Checking Out A Future Husband

What is the most interesting thing you've ever checked out at the public library? 

Rhonda Gibson here and I confess I checked out my husband at the library. He was a senior in high school and I was a sophomore. I spent every afternoon, at our local public library waiting for my mom to get off work. The library was across the street from our high school so it was an easy walk for me. But, not so much for my darling future husband. He'd had a knee operation earlier and because of the cast on his leg wasn't allowed to drive. Lucky me, he decided to start spending his afternoons at the library too while he waited for his mother to get off work. See? We already had something in common, waiting for mothers.

I noticed him the first day he walked in. But, I wasn't visible to him. I'd sit with my friend and admire him across the room. To me he was soooo cute! His light blue eyes were the prettiest I'd ever seen, but they didn't look in my direction. Sigh.

One day, my friend dared me to say hello to him. Even back then, I didn't have a shy bone in my body. He was holding a very large, 1980's, calculator in his hand. In my rush to "meet" him, I asked him if I could play with "his thing" meaning his calculator. It was a match made in embarrassment for both of us.

He overlooked my awkwardness with words and we started dating that summer after school. Two years later, we married on May 27th, 1983.

James Gibson was my hero back then and he's still my hero today.

What's the most interesting thing you've checked out at the library?

Until next time, Rhonda

A Tribute to the Libraries of My Life

I know National Library Week isn’t until next month. But I recently received my author copies of my May Love Inspired, Winning the Teacher’s Heart, and that made me think of libraries. I generally donate a large print copy of my books to my local library.

Libraries have played a large part in my lifelong love of reading.  I struggled with reading in first and grades. Since I had a September birthday, I was one of the youngest kids in my class, and I had trouble sounding out the words. The summer after second grade, when my next youngest brother was big enough to make the walk, my mom put my youngest brother in the stroller and took my three brothers and me to the LaSalle Public Library in Niagara Falls every week to get our own books. That fall, a couple of weeks into third grade, I moved from the lowest reading group, not to the middle group, but right to the top one.

My next library was the Stephens Memorial Library in Attica, NY, where we moved the summer before I started sixth grade. At first, it seemed like a come down from the Niagara Falls library. The library was in a house on Main Street. But, it was here that I discovered wonderful books like The Secret Garden, still one of my favorite books. And I did research for my high school papers, with another discovery, inter-library loan. The library “house” was painted white when I used it. The addition with the more library look was added when I was in high school.

The Nassau Free Library in the Village of Nassau, NY, was our first family library. It, too, was in a renovated house. Don’t you love the rendering from the library’s Facebook page? Like, my mother, I took my kids there from the time they were toddlers. And the year my husband went back to college to pick up a drafting certificate and had time home during the day, he gained the distinction of being the only father who regularly attended the daytime weekly story hour.

My current library is the RCS (Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk) Community Library. It recently moved to more spacious quarters in the old American Legion building in town. My big discovery at the RCS library is borrowing eBooks, which sadly means I don’t visit the actual library building as often as I did with my other libraries.

What are the libraries of your life?