Life Stages Reflections

On Monday night I had a unique and exciting dinner. It was with two of my grade school librarians, Ms Baird and Ms Carter. I had been anticipating dinner with them for weeks. I was very excited. I hadn’t seen them in about 37 years.
You see, libraries saved my life. I was the nerdy, small (tiny actually – always the smallest boy in the class) kid who read. I didn’t play sports at all. My social skills were a little off (and probably still are). That meant that playground bullying and beatings were the norm. That’s part of the reason why I ended up in the school library. I was able to volunteer from grade 5 on with Mrs. Channen and that meant every day before and after school and at lunch. I never had a tan! I also learned to love and feel comfortable in libraries from an early age. I knew that the library was the place to go since I had been using the local public library at our old house regularly and felt safe there too. When my family moved I discovered that the library was the only anchor I trusted as a consistently safe place to read and learn. My bike ride to the far off public library branch was a godsend.
In high school I joined the Library Club and finally grew a lot in grade 9/10 (almost a foot in height over 10 months). I was lucky because my high school library was building a new library wing on stilts over the front door which was to open in grade 10 and it would be staffed by 4 school librarians and two secretaries supporting a school with three tracks (tech, general, academic) and almost 3,500 students. You can imagine that this was a very busy library where automation didn’t exist beyond the Selectric. I’ll never forget the day we moved all the books using a single chain of students who passed the books from one wing to another and up the stairs and still maintained the order perfectly. A huge library was moved lickety-split. My community also built a huge regional branch of the public library across the street and I spent many evenings there too.
How did we meet again? Well, recently I was at a party given by a friend (and great librarian) to celebrate his first ten years in Canada. It was a lot of fun and I met someone there with whom I had a conversation. He was 80 years old and had gotten his library degree in the same year of graduation as me, 1980. What a coincidence, I said, we’re both coming up on our 30th anniversaries. I asked him what did you do before that? He had been a professional choreographer. I asked him if I might have seen any of his productions. He mentioned a few and then mentioned that he had done some high school choreography work too. I finally recognized him as Cliff, the choreographer who had done all of our amazing high school extravaganzas (Finian’s Rainbow, King & I, Music Man…). What a small world! I knew that he had been good friends with my favourite school librarians so I asked after them, since I had been unsuccessful at ever finding them. He was still good friends with them and I gave him my card. I heard from Ms Baird, now Campbell, by e-mail the next day. We reconnected and decided to meet for dinner. (My brain was going OMG, OMG OMG. I am a little excitable – little ADHD Stephen still comes out to play occasionally.)
So, on Monday Ms (Baird) Campbell drove down to my neighbourhood and I learned that it was where she grew up. Ms Carter came in from out of town and came with Ms Campbell. My wife was there too (we met in the same high school and she performed in the school band for the musicals. If you watch closely in Saturday Night Live re-runs you can see our school bandleader’s name on the wall at SNL.)
I recognized them right away. They looked the same! They quickly became Nora and Judy.
The time flew. We shared stories. I learned about their lives. We gossiped about other personalities in the school. Nora headed another Toronto high school library for 28 years and her two boys are very well educated. She still works part time in a school library. Judy has retired to her home town. I can’t believe that they were both only in their early twenties when they made such a difference in my life as an awkward teen. They were always there to talk and advise – on homework, life, whatever.
So, if there are any school or public librarians out there working with kids and teens. Just remember that people remember you and what you do – even when they’re 55 and old like me. This was a really big reconnection for me and I’ve been absorbing it all week. Somehow it was easier to find Little Stephen in myself this time and recognize that he made it through. Sometimes Big Stephen needs to remember that the bullying made him stronger and that he chose librarianship because he saw the difference librarians and libraries make in people’s lives – especially his own. There will always be bullies in life and I learned to avoid them at a young age and, when they show up, not to let them deflect you from your path. Some people build up and develop and some people tear people down. I’ve been involved in almost every sector of librarianship in some way and the best librarians are those who build, lift people up, and encourage the heart. There is a huge gulf between critical thinking and criticism. I love what we do and how librarians can practice everywhere and what a huge difference we make to society when we choose to.
My school librarians did that for me and started me on the path.
Thank you:
Nora (Baird) Campbell
Judy Carter
Marilyn Moore
Margaret Tucker
Mrs. Channen
and hundreds of public and academic librarians too.
It takes a village to raise Stephen.
Stephen