WARNING!!! THIS IS A LONG ONE!!!)

The little town where I grew up had its own library.

Sort of.

But it wasn’t a Public Library.

That edifice of communal culture was 6 miles away,

in the next bigger town

and it had inter-library loan where, free of charge,

I could order any book I desired

and if they didn’t have it,

if it was in any other library in the 4 counties adjacent to mine,

after a little wait,

there it would be.

behind the desk of the bigger town library,

waiting for me.

Of course, that bigger town library was 6 miles away.

But 6 miles going and 6 miles returning

was not a tough trek for a motivated 12 year old

on his 3 speed JC Higgins racer,

gifted to me by my Uncle Bill for my 10 birthday.

(My immediate family lived in linen and lace poverty,

but Uncle Bill did not!)

He owned a saloon in Raleigh named THE WET BAR,

I have no idea what that was all about.

Anyway, it was a pleasant- country- road- pedal

and in my memories of those days,

it was always Summer.

The so called library we did have was named

THE BELL, BOOK AND BIBLE STORE,

run by the Seventh-day Adventists who some how

magically appeared in our area in a fit of missionary enthusiasm

2 decades earlier and flowered with the fertilizing help

of coal-porters selling the 10 Volume series of

UNCLE ARTHUR’S BIBLE STORIES,

for children

and the 5 volume CONFLICT OF THE AGES series by Ellen G White

for adults

with lots of time on their hands,

followed hard by by a very active sheep stealing evangelist

named Reverend A.D. McDonald.

Of course, the Baptists round about fought valiantly against

Adventist encroachment

but even 10 sheep a year

in our low density population county

created quite a herd.

So, I, being the son of 2 stolen sheep, attended

Saturday, aka Sabbath, services

and, on week days, would periodically meander into the B B nB

aka the ABC, ie: Adventist Book Center,

our towns “library”.

The manager of the BBB-ABC

was Mrs. Pastor A.D. McDonald,

a tight-hair-bunned,

pinched-smiled,

hem-line-just-above-her-ankles

woman

and her daughter, Becky Sue,

whose pre-maturely bulging breasts

could not help but be noticed no matter what

Mrs. Pastor

insisted Becky Sue wear when ever she worked behind the counter

of the BBB-ABC.

Becky Sue was 14, had a lovely smile and worked 5 afternoons a week.

The store was closed on Sabbath,

of course,

and the Blue Laws locked it up on Sunday

but the targets of the BBB-ABC, River-Rock Baptists the lot of them,

were in church and pot-luck till Sunday evening anyway.

So,

I would wander the aisles of the BBB-ABC,

ringing bells and Christmas chimes,

reading the many different versions of the Bibles,

gawking at Becky Sue

and browsing through books like

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PEANUTS

which somehow had slithered onto the shelves

and became a best seller at the BBB-ABC

so was left there by Mrs. Pastor,

although she sold the book to adults only,

apparently ignorant of the danger that it

MIGHT BE READ BY THE CHILDREN OF THOSE ADULTS,

being a comic book an all…,

risking indoctrination by

Lucy’s pragmatic self-centeredness,

Schroders myopic focus on the arts,

Snoopy’s skeptical, nearly Unitarian beliefs,

Charlie Browns forever unanswered questions of faith

and Linus’s perpetually optimistic solutions to all of life’s problems and challenges,

with nothing but a blanket in hand.

Mom bought PEANUTS for me.

She resisted indoctrination.

I did not.

Robert Short’s take on the gospels through the eyes of Peanut Gang

was the 2nd book I got from the BBB-ABC.

The first book was a breast-pocket sized, leather bound book containing

The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles (aka: AA)

which I could slip into my Sabbath’s shirt front pocket

on the outside chance that a wayward bullet from the rifle

of an inebriated deer hunter

would lodge in it rather than my heart,

there by making me a sort of a Desmond Dawes,

(another stolen sheep Adventist)

Hacksaw Ridge hero!

(that never happened, BTW.)

I finished THE GOSPEL OF PEANUTS first,

and learned to doubt.

(Indoctrination and contamination comes easy to a rising 13 year old.)

Then I finished the Gospels and AA and learned to appreciate Jesus

and the loose-knit congregational structure of the earliest

Christian churches…..

(Paul or Peter always having to run to Corinth or Galatia to find out

what the hell was going on over there!)

Then I turned to Paul’s letters, but got hung up.

So, at 13, I turned to the guidance of a now, newly 15 year old Becky Sue,

usually, we’d meet back behind the back of the store book shelves where

books like PRE MARITAL SEX – ABSTINENCE OR SIN

and SELF MANIPULATION -HAIR ON THE HANDS

were hidden.

That erotica and Becky Sue’s tutorials

created a memorable climax to my early adolescent education

and an exciting introduction to the possibilities to come.

It was Becky Sue who whispered to me of the “real Library!”

one town away!

It was there I really began to learn to read critically and

to learn that a little learning was a dangerous thing

so to learn to drink deeply in that spring,

sharing with Rebecca what I was learning and listening closely

to her answers to my questions and taking her suggestions

and those of the head librarian in the real library, one Albert Alexandar,

about what I should read next

via the inter library loan…

South County High School was a local civic duty,

dull, sometimes, stimulating in others.

Rebecca was a Junior and I was a Freshman, but we had learned to enjoy

each others company and now loved the habit of it!

Graduating High School was expected of me.

A free ride to State University was a gift for me,

a free voyage into a new world.

Becky took classes, had an apartment in Collegedale and we,

grew.

A Bachelors degree in Library Science

with a second major in comparative religions

was a natural result of my life’s trajectory.

Marrying Rebecca Susan was the most inevitable and natural thing

I ever did.

My employment as the first and only (so far) head librarian of our small town’s

new! real library !

was a happy opportunity taken like a gift from the gods.

Our membership in the big towns Congregational church was a fortunate escape.

for both of us.

The tinkling bell I hung on my library office door,

my last purchase at the BBB-ABC before they closed up shop

and with the church, folded their tents and left town,

is a constant reminder to me

of how an opened book

can open a mind

and how an opened mind

leads to an enlightened life.

Becky concurs.

As do Billy, Amy, Todd and Abbie.