Language Story 1

Language Stories


Reading has always been a passion for me. I loved the bookmobile…it was the only library I could get to. My mom didn’t drive and the closest library was still only accessible by taking public transit and that cost money and we didn’t have much, so I didn’t go. The book mobile on the other had arrived promptly at 4:00 every Thursday afternoon at the Steinburg Plaza…just a few blocks from my house. Oh, how I waited patiently for those Thursday afternoons!

I can still smell the lovely musty scent of the old books that lined the shelves on the big bus that sat in the middle of the plaza parking lot. I remember lining up outside the door and waiting for the driver to open the door so I could climb the four steps that brought me to my haven. I recall the first time, or at least the first time that I remember, that I entered a bookmobile and how in awe I was at the amount of books inside a bus!!! Who would have guessed that that light blue bus that came every Thursday could offer me so much joy?

As I ascended the steps that led to my oasis, I was met by the friendly driver-librarian, who made me feel so important. He, although, at some point I recall the driver-librarian to be a she, was the one who held the key that opened the door to endless possibilities of escaping into worlds that were so different than my own.

One very fond memory I have involves me selecting a book about a little girl my age (about 8 at the time) entitled Mischievous Meg and running all the way home so that I could begin my adventure with this little girl who was so unlike me in behaviour and who I secretly wanted to befriend. She dared to do all the things I didn’t. I envied her mischievous ways, in some odd sort of way. She lived the life that sometimes I wish I had the courage to experience. But, she afforded me the experience without getting into trouble and that was safe… and that was good for me.

The bookmobile was my escape…my haven…the place where fantasy became reality and I was free of the limitations that existed in the world in which I really lived.
Thanks Mr./Mrs. Driver-Librarian…thanks for doing your job and letting me experience a world that I may never have been able to enter if it weren’t for the bookmobile!