Maria and the donkeys. Sharing news of the storm

I’m not much for mulling my death or my legacy, and I don’t expect to have a tombstone – I’m looking to have my ashes trod upon by donkeys and dogs. But I like the notion of a legacy. I hope I am remembered as a good husband and father, as a good friend, and as a story-teller,  a person who confronted fear and chose life. And also as someone who spoke up a bit for libraries, and made the point that they are precious and fragile, and we dare not lose them to the mad and epidemic idea that nothing valuable is worth paying for.

I have  a personal stake in libraries. When I was a hunted and haunted child, I took refuge in the Rochambeau Branch of the Providence Public Library, and a stern but perceptive woman – she had a handkerchief tucked into her blouse and whipped it out like a baton when she needed it – took notice of me and pity on me and connected me to books and writers, quietly  encouraged me to write and read my stories and promised that my books would one day be on her shelves. She kept her word.

I will see them there for the first time next Thursday when I go to Providence to talk about libraries, writing and people and animals. I never got to thank her in person, but perhaps I can acknowledge her next week.

I’m excited about the library tour. It will be cold and a lot of driving. And great fun. How lucky I am to be doing this. What a good cause. And I am getting focused, as I tend to do when time is short. This is the first book tour I have ever planned myself, and boy, does it show. But it’s coming together. Today is the first day in weeks that no librarian has written me to correct a name, time or spelling. Whew. I forgot what they are like.

Libraries are the best of us, and shining symbols of the American experience. Everyone is welcome in libraries, everyone can get help for free there. Libraries are the original idea centers,  and librarians have offered havens and refuge for the bright and creative outcasts of their communities for generations.  They offer computing, videos, books, help finding jobs, and of course, stories. They are jam-packed, used and vital to our civic souls. When libraries are closed and crippled, where will we go? Twitter?

Librarians, notoriously abused, underpaid, mistreated and unappreciated, are the happiest and most dedicated people I know. They repay often thankless communities with generousity, hard work and commitment. Libraries need us now, more than ever. Somehow, in our curiously twisted time, we seem to accept the notion that they can be whittled down to almost nothing, while banks, carmakers and insurances companies get bailed out and we come up with $800 billion to spend on defense and that isn’t really even controversial. To be sane in a mad time.

I have this fantasy. I hope I see a politician someday who doesn’t just ask what things cost, but asks what kind of people we want to be.

And we would tell him or her that we are the kind of people who love libraries and will not let them die.

___

Loving Libraries, Round One: Sunday, January 23, Pember Library, Granville, N.Y.; Monday, January 24, Cobleskill Community Library, Cobleskill, N.Y; Tuesday, January 25, Scoville Library, Salisbury, Conn.; Wednesday, January 26, Free Library of Northampton (Bucks County, Pa.), Richboro, Pa.; Thursday, January 27, the Rochambeau Branch (Hope Street), Providence Public Library; Friday, January 28, Osterville Library, Osterville, Mass., 2 p.m.; Scituate, Mass. Library, 7 p.m. Saturday, January 29, 2 p.m., Edgartown Library, Martha’s Vineyard.