that dear, sweet friend...

... just written about, who was persuaded to along for 'Read Across America' day at the elementary school, told me about how much she loved to see the bookmobile come as a kid. She would be at her grandmother's house, and get so excited when the roving library from the county would come down the road. My kind of girl: a book lover from an early age.

I don't recall the process of learning how to read, but I do remember how delighted I was to get old enough to be able to check out books on my own. Without the necessity of a parent there to sign a name on the card from the pocket in the inside back cover.  Now, no one signs anything: it is all done electronically, and you just pass your bar-code under the scanner to immediately access your information. I hope the' thrill' is still there when little people go to check out age-appropriate books sans parent.

Hearing my friend S. tell about the bookmobile come around made me think about my mom. She was the person who at one point in my early years was the bookmobile. We had an old station wagon, so ancient it had the wood panels on the side. She filled up the back with boxes of library books and went out in the county to take reading material to people who rarely got into town, folks who would never make a trip to the county seat for books.

It was a very rural, agricultural county, many residents only getting into the biggest town in the county on Saturday for supplies. Lots of farming and livestock growing, people who worked from sun up to sun down, then got up the next day and did it over again. Cotton, corn, tobacco, cattle, pigs, chickens, all cash crops growing in the outlying areas. At many intersections, cross-roads out in the county there would be a country store, offering the most basic of saleable items.With a shelf in a corner set up as a lending library. My mom would go to these stores, and swap out boxes of books, visit with the store owner/operator and travel on to the next stop. I was young enough to not be in school, so often taken along with her.

Long before the era of seat belt, so say nothing of booster seats or other child restraints: there I was tumbling around in the back seat digging through the boxes of children's books. Having a feast, there in the 'way back, digging in the boxes, looking at all the illustrations even if I could not read the words. One of my earliest memories of turning pages and the wonderful things to be found between the covers of books.