That is the sort of laxness that has become so precious in modern Amerika. Perhaps it's because Patagonia is a Mayberry for hippies. It could even be osmosis from Mexico, twenty miles to our south.
They kept surprising me. They use an old-fashioned card catalog, made of real wood, and filled with typed, paper cards!
They are quite generous with visitors and allowed me to check out three items at a time. It works on the honor system, since they have no computer to do check-outs. They do it the old-fashioned way: with an ink-stamper and a tag on the inside cover.
By now I was in pure nostalgia mode. As a lad I used to stamp the books for my mother, a substitute librarian. I remember how cool that stamper was, and how carefully you had to bring it down to make a perfect impress.
Every year I save up donations for this library. It's always fun to donate something when it seems to make a difference.
The librarian thought that my so-called shepherd mix, Coffee Girl, was an Australian kelpie. We went back in to the library and verified this with a book and the internet. And all this time I thought she was "just" a pound puppy. She's a blue blood after all.
The first year I spent RVing I saw my first Carnegie library. I wanted to live in it. The public library used to be one of the first things I would check out in a new town. Fairly or unfairly I tended to form a first impression of the town by its library.
Back then I used to frequent the libraries of private colleges, usually connected with the Presbyterian Church. It was a sanctuary for me. Sometimes libraries have huge windows and interesting architecture.
I've run into several flirtatious female librarians, with thick glasses, frumpy clothes, and hair rolled up in a bun. Recently I even saw a female librarian who could get hired as a Las Vegas showgirl. She was not flirtatious.
An RV friend once introduced me to the works of Arnold Toynbee, the historian. I had never read history books like his before. Instead of discussing a country's history chronologically, he would compare a phase in one country with a similar phase in a different country, perhaps centuries apart.
I was stilling working on Toynbee when I drove into Page, AZ, for the first time. The public library there is a beautiful building which faces the Colorado River and the canyon.
I remember reading Toynbee's history while looking out at the sedimentary layers on one side of the river, and then the opposite side. Each layer was one of Toynbee's chapters, but of a far older book.
At other times during my RV travels I have noticed the magical chemistry that can occur between a book and a specific place. But this was the first time I would call that experience an intense aesthetic one.
