Bookin' it!

      "What library are you from?"

As I perused the displays at the Michigan Library Association conference in Grand Rapids today, that was the question every vendor asked.  How to answer?
      Should I say the Grandville Library which hosted the kick off party for Full Moon Friday last June or the Sparta Library that welcomed me for a presentation on Laughing for a Living just a couple of weeks ago? Perhaps I should say the Cedar Springs Library or the Traverse City Library which carry my books. Or the Joliet and O'Fallon libraries in Illinois, that also stock my books.
       Or maybe I should say the library at Grandville United Methodist Church. I've been volunteer librarian there since I retired from The Press five years ago.
        Or maybe I should say the Akama Public School library on Epi Island, Vanuatu, South Pacific. Our church raised $900 to stock a new library for that school.
        When I think about it, I've had a lot of libraries in my life. The one at McKendree College where I read Bruce Catton's books on the Civil War for a research paper in high school. The one at Southwest Baptist College where I went to read daily newspapers when the USS Pueblo was taken in North Korea in 1968 and my boyfriend was serving in South Korea. Or the library in Toledo, Ohio, where I read about Cystic Fibrosis after my son was diagnosed in 1979.
        There was the library in Richmond, Va., where my son used to go to reading group and the one in Joliet, Ill., where I checked out old black and white movies to share with him back before we had a VCR. There's the library in Kentwood, Mi.,  where we looked up college information for him.And now the one in Grandville where I stock up on books on CD whenever I take a car trip.
         Libraries are my life.They have kept me informed and entertained. I'd hate to imagine life without libraries.
         What library are you from?