I took my mother-in-law to her cataract surgery on College Street. I had to wait outside the clinic because they didn’t let me stay. But more on that later.
So, I went to the local public library at Huron street, and I wondered up the stairs. Everything looked closed on the third floor, but for one guy in an old t-shirt.
“What are you looking for?” He asked. “A place to write,” I said. “Just keep going through the glass door.” I walked into what looked like an office, but it turned out to be a closed-off section of the library with glass encasements. Like a museum.
There was a wide-open book with a diagram of a tricorder in a huge encasement in the middle of the room. That’s the medical tricorder from Star Trek, the same one. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne, first published in 1870 was just 50 centimeters behind it. Near it was a small book that could fit in the palm of your hand, “Buck Rogers, War with the Planet Venus.”
It was the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy at the Lillian H. Smith branch.
I had stumbled upon one of the world’s largest collections of sci-fi in the world, and it blew my mind.
And that’s why I promote library events in this newsletter.
Because at the library, a chef teaches you to make Japanese Fruit Sandwiches, a writer and published author gives you a course in short story writing, and a chartered accountant teaches you to make your will.
All of it in the neighbourhood. And we take it for granted, because it’s free.
And my mother-in-law’s cataract surgery? Also free.
And she’s doing fine.
