosen libraries. They might have cut raises for prison guards, or asked state employees to pay more on their own health care.
At this rate, the odds are pretty good that we will eventually become a country where very few people read at all, and the majority get their entertainment only from flickering screens, or portable music players plugged into their ears.
There actually was a time before when almost no one read.
They called it the Dark Ages — and it lasted five hundred years.