"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time... back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." ---- Thomas Wolfe, in You Can't Go Home Again
 
 Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, with 77 "named" communities and dozens more enclaves within those communities. And each has a branch of the Chicago Public Library to enrich the reading lives of its residents.

The names of the branches reflect the communities they serve: Albany Park, Beverly, Edgewater, Gage Park, Logan Square...

The library of my childhood was the South Chicago branch located at 9055 S. Houston Avenue. Then, as now, it served the communities of South Chicago and Calumet Heights. South Chicago was always the grittier of the two neighborhoods, due to its proximity to the massive South Works steel mill operated by the U.S. Steel Corporation. Calumet Heights, bounded by 87th Street on the north, the Skyway on the east, and railroad lines on the west and south along 95th Street, was always a more genteel place where office and city workers rubbed shoulders with steelworkers who had made it out of the blast furnace and ascended to low- and mid-level management positions. Pill Hill, the neighborhood west of Jeffrey Boulevard, originally named for the number of doctors who owned its spacious bi- and tri-levels, was more affluent still.

These communities were initially populated by immigrants and the children of immigrants: Poles, Italians, Irish, Yugoslavians, Mexicans. It was a predominantly Catholic area, with an amazing abundance of parishes that seeming bled into each other... and churches whose soaring spires and domes reminded their parishioners of a power higher than even the industrial gods and their temples of industry that put food on the table and clothes on the back. Saint Michael Archangel, Saints. Peter and Paul, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Patrick's, Immaculate Conception,, Saint Kevin's, Saint Columba, Saint Ailbe, Sacred Heart, Saint Florian's... to run through the names of all the churches was like saying the litany... A few Lutheran enclaves were tucked in between: Immanuel and Bethany, as well as a couple of synagogues: Congregations Kehilath Israel and Agudath Achim Bikur Cholem.

While residents may have worshipped in their own way, in their own places, they all (or presumably a good portion) went to the public library, which was built in 1941. Here was another higher power... the power of information, the power of knowledge, the power of words to transport...

Against the backdrop of the tumultuous times that rocked the nation between 1960 and 1980 and drove tremendous change, the two communities experienced their own upheavals, which resonated in the changing demographics of the area. In the early 1960's African-American and Latino families began to move into the neighborhoods as jobs opened in the mills and in the public sector. (Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, apparently owned a mini-manse in Pill Hill, as well as a car dealership nearby, although I was not aware of this as a child. It seems a little unsettling that a player so associated with that North Side team should reside on the South Side, just a short car trip down the Dan Ryan from beloved Comiskey Park, where the White Sox played.)

By 1980, African-Americans made up more than 50% of the population in South Chicago and 86% of the population in Calumet Heights. The neighborhoods were indelibly altered, but unfortunately still segregated, aided by the unscrupulous real estate practice called "blockbusting" which contributed to the phenomenon known as "white flight." Any 60's dreams of a integrated community of whites, blacks and Latinos living in harmony died quickly.

The South Chicago community was particularly impacted by the decline and ultimate death and closure of the South Works mill in 1992. It has never recovered, although any number of redevelopment schemes have been batted around, including a new airport,  a plan to host the Summer Olympics and new enterprise zones.  None managed to make it off the page of the dreamer's notebooks. Another plan is on the drawing board. Perhaps it will actually come to fruition, although whether it will actually benefit current residents is a big question mark.

Calumet Heights remains a middle class neighborhood of, for the most part, well-kept houses and groomed lawns and gardens, populated by city workers, police officers, firemen, teachers and other professionals.

As I noted in my previous post, I spent many mornings and afternoons at the South Chicago branch, wandering the aisles, often closing my eyes, reaching out and pulling a book off the shelf. Part of reading, a large part is the discovery: of  other people and places, and of one's own self. I was always a little girl who wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, to be someone else, or to find someone who was like me... or who would at least understand me... and the way I got there was through reading... and writing.,

And now, in deciding to write about the incredible power that libraries have in the lives of their patrons, I was drawn to focus first on the libraries I have known and loved. The libraries which have changed my life. And thus I found myself on a recent Saturday morning taking a trip down I-88 to the Eisenhower and then to the Dan Ryan and the Skyway (it's quite the odyssey) to again wander the aisles of the South Chicago branch to see if the magic still existed, both for me and for others.

Yes, it was smaller than I remembered. But then I was a small child when I last passed through its doors. It's a basic, high-ceilinged rectangle with the children's section on one side and the adult section on the other with the circulation desk and offices in the middle. A lower level features a small auditorium and a couple of meeting rooms. The library was completely renovated and rededicated in 1994, and apparently the remodeling made space for banks of computers and audio-visual materials. Many of the rows of shelves for print material were gone. And yet... and yet... the instant I walked in I got the feeling that this was a place of quiet refuge, a place of escape.

Yes, there were printed signs that were jarringly disconcerting... signs that certainly did not exist in my youth and that I don't see in my cushy suburban library environment:  signs posted on the security gates prohibiting gang activity and the wearing of hoodies, a sign on the circulation desk listing all manner of behaviors in which patrons may not engage:

Patrons may not:

EAT, SMOKE or SLEEP,

BATHE, SHAVE or WASH CLOTHES,

or

ENTER THE LIBRARY IF YOU HAVE NEGLECTED YOUR BODILY HYGIENE SO THAT IT GIVES OFFENCE TO AND CONSTITUTES A NUISANCE TO OTHER PATRONS...

or

BLOCK THE AISLES WITH PERSONAL POSSESSIONS...

or

ENGAGE IN ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITY...

I understand the challenge that all public libraries, urban, suburban or rural, face in dealing with the scourge of homelessness that is truly a shame of our nation... I guess I had just never been so plainly face-to-face with it...

And yet... and yet... the friendly welcome of an older gentleman, a staff member who greeted me with a smile and a nod and the calm, soothing green interior of the library drew me in, the stacks beckoning, as they always have to girl who wants to be somewhere else...

Torn between investigating the children's and the adults' sections first, I veered left and headed past the small Young Adult and Spanish language areas into the adult section, pausing just long enough to cast a quizzical eye at the two posters adorning the end caps of the YA shelves. Two teenagers expounded on the joys of reading... two very pale teenagers. Why not faces with skin tones that resemble those of the patrons, I thought? Perhaps a minor quibble... I shook it off and moved on. In two steps I was in the adult section. And with limited space, the nonfiction shelves blend into the fiction without a zone of demarcation. The shelves contained a balanced mix of new material and old. I imagine with the limited shelf spaces the librarians must weed aggressively.

All right, then, it was time to close my eyes...

A steady influx of patrons quietly filled the space, some alighting at the reading tables with their finds, some utilizing the computer stations, others, like me, wandering the aisles, turning the corner into the audio-visual section or pausing at the magazine racks, where the latest issues awaited.

I made my way over the children's area, noting that the security guard was eyeing me and my notebook with less-than-casual speculation. I didn't remember the big fish that hung on the wall. Sure enough, it was installed after the renovation.

The artist, who is known for her work employing found and recycled materials, used tuna fish can tops for the scales and cut tin for the head and fins. Although all the scales are made from the same material, subtle difference in color give the work a shimmer affect that is very similar to the iridescence of actual fish scales.

The library contains other works of art, including this mosaic by Mirtes Zwierzynski:

Emboldened... and knowing that I probably only had a few minutes to spare before the security guard accosted me (for being... what? A stranger in a strange land? For looking at the posted signage a bit too closely? Did she think I was an investigative reporter uncovering the scoop that the air conditioning system was obviously not working?)... I approached a patron and explained I was writing a story about libraries and would she be willing to tell me why she came this morning -- or any other day. What drew her to the library?

"It's a quiet, calm place. Usually cool in the summer. Air must not be working today. I like to read the magazines. I can't afford to buy them. Here, they're free." She gestured to a tween-age boy focusing intently on a computer screen on the other side of the carrel. "And my son likes to use the computers.

And this from another patron, a gentleman seated at a table near one of the portable air conditioning units, immersed in a new crime novel, The Ways of the Dead by Neely Tucker: "Free books. A clean, quiet place to read them. It's close to where I stay. Short walk."

And then the librarian was bearing down on me, with a semi-nervous smile on her face and a hearty "How can I help you?" She seemed to find it hard to believe that this was my childhood haunt... "How long ago was that?" she asked incredulously. When I explained my mission -- to celebrate the wonders of libraries -- she relaxed a bit and when she realized I hadn't been in the library since the renovation, enlightened me to the addition of an elevator.

Taking photographs aroused a similar flurry of questions and admonishments... What organization are you affiliated with? No photographing of patrons... oh, you want to shoot the artwork? That's okay... but no patrons.

I got the sense that these library workers were not accustomed to the notion that someone who is not a regular patron, someone who is an outsider, a stranger, might come to the library to look for things to praise, to celebrate... is this a City of Chicago thing? Are they always looking over their shoulders, worried that the bosses are sending in spies to appraise their work habits and upkeep of the property?

They can certainly rest easy... I can recognize a haven when I see it... in the relaxed faces of their patrons, the ease of the shoulders, the lack of tension along the brow and the jaw, the focus they exhibit... and in the words they use to describe this special place... quiet, calm, clean... free.

A library should be what its patrons need it to be... and the South Chicago branch delivers.

I'm going to tell you about a place, a very special place... so just forget your everyday life, forget your problems and worries, your mortgage, bills and loans, the laundry, the weeds growing in your lawn... and come with me... to the place that takes you... to somewhere else, wherever you want to go... a place called Libraryland.

Michael Gorman wrote eloquently about the mission of libraries in his book, Our Enduring Values. He noted that libraries are "the focal point of a community, ... the place remembered fondly by children when grown, the solace of the lonely and the lost, the place in which all are welcome, and a source of power through knowledge." In my life, libraries have been all those things and more...

I guess it all started when I was three...

I could blame my father, for letting me sit on his knee and read the comics -- what he called "the funnies" -- every morning.

I could blame my mother for buying Funk & Wagnall's encyclopedias and National Geographic magazines and even -- the Horror! -- Reader's Digests!

I could blame my kindergarten teacher, Miss Garfield, for letting me read aloud to the rest of the class. I remember the experience of it to this day. It was my first favorite:

The Little Engine That Could!

You know: "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."

Wow, what a rush! All those little faces focused on me... no, not on me. They were focused on the book I was holding, on the story I was telling... on the words I was reading...

And that's how I got hooked... soon I ran through the stash of books at home and the stuff at school and the Scholastic Book Fair wasn't coming around for another year and I was getting pretty desperate... reading the backs of cereal boxes... the horoscopes, Dear Abby and Ann Landers and EVEN -- yes -- the WANT ADS!

Until my older brother -- you know, it's always those older brothers with their superior knowledge of the mean streets and back alleys who know just the place to go -- well, he turned me on to a place where I could get all the stuff I wanted... for FREE!

Yeah, that's how they sink their claws in and indoctrinate you into the life -- by giving it to you for free...

Christopher Lasch, the American historian, wrote that the family in a "haven in a heartless world." I believe that quote applies to libraries as well. Growing up on the south side of Chicago, where the smell of beached alewives mingled with the sulfur fumes of the coke ovens, I spent hours at this branch of the public library at 9055 South Houston Avenue.

I wandered the aisles, running my fingers over the spines of books. I would close my eyes and stop at random to pull one off the shelf. I'd crack it open, begin to read and I'd slip away to an entirely different world. Reading took me to so many incredible places: to the wide-open, untamed prairies with Laura Ingalls Wilder; to the Island of the Blue Dolphins, to Belmont Park in New York City, where I came racing out of the far turn and down the homestretch with Walter Farley's Black Stallion. Reading took me into the dark, dark places where the original vampire, Dracula, lurked.

I found many a wonderful read with this wandering serendipity... but other times I needed guidance, times when I was looking for... something, anything that would transport me through time and space to anywhere but where I was. Although I didn't yet know the title or the author or even necessarily the subject matter... I just knew I wanted a book that would take me somewhere... and I would turn to a librarian to help me find it.

And when the children's section couldn't satisfy my craving, I started poking around the adult section. A librarian once asked my mom if I could read "those book." (Obviously referring to the ones with the questionable themes and content for one so young -- in other words, the ones with sex scenes.) Mom, ever the enabler and totally misunderstanding the question, informed the woman that I had the reading level of a high school student and was perfectly capable of reading those books.

Reading great literature -- and copious amounts of good literature -- and even reading the literary equivalent of bubblegum -- made me a stronger reader, a critical thinker and it also helped form me as a writer... because when I didn't find the story I wanted to read, I started writing them myself...