The Public Library Branch That Raised Me Still Smells Like Floor Wax

The branch library on the east side of Savannah where I grew up is a one-story brick building with a flat roof and tall windows. From age six to age seventeen I walked there almost every Saturday, first with my mother, then alone. Last spring, for no particular reason, I drove over and went inside for the first time in about forty years.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. Floor wax, old paper, and that warm dusty smell of radiators that have been painted too many times. I stood in the doorway and was eight years old.

What was the same

More than I expected. The children's section is still in the back left corner, under the windows. The low wooden shelves are the same ones, I'm nearly sure, refinished but with the same rounded corners where I used to sit and read on the floor. The big radiator is still under the middle window. I used to sit on the bench in front of it in winter until my legs got too hot.

The card catalog is gone, of course. In its place is a row of computers. But the cabinet that held it is still there against the wall, now used to display local history pamphlets.

What had changed

The patrons. When I was a girl, the library on a Saturday was mostly children and retired people. Last spring, on a Tuesday afternoon, it was full of people using the computers to fill out job applications, print boarding passes, and talk to their doctors on video. A man near the window was taking a citizenship practice test. Two teenage girls were doing homework at the big table where I used to do mine.

It struck me that the library hasn't become less important. It has become more important, just for different reasons. It's one of the only indoor places left where you can sit for hours without buying anything.

The librarian

At the desk was a woman about my age, and when I mentioned I'd grown up coming there, she squinted at me and said, "You're one of the Abernathy girls." She had been a teenage page there in the seventies, shelving books after school. She remembered my mother, who apparently always returned things late and always paid the fines in exact change.

We talked for half an hour. She told me the branch had almost been closed twice to save money, and both times the neighborhood had packed the city council meeting until they changed their minds.

What the library gave me

I think about how much of who I am came from that building. I learned that you could ask a stranger for help and they would be glad to give it. I learned that there were more books than I would ever read, which was frightening at eight and is comforting now. I learned to sit still.

Go back

Before I left I got a new library card. Mine had expired in 1986. I checked out three books and I returned them on time, which would have surprised my mother.

If the library of your childhood is still standing, go back. Sit in the corner. Smell the floor wax. Then get a card, because they need you as much as you once needed them.