Be Good to Your Mother

Well my dear mother was not very happy with her portrayal as a hippie book addict. If you read the post you will see a comment from my brother confirming my side of the story.
Hi My Name is Phil and I'm a Biblioholic: Hi my name is Phil and I am a Biblioholic.

Something good has come from this though. My mom has finally begun to talk about her problem. She has decided to review the libraries in her life and face the stark reality of her situation. They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step.

Let the healing begin.

The first library I remember was at Douglas Grade School in Springfield, Illinois. The school was named for Stephen A. Douglas and was built around the turn of the 20th century. Its time and place dictated that the bookcases would be of oak and have at least some of the prairie style influence. (This library was a room in the school reportedly designed by Frank LLoyd Wright)

It was a small room and the books were divided not by Dewey but by grade/reading level. There were rows of stiff wooden chairs and we were all lead, single file, from our classroom to the library. It was expected that each student would quickly select a book and spend the remainder of our weekly library period reading. By the end of my eight years, before what Phil calls the torture of middle school was invented, it was increasingly difficult for me to find a book I had not read. I would browse through the books in vain for nearly the entire period, drawing frowns from the teacher but no help.

I have come to believe that the entire library collection was purchased when the building was constructed and never upgraded. This had some interesting results for me.

I learned how to relate to other children by reading the Betsey-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. I grew up on a farm, isolated from other children and supervised by my Grandmother. The house had no central heat and no running water. Given the circumstances, it is not surprising that I did not realize that Maud Hart Lovelace was writing of an earlier time. Her accounts of children who could find playmates next door, lived in a city and could go to the library on there own were wondrous to me. It wasn't until I visited the Minnesota Historical Society on my second honeymoon that I learned that she was from Mankato, Minnesota and that the stories were memories from her childhood.

As the location of the school influenced the library's physical appearance, the name of the school influenced the collection. While I do not remember meeting an actual librarian, the person who chose the books must have had a strong interest in the Civil War. That coupled with the fact that many of the Generals wrote and published their memoirs around the turn of the century resulted in a collection for the older grades that included Grant, Lee and Sherman's memoirs along with Mosby's account of the career of a partisan ranger.

The only other thing I remember from grade school was that the seventh and eighth grade teachers, both men, read the stories of Edgar Allen Poe to us on Friday afternoons. But the library brought a remarkable richness into my life. I've walked the streets of Warrenton, Virginia, seen Mosby's house and his beloved Shenandoah Valley, marveled at Grant's stoicism on the battlefield at Shiloh, and attended a re-enactment of Sherman's funeral in St. Louis. For ten years I worked as a Park Ranger at Abraham Lincoln's home in Springfield, spent quiet winter days volunteering at the Lincoln Tomb and walked the battlefield at Gettysburg alone on a beautiful spring morning. These experiences, and my love of history, I have been able to share and enjoy with my sons.

Today Douglas school is an alternative school. The library was turned into a media center in the 1960's.

Isn't it amazing how books and libraries can shape our lives. I wonder what kind of memories the Internet generation will write about and what will be the influences they remember.

Hi my name is Phil and I am a Biblioholic.

I really had no choice. Yeah I know we all have a choice, but the odds were stacked against me from the beginning. My mother was already addicted when I was born. She's a real mess now. She doesn't just read Lincoln biographies, or three volume series' on the the Civil War anymore, she's gone on to harder stuff, like train spotting, bird watching, and even genealogy. We tried talking to her, getting her to see a doctor, even just to watch a little TV but none of it worked. We finally had an intervention, but she's going to have to hit bottom and start scrap booking before she can get the help she needs.

For me it started with my mom. I remember her taking me on my bike when I was five years old to the local Carnegie franchise. Yeah, "Free Public Library" the first hit is always free. They even had a special room down in the basement for kids. It had it's own full time pusher, reading to you, smiling, and being nice. How is a kid supposed to resist something like that that?

Then came school. They actually started teaching us to read?! What were they thinking? I remember Dick and Jane. Poor Dick and Jane, I wonder if they knew what they were being used for? Where are they now? Some dusty boiler room living out their last days all alone in the dark, or worse yet in a landfill with all rest of humanity's waste?

I can remember wanting to live like Dick and Jane. They were always having a good time, always happy, smiling, holding hands and running together, we never did see them the day after, when they crashed. I don't see Dick and Jane running and jumping anymore. I'm just glad that the authorities finally took this meth problem seriously.

But none of that is an excuse for me. Why do I have library of over 1000 books and a garage full of countless unknown others. Why can't I park my car in the garage like normal people instead of searching through boxes for my next book fix. I should never have picked up that first book, with its brightly colored cover and all those pictures on the pages. That seems so long ago now that I sit here 30 some odd years later, a Librarian.

Just give me a minute.

I need to get this out.

I need to tell the story of how a once happy innocent child who loved to ride his purple bike and once walked to the corner grocery totally naked and was sent home wearing a grocery sack, while his mother read Tolstoy. How I came from that innocent begging to now embody the plague that has spawned the billion dollar publishing industry and clogged our networks with pointless ramblings and blogs.

You've seen how the journey began, but can you follow it to its end?


My name is Phil and I am a biblioholic.