A GIRL, A BIKE, A LIBRARIAN, AND A MAGICAL SPELL


My two favorite things to do as a youngster were riding my bike and visiting my library.  And the perfect day? Riding my bike to the local library.

          My bike was a worn-out, oversized second-hand Schwinn my grandfather 
refurbished and gave to me on my 8th birthday; and our local library was neither big nor beautiful.  But I simply didn’t care.  And if I promised Mother I was going to the library, I had my freedom—freedom to ride into town all by myself.  Before she could change her mind, I grabbed the books I’d already read and fled out the door, stuffing those books into my bike’s rear saddle bags.
With my library card firmly tucked into my pants pocket, I mounted my Schwinn’s dried and cracked seat then pedaled as hard as I could until I felt bursts of air blowing across my face and shoulders.    I sped down the street, my hair whipping back as I let my feet off the pedals of my bike and flew down the hill at a speed that rivaled a cheetah.  When I reached the point where the street curved, I slammed on the brakes hoping the unevenly worn brake pads would bring me to a stop just as I neared the library’s front entrance.

Nicholson Memorial Library, Garland, Texas
          The Nicholson Memorial Library, an enchanting Depression era brick building, sat humbly at the intersection of Main and State Streets.  I pushed open the heavy swing door and walked across a tiled chessboard floor, pausing to toss a penny in the fountain before climbing the stairs to the main hall where I encountered Miss Mary Talbot, the head librarian.      

Miss Talbot was a decipherer of secret codes, master of index cards, maven of the Dewey Decimal System, and sorceress all wrapped into one tiny human being draped in a lemon-colored shawl who stood behind the circulation desk—a type of portal where she opened doors to the most spellbinding places. I truly believed Miss Talbot was a mind reader or, at the very least, part magician the way she could find whatever I was looking for—many times before I asked. As a small girl I thought Miss Talbot lived in the basement of the library and imagined she stayed up all night reading the new books before cataloging and shelving them.  I truly believed in the mystery, intrigue, and magic of the place.  Okay, yes, I had a wee bit of an imagination that seemed to unfurl the moment I walked through the library doors. 

          What a thrilling experience it was when Miss Talbot issued me my first library card.  “You’re allowed to check out ten books at a time,” she told me rather matter-of-factly. 

          “Then I’ll take ten books home with me,” I said in an elated voice.  I signed the borrower’s card inside each book and eagerly awaited as Miss Talbot stamped the due date next to my signature.     

                    “Return these books by the due date,” she instructed.  “Otherwise, you’ll pay a 5-cent fine for each overdue book.”

                    “Yes, ma’am.” I smiled reassuringly as Miss Talbot handed me my stack of books. I can still feel their weight in my arms as I lugged them downstairs and heaved them into my bike’s saddlebags.  The books I checked out that day and every day hence allowed me to magically travel through time and contact the dead—Anne Frank, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Margery Williams, Frances Burnett, Charlotte Brontë, and oh so many more. 

On chilly winter nights, I accompanied either Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys as they gathered clues and unraveled mysteries.  On soft, promising green spring days Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost taught me about the worthy art of poetry with its expressive emotions, deep feelings, and symbolic language giving me a sense of what is beautiful about the world.  I also cherished those warm, lazy summer afternoons spent in the library escaping from August’s sultry heat and breathing in the stale, sun-warmed dust of a thousand stories.  The library was the perfect place to go whenever I felt unhappy, bewildered, or undecided.  Inside books I found encouragement, comfort, answers, and guidance. 

          A great deal of who I became is based upon my visits to the quiet, unassuming library—lit up during winter darkness and open in the slashing rain allowing a girl like me to experience actual magic.  Each time I ventured inside and opened the cover of a book I wondered what I might find inside.  Where would I go? Whom would I meet?  The stories I read were powerful; they either sent me back in time or forward into the future.  Often, they transported me to other lands and kingdoms where I met ogres and talking rabbits.  Some of my best friends I found between the covers of the books I checked out at the Nicholson Memorial Library using my simple library card. Even now when I enter a library and open a book, I fall under an enchanting spell; but unlike Sleeping Beauty of the original fairy tale, I never want the spell to be broken. 

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