I can’t remember when it was exactly that I fell in love with words. I do remember walking to the library with my sister when I was 9 and she was 11 and coming home with five books each, cradled in our arms and we barely managed to avoid dropping one. It was about a 30-minute walk from the library to our flat.

The library was a marvelous place converted from a mansion on Ashland Boulevard in Chicago, once an area for the wealthy. Now the grand houses had become rooming houses as the monied residents moved to trendier locations.

The library got its name from the original owner. It was called the Chase House Library. The building was four stories, Victorian, ornate, easily 20 rooms or more. They had free art classes and provided the material – easels and newsprint and tubes of tempura paint and brushes. I loved it. They also had Saturday night dances for teens that, when I was older, I did attend, but did not do well, what with being a wall flower. I was small for my age and did not stand out. I finally aged into my own. Whew.

My sister, Tu, and I, would spend at least an hour choosing books. The librarian would meticulously stamp the library card and slip it into a sleeve in on the inside front cover of each book. This process is now handled electronically and the librarian hands the patron a paper slip with the due date. There is a very new library that opened off the island in Cape Coral recently. It has an electronic conveyor belt. The books, with an electronic i.d. on them, are stacked on it and it winds its way past exit points with electronic readers. Then the i.d. is read, the book shifts into that lane on its way to “Fiction” or “History” or whatever. I thought I’d take a lunch, and sit on the bench outside of the glassed-in sorting area and just watch the books drop themselves off. There goes one … Incidentally, this library also has an electronically monitored parking lot with a robot voice that tells you which lot to use, depending on your purpose and destination.

Our Pine Island library, however, is in the woods and is not high tech, although they do have wi fi and one can use their computers for free. It is lovely and has reading areas, and the windows are large and the views are lovely. Very cozy, an old world.

Anyway, I like the feel of a book in my hands and the ability to page back to clarify a detail that troubles me, whereas on the Kindle, you have to do a song-and-dance to get there, and another one to get back to where you were when you started looking and you can find yourself 100 pages away from where you were reading if you just touch it in the wrong place or drop it. The Kindle I had was losing charge too fast. What a bore to take it with you to the doctor’s, for instance, where you sometimes wait more than an hour, and have your Kindle go dead. So Sonja, one of our little lunch group, bought it from me for $30. I would have given it to her but Nadine said to just take her offer so she wouldn’t feel obligated. So I did.

This is a chronicle of another age.

xx, Teal