Now, San Antonio is not well known for its great weather. It is very tropical which creates beautiful and lush foliage as well as deadly humidity. It has been known to weather a hurricane or two and the rains are of the monsoon variety — that is to say that when they start they don’t know when to stop. And the city has a definite flooding problem.
But, what I remember most about the weather is how it felt to spend a long rainy day reading library books. The overhang on our house was deep enough so that we could leave the windows open without the rain coming in and those cool gulf breezes were enough to create the perfect atmosphere for finishing a book in a day.
One of my fondest memories was of the last day of school in the 3rd grade, May, 1959. We had our annual class picnic at San Pedro Springs Park, a very old park with a lot of history. My favorite library, aptly named the San Pedro Branch Library, was located in the park, facing San Pedro Avenue, a major street into downtown. We were told we were going to visit the library and, if we had a parent with us, we could obtain our first library card. I was ecstatic.
My mother was with me and I got the coveted card and going to that library, especially during the fall and winter, was my favorite thing to do. I still remember how it looked and how it smelled and I remember the shelf that housed my favorite reads. I also remember how we had to pick up my cousin who was doing homework there during one of the famous flooding downpours — it was dark and a bit treacherous and a little exciting. I digress.
This park was on the outer edge of a significant neighborhood — Monte Vista — or Laurel Heights as it was called back then. The houses were actually mansion-like — very old, very large and very impressive. I used to make up stories about the families who lived in them. The whole area was, and still is, very impressive and I would still like to live there.
Of course, as time went on we started going to school libraries and new branch libraries were built closer to our house and habits changed. I have, however, visited MY library in recent years and, even though they have moved things around I can still remember the corner where I discovered The Good Master by Kate Seredy and all the books I read by Lois Lenski — like Strawberry Girl —I still have a copy of that from MY library that I forgot to take back and ultimately had to purchase.
The poor book has seen better days, it survived being thrown around, read and re-read, a fire, many moves yet here it is standing the test of time. And the best thing is — it came from MY library!
2 comments:
Isn't it wonderful that you discovered the joy of reading back when you were so young. What we love as children stays with us I believe. It's great that "your" library still is in the same building.
When I was very young, before kindergarten, I used to sit with my mom as she read the newspaper and would marvel at her ability! I used to ask her what it felt like to be able to read those words. I can’t remember a time that I didn’t want to read. Fortunately, I lived close to an older cousin who liked to play school and she taught me a lot. My kindergarten teacher taught us to read using the same textbook that we used in the first grade so I went into school already knowing how to read. I always felt blessed to have had access to books and to have the desire to read.
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