by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
Sitting across from my sister at a recent family gathering was a perfect location for me when her granddaughter climbed up on her lap clutching a "Curious George" book. We looked knowingly at each other as my sister situated little Samantha on her lap and pointed to the book.
"How many times did we tear the house a part to find that book?" she reminisces. "And how many times did we buy that book with all the library fines?" I add.
Growing up in the 1950s and '60s in suburban Toledo, Ohio, had many benefits including a bi-weekly stop by the Lucas County Book Mobile right in front of our house. Mom was one of their best customers, as she not only selected her own armful of mystery and romance novels but also brought her six children on board each time to select our own books. The older kids had official library cards of our own, and Mom accounted for the youngest kids on her card.
The Book Mobile was a bus converted on the inside with book shelves around the sides and back wall. The driver doubled as the librarian; once the bus arrived at a stop, she swiveled her captain's chair around to the service counter behind her. She had one tool: a sharpened pencil with a metal extension date stamper. In one motion she could write your library card number on the book's circulation card and then stamp the due date in the back of the book.
A half hour before the Book Mobile was due, mom started collecting us and all our books. As the oldest child, I was Mom's helper in finding the books taken out by the younger kids. There was generally one kiddie book we had a hard time finding, and often that book was Curious George.
One time Mom was doing laundry in the basement, and as she pulled clothes out of the clothes chute, Curious George fell on her head. It turned out that a little brother was the culprit. He figured that when you were finished with clothes you put them in the clothes chute, so wouldn't you do the same with books when you were finished with them? The family gathering just happened to be at the home of that brother who's happily married with children of his own. He, of course, denied this story.
An insistent, "Read Me, Gamma," burst our nostalgia balloon, so my sister enthusiastically began reading Curious George to Samantha. What a great book with a lifetime of "Read Me."
[Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati Ohio.]