Memories of a First Library Card

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. One of the loveliest threads I’ve ever read on Twitter was started by New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb, and he asked, tell me about your first library card. And Grant, I read those words, and wow, that instantly sent me back in time. My first library card was made out of stiff white cardstock, and it was folded over, and it had the insignia of the Louisville Free Public Library on one side, and inside it had my very own name. And more than anything, more than the card, what it got me thinking about was my weekly trips with my mom and my little brother Jim all the way downtown to the main library branch. And this was this stately edifice in the middle of Louisville. It had smooth marble floors and soaring arches and painted frescoes way up high. It was about as ornate as you would expect a building from 1906 to be, you know, that gem, that crown jewel of the city. And when you went in, there was just something different about that building, a different smell, different sounds echoed through the building. The floors were really shiny and worn smooth. And then off to the left was the children’s library. And when I think about that, I always think about the physical weight of the books in my arms, because every week we would check out the maximum number of books, which I think was 20 per child, of course.

You know, and so you’d grab them all. And what I remember so specifically is trying to get my arms all the way around them to carry them to the car. And sometimes it was really, really hard. But I think back to that now, and I think, you know, I was trying to get my arms around so much more. It wasn’t the physical books. It was the content within.

Yes, yes. Do you remember a first library card?

I don’t think I ever had library cards, but boy, I remember every library with clarity. I remember the middle school library where I checked out the Tolkien books again and again and then poured over the maps in the back that he had drawn with his own hand. I remember the bookmobile that pulled up to the second grade library. I remember checking out every single one of the Wizard of Oz books. It was not just the one that the movie was made from, but it was the other 11, all of those books. I remember the one that was just down the street in high school where I worked my way down shelf after shelf after shelf, just started at one end and checked everything out all the way to the other end. And then went to the shelf below and worked back the other direction just because I could. And again, just like you, I checked out maximum number of books and they would never let me go past it. That’s where I learned mythology and ghost stories. And that’s where I learned about how cars work on the inside. And that’s where I learned about the Panama Canal and Teddy Roosevelt and sequoia trees. And that’s where I learned about the herbs you can eat and different things like that.

Yeah, and we’re so lucky that we had those opportunities and they created a lifelong habit. One of the things that I really liked about that Twitter thread was that all these people were chiming in with similar memories. And then people started saying, you know what, I just made a donation to my local library, the one where I grew up. And I thought that was a really great idea.

Martha and I would love to hear your memories of your first library card or your first library. Tell us an email, words@waywordradio.org. Tell us on Twitter @wayword. Or tell us on the phone, toll free in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673.