Library Days
The happiest days of my childhood, those I couldn't spend wandering the woods, were spent in a library. The small town library in Randolph , NY, was started as a private library more than 100 years ago, and was chartered as a public library in 1918. That's where I encountered Rachel Carson on the shelves of Natural History, and where I read biography and history and poetry - but fiction was reserved downstairs for Adults Only. Luckily, my mother would venture into the basement to keep me stocked with novels. My elementary school library was presided over by the estimable Mrs. Bohall, who made me a library aide. I enjoyed shelving books using the Dewey Decimal System, and still have the book ( Ocelot ) that I received as a gift at the end of the school year. The high school library led me to encounters with The Once and Future King, Uhuru, On the Beach , and The Lord of the Rings , while the J ames Prendergast Library in Jamestown offered opera recordings (and The Who)