Thread by @PDXJenni, So, now that I've screamed into the void enough that The Void [...]

So, now that I've screamed into the void enough that The Void has capped my limit until at least noon, how about a happy thread about a childhood memory, the importance of libraries, and yours truly.

When I was 2.5, in early 1985, my mother told my father she could not stand another Tahoe Winter, and we moved north, to Springfield, OR, where we lived until we moved to my childhood hometown of Cottage Grove.

Every week, my mother (may she rest) and I would walk to the library, the Springfield Public Library (on twitter as @wheremindsgrow, which is apt).

I doubt I could walk that route now, 30+ years later, but I sometimes traverse it in my dreams.

Down the alley, past the Dunkin Donuts (long since gone), past the corner store where, if I found a coin on the sidewalk, Mom would let me buy penny candies (mini tootsie rolls were 3/1¢, big ones 5¢ each). A doll or my bear (Theodora Ann Berry, Teddy for short) under my arm.

Statements that should surprise no one: I was a precocious child. I loved reading. Eventually, we had to bring a Radio Flyer wagon with us, because the tote bag Mom would bring got too full.

No one at @wheremindsgrow ever said I was taking out too many at a time.

At @wheremindsgrow, at the time (I am sure it has changed), there were 2 things I became enamored with:
1. A dollhouse whose family/furniture changed once a month
2. A computer, with games on 5.25" floppy discs

I 100% credit the fine librarians @wheremindsgrow with planting the seeds that became my skills later on. By the time we moved away from Springfield just after my 5th birthday, I was a full-fledged Reader, devouring chapbooks like so many meals.

I doubt that the stairs covered with green indoor/outdoor carpet & the meadow mural are still there @wheremindsgrow, but when I close my eyes, I can see myself and all the other little now-adult Millennial Children, sitting cross-legged & rapt at the Storytime Reader.

Every child deserves a Library Experience. Libraries are incredibly underfunded these days, with some municipalities closing them entirely. But @wheremindsgrow seems to be going strong, if their social media is any indication.

Consider giving to your local Friends of the Library Foundation. Don't donate books, unless there's a specific ask for that, as most libraries can't deal with that sort of influx. Particularly with the expense of e-book licensing, money is the best thing you can do.

If you can't give money, give TIME. Ask what they need volunteers to do - maybe culling shelves, or filing, or processing returns. Maybe putting up fliers in the neighborhood for the next program. You can help make YOUR library as great as @wheremindsgrow was for me.

Once we moved to Cottage Grove, the CGPL became my second home. Throughout my childhood, it was in a tiny brick building smaller than the house I live in now. Google is failing me, but there was a Book Brigade to get the books from the old location to the new one.

The new location is many, many times larger than the old one, and much-upgraded, but in desperate need of funds.

If your local library is well-funded, consider yourself fortunate and also consider donating to the Friends of the Library Foundation https://www.cottagegrove.org/library/page/friends-library

(The Woodard Building was smaller when I was a kid - that 3rd section on the far left was an addition in 2007)

(I still can't find the news article I KNOW exists about the book brigade when the library moved to the community center on Gibbs in 2002)

Latest Threads Unrolled: