Library Day
Once a week during reading class at Washington Grade School, our teacher would take us across the street to the Oglesby Public Library. The library was on the second floor of City Hall, above the police station—a small Midwestern arrangement that somehow made perfect sense. Justice downstairs. Imagination upstairs. We would file out the side doors of the school, the ones facing east, and walk across the street in a loose line of children. I can still see it clearly: the sidewalk warm under the sun, the traffic passing slowly, our teacher reminding us—already—to be quiet. Inside the building, we climbed a narrow wooden staircase that creaked beneath our shoes. And then the door would open. The first thing that greeted you was the smell. Anyone who grew up around libraries knows it. That deep, sweet fragrance of old paper and binding glue, leather covers, or thick cardboard covers. It was the smell of time itself. Books that had been opened and rea...
