Perhaps I never would have developed my love of reading if my mother hadn’t needed a place to park me when she shopped downtown. When I was growing up, one went “downtown” to shop. We deprived people had no shopping centers then, only small neighborhood shops lining a few spots on the highway. For major shopping, “downtown” was it.

As soon as I learned to read (about seven, later than most children, I think; we had no preschool), I discovered that the stories I had imagined for fun (to find adventure, to live out stories my father told me about early Nashville history, etc.) could be found in this place called a library. From that moment on, boredom vanished from my life (except anywhere you weren’t allowed to read.) In short, I became a bookworm.

Fortunately, I also had school and church and two close friends to join with me in the school band, so I wasn’t deprived of a social life, but any time away from friends or prescribed duties, I usually lost myself in a book. TV was only beginning, and anyway, it was dull next to a good novel about fighting villains. And if I wanted to learn about something, the library was there to search.

Everywhere we have lived, I have found the closest library. I introduced my children to them, and they also became readers. I think the public library system, opening free books to everyone in the community is one of our greatest inventions of mankind.