March 15, 2020
Joe is wearing a gray unzipped hoodie with a plain white t-shirt underneath. His jeans are well worn, somewhere between blue and white, and they are held up by a wide brown belt doing a so-so job. Surrounded by shelves on either side he moves gingerly down the aisle. After a handful of steps, he turns ninety degrees to his left and cocks his head to the right. After a moment, he reaches slowly to a shelf and pulls an object toward him. He gazes down and slowly turns it over. He opens it and glances up and down and left to right. He gazes as if in prayer. After a moment’s reflection, he places it back on the shelf.
He turns 180 degrees to face the other shelves. He cocks his head and repeats the exercise - pull, gaze down, turn over, open, glances, and pray. This time he tucks the object gently under his arm. With his left hand he hitches up his pants and starts slowly, walking in half-steps, gazing to his left and right. Stopping again, he reaches for the top of an object and pulls it toward him but lets it go. The object falls in place with a very audible clunk. Joe is startled and looks up and down the aisle. He resumes the slow walk until he exits the aisle.
March 16, 2020
Now, the library is closed – the virus. Joe cannot walk the aisles and examine the books. It is temporary – he knows that. But everything is different – they are shutting the sacred places.
In these times – what to do?
Joe knows he can turn inward to himself or look outward to others. He turns outward to be kind and generous. In winter storms, he shovels the sidewalk of a neighbor. This winter, the storm came in the form of a virus – shutting schools, libraries, and offices.
So many things to do.
This spring, Joe will deliver food (and a book) to the front porch of a neighbor, pick up and drop off a prescription for a friend, mend fences with a loved-one, and have a virtual lunch with family.
One hundred and fifty-nine years ago, Abraham Lincoln appealed to "the better angels of our nature.” Joe figures - no better time than now.
How about you? What will you do? Share a story.
Taste the Food – Second Helping
Joe wants you to know the library is not really closed – just the doors are locked. Like him, you can still stroll the aisles - online. Libraries still offer eBooks, eAudiobooks, eMagazines, streaming (music, movies, and TV), and databases (content, online classes, and research).
Oh my! Bring the kids!
What Abraham Lincoln said March 4, 1861 in his 1st Inaugural:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
