Oh, the place for you and the place for me is the local public library
They have books and things they lend for free,
it's the latest, it's the greatest, it's the library
That’s a shortened version of a song promoting local libraries in the 60s. It’s the song I’ve taught my three-year-old granddaughter, Lucy Lola, and I hear her sing it as we drive to our library here in Vermont.
My first paid job was in a library, working as a Page in the Glen Oaks branch of the Queens Public Library System. I was fifteen and worked primarily in the children’s room. Reading and books were always part of my life growing up. I didn’t play sports as I retained a large rotund and overly ample shape. I was more inclined to watch public television than baseball; I didn’t have a large social circle.
Librarians became my first exposure to the world beyond my parents and the parochial high school I reluctantly attended. The Children’s Room librarian was a wonderful woman named Mrs. Nickerson, and before pursuing this field, she had been a reporter for a Midwest paper. She had a deep raspy, smoker voice and was wildly intelligent, direct, and funny. Besides shelving books, I listened to her stories about her life in newspapers, which seemed glamorous and straight out of Ben Hecht’s Front Page.
I was a fast study on shelving books in the obscure Dewy Decimal classification system and got to know the collection quickly. To this day, I know that “973” is the section for History of North America – United States, and I can find my way quickly around most new libraries I visit. As I wheeled around a loaded book cart, kids would ask for help finding books, and I gladly assisted. Librarians, besides Mrs. Nickerson, were upset with me, thinking they should handle those requests, not that tubby page with no credentials. I persisted and had a following among the little kids. Just before closing in the evening, another page and I would throw books to shelve across the room to each other, getting adept at frisbee-like tosses. It was fun and saved a lot of walking. We only did this when no kids were around, so there were no injuries to report.
I loved that library and its staff, and I grew up there. When I was seventeen, I lost a lot of weight, got in shape, and dating was suddenly on my radar. The parochial high school I attended was an all-boys school, so other than asking out the hair-netted cafeteria ladies, I didn’t have a lot of options. A very nice young lady worked as a page on the library's main floor. She had noticed my physical, if not mental, transformation and agreed to go on my first date. She was generous and tolerated my awkwardness, but it was only one “mercy” date.
In the following year, as my sophistication and charm developed (ahem!), a new clerk named Carol joined the library, and we hit it off and began a close friendship. I was over the moon with her, but it wasn’t to be, as she was Jewish and I was Catholic. Her aged grandma, her bubbe, would smile at me as I would pick Carol up for a date and say, “Such a nice boy. If only….” I knew what filled in those blanks.
In my final days at the Glen Oaks branch, I tried what, in retrospect, was a nervy and bizarre exercise. Mrs. Nickerson and I had years of friendship by this time, and we both loved talking and exchanging jokes. We were discussing my family, and I revealed that we had relatives in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in southern Africa. They were in the pine tree growing business. In fact, a cousin from there, Jared, was staying with us and offered to sub for me someday at the library.
The following Tuesday, I combed my hair differently, changed my glasses and clothes, and entered the library as my cousin, Jared. I had shared that his family had written a book about their agricultural efforts, and I had put a fake cover on some old book. The title read Pine Tree Growing in Lower Rhodesia. For four hours that day, I spoke in an odd British/Dutch accent and talked about how great my American cousin was. Mrs. Nickerson and the other staff were a great audience and laughed along, and I hugged them all as I left to travel back to the farm in Africa. It was intense schtick (to understand this, see my prior post Schtick).
Mrs. Nickerson stayed in touch during my college years, and I worked for her again on a Bookmobile that brought the library and all its resources to underprivileged sections of Queens. When the giant vehicle would park in a housing complex, the generator was turned on to power the lights, and the PA system played the song that started this post…The Place for You and the Place for Me on a continuous loop. How can I ever forget it?
By the way, you can find Astronomy in the “520” section.
Great story, Jason. Or is it Jared?
How did our paths not cross? I was in that branch all the time. So much time lost.