The New Sleekness

My athletic career wasn’t so much non-existent as it was non-athletic. I was the Most Improved Player on my softball team for nine years running. I only entered the game when there was no chance of losing, usually right before the slaughter rule was invoked. I didn’t mind. I had team spirit, and, frankly, I played softball for the same reason I play Scrabble: for the sheer fun of it.

I will spare you the stories about dodgeball, tetherball, kickball, anything that involved running, jumping, darting, or, horrors!, aiming at something (I’ll digress to say I was a master of foursquare; this probably doesn’t surprise some people). I resigned myself to my lot in life until one fateful event* changed everything.

The event was a reading contest. The winners would get to attend a booksigning in Santa Barbara. I need to confess here that my mother was my elementary school librarian. Some kids might be embarrassed to have their mother working at their school. I wasn’t. My mom is the coolest and, to this day, way more popular than I will ever be.

I was not only a privileged reader, I was a spoiled reader. All new library books passed through my greedy hands. I was first to read Newbery Award winners. I discovered Katherine Lee Bates. I knew exactly where to go in the library when I was having one of those days. I mastered the art of feigning illness so I could spend entire days in bed reading.

Definitely a most accomplished nine-year old.

Back to the contest. Finally, a sport designed for me. There was no way I could lose. Or so I thought. I mean, who else in my school read like me? I’ll tell you who: a sixth grader named Otis (last name withheld to protect someone who probably never knew I existed or that we were in life or death competition). He was older. He was taller. And he was probably an outstanding athlete.

My first clue that I had a cutthroat competitive instinct came when I saw his name in first place on the standings board in the library.

Needless to say, I kicked it into overdrive. The reading part, I pretty much had down. Softball certainly didn’t get in the way. My mother and I had agreed that it counted as “playing outside” if I left the house and read on the porch. All I had to do was read and fill out a little form, proving I’d absorbed the words. If there’s one thing I will never cheat on, it’s a book report. What’s the point?

It came down to the wire, but I won. But there were other winners. A handful of kids from my school were allowed to spend an entire day — a school day! — at what would become my first literary event, an event that continues to this day. We were tasked with taking library books from author to author, gathering signatures. I’m a bit jaded now, but, wow, talk about awesome responsibility. It was the olden days: we really respected school property.

I am sorry to say I don’t remember all the authors who were there that day. Two stick in my mind: the late, wonderful Leo Politi, who captured Olvera Street in Los Angeles with great love, and the incomparable Ray Bradbury.

Our delegation, the La Mesa Elementary School Wildcats, moved from table to table, proudly brandishing our library books for signature. I don’t think I’m overstating my importance when I say I was pretty much the captain of the all-star reading team.

Fast forward a whole bunch of years. My mom was still an elementary school librarian. Still more popular than me. Still super-cool. Still inspiring kids to love books and reading. And since she was working a school with a largely migrant population, she was trying to introduce their parents to love books, too.

One day, she was engaged in the periodic purging of books that libraries must do. It’s a sad fact of life, sort of like wrinkles. Authors like J.K. Rowling and R.L. Stein and others filled the shelves, and older books — some of which hadn’t been touched in years — were discarded to make room for new titles.

This is not a job for the faint-at-heart. It requires discipline and focus. Complete knowledge of your library collection. A keen eye for wear and tear and more. A librarian cannot afford to be too sentimental.

The way I understand the story, Mom was in the zone. She was focused, a machine. This one stays, this one goes. Oh my, some kid defaced this one. Kids! You can’t trust them to resist scribbling their names on the title page of…

S is for Space. She looked twice as she lined through the scribbles with black Sharpie. She looked thrice as she wielded the “Discard” stamp. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. It’s true. It was that scamp Ray Bradbury, writing his name in books.

He’d signed the book on that most magical day during my ninth year. My mother will never live down the ignominy. Mostly because we, her loving children (natural and by marriage) will never stop telling this story.

Because every time we tease her about Ray and his callous regard for school property, I remember her library. I remember the way I walked from Beverly Cleary to Noel Streatfeild. The roundabout route to the biographies. The weird mathy-sciencey area I probably should not have avoided. The card catalogs. And the librarian.

* Because I didn’t know at the time this would be a pivotal story with future implications, I neglected to note dates and may be smooshing two different events into a single, better story. Poetic license with my life and all that. The key points remain accurate-ish.

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