Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Shut Up!! (...please)

Words like "refuge", "sanctuary" and "oasis" come to mind.

A place to go to be alone with your thoughts; to be surrounded by beauty and grace; to be inspired by genius and talent.

Ahhh......

The library.

But wait!

The library...as I knew it when I was a kid...no longer exists.

Now the library is the politically correct "Community Use Facility."

What this means to the uninitiated is that the abovementioned words no longer apply.

The library is a place to go to "network"; to "meet up"; to "hook up"; TO FOOL AROUND!"

I love the library. I love the books and magazines. I love the DVDs that you can check out. I love the computers.

What I hate is the fact that I can't concentrate because some twit is sitting next to me talking on the cell phone or some idiot is carrying on with a friend about the soaring price of apples at the local farm stand. Or some imbecile is playing with his toddler and is ceratin that all of us think Little Morton is as cute as Daddy thinks...which we DON'T!

I use the library as a place where I can be creative...intellectually. It is a place where I can get information about whatever I need to know. The librarians are helpful and knowledgeable (and sometime offenders in their own right as they sit and gab with one another about nonsense...shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!) The library is wonderful!

What ever happened to the whisper as an acceptable form of polite communication?

People must communicate. I understand that. I do it too. But why at full volume in the middle of what used to be the only public place left on the planet where you could be surrounded by man's creations and man himself (spare me the PC/feminist rant about "he/she"...it's cumbersome and I'm not in the mood...as if you hadn't noticed) and still feel blissful solitude?

Some would argue that I should seek that solitude elsewhere. But why should I? Why can't the library just be the library and the community center just be the community center and the daycare center just be the daycare center and the senior citizen center just be the senior citizen center...?

Please, in the words of the old half-spectacles, hair-in-a-bun, spinster librarian at my childhood library...

"Please...

SHUT THE F--- UP! (ok...I exaggerate...she never said that...I got carried away...I'm sorry......NOT!)

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