Library

 

   C and I have decided that we want and need to reduce the amount of time that we spend staring at screens both phone and computer. Both of us tend to spend time staring at our phones when we have nothing us to do or are trying to relax. Since both us us spent the majority of our lives pre cell phone, we thought about what we did before we had phones.

   One of the things that I did was read books. It was not unusual for me to have a stack of four to five books that I would read a week. I loved going to the local library and looking through the books, picking out ones that looked interesting to me. 

   A few years ago I discovered that the local library system has an online catalog. I can find books and reserve them. If they are at another library, they can be sent to my library. I pick them up and bring them home to read. This works pretty well if I have a specific book or a specific author. It doesn't work as well if I'm not sure what I want to read.

   That's why it's good to wander the stacks. Sometimes you will see things that look interesting. There's books by all kinds of people on all kinds of subjects. It's a good place to find  authors you've never read before.

   When I was younger I went to the library almost every week. There were summer reading programs for children where you could earn a small prize by reading a certain number of books. I can't remember what any of the prizes were, but I do remember going in and writing the names of the books I read and stamping my card with a special stamp. 

   I live down the street from a library now. It's one of the things I like best about our neighborhood. I honestly thought I'd spend a lot of time there, but I haven't.

   Now is a good time to change all that. Time to rediscover my love of libraries.