It doesn't seem so bitter cold this morning. Not warm by any means but the cold north wind seems to have settled down some. "I" is outside. I am holding my breath she doesn't see or hear anything that will set her off. We have had her since she was five weeks old. I wonder sometimes if she might have picked up that constant yapping from Steve and I. Each of us never shuts up.
Our library now sits at fourth and main, it covers a city block. The Connor hotel use to be there. Grand and majestic. Drawing people from everywhere back in its heyday. A large ballroom on the top floor. I never got to see it but when I was young had dreams of someday dancing at the Connor. The ball room was on the 9th floor and there was 400 rooms in the hotel. I looked in the front door once when I was a kid and the magnificent stairway was what caught me up in a fantasy of dancing down it. It was Italian marble, so beautiful. They say the floor of the ballroom was the same. The hotel closed in 1969 and it was in the seventies when they were preparing to take her down, she crumbled on her own. A grand old lady who decided she would exit at her own choosing. The city built a Library on that corner and it stands there today.
The old library building is still at Ninth and Wall. Like the Frisco building, I always wanted to buy it and live in it. I loved to go inside. Beautiful architect, the shelves of books from floor to ceiling. I was so in awe when I was there..
Mom took us faithfully every week. She always read to us at night from those thin volumes of information that took us riding through time, opening doors in our minds. She placed in each of us the great love of reading that lives still after all these years. The books I remember the most was "The Mother West Wind stories." The series was placed in a forest and was full of many characters. There was of course Mother West Wind herself, always accompanied by the Merry little Breezes. Sammy the blue jay, a rabbit named Peter. There was also many, many others who all intertwined in the books.
I remember sitting very still and listening as Mother read those books, painting those pictures with words. At five I thought the breezes that tickled at my face must surely be the Merry breezes from the books. And I from a very young age wanted to read. The key to everything was between the covers of those books I thought. And I wanted to be able to open the books myself and find the treasure.
The old library had a upstairs, the adult department. A floor over that was a glass floor. Yes indeed, a thick glass floor. On field trips from school we would go upstairs to see, everyone walking so gingerly as if we might fall through. Down on the bottom was the children's library. You could go in from the side entrance, without having to go upstairs.
I as a child was never happy in the downstairs. Mom would take us when I was very small upstairs with her after she helped choose our books. I was always excited going up the stairs, anticipation racing in my heart at the thought of seeing all those books. I remember the downstairs now and wish I could slip back in time, sit on one of those Little wooden chairs. Watching the lady slide the drawers of one of the wooden cabinets that held the cards with all the names on them. When you went to check out a book, they pulled out the drawer that held your name. Beautiful wooden cabinets, golden wood, polished and shiny. My daughter has two of those very cabinets in her house. Her husband bought them for her from the library. I wonder if they were the ones that housed my name. I never covet other people's items but I have always coveted those. I feel my youth is somehow intertwined in the wood.
I would not have the love of reading that I have if it had not been for my mother. She opened the door to our minds with those Mother West Wind books. If you are a reader you can fly, climb a mountain and never leave your chair. When I was child going to the library every week was a very big deal. How many parents today faithfully take their children there? Do you know there is still story hours at the library for small children. I doubt if Mother West wind lies on the shelves. But there are others. I see the little children with their expensive toys and want to take them away and place a book into their hand. I want to whisper in their ears. "Here is your key to the world, you can do anything between these magical pages." "Thanks Mom, for taking the time."
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