The Mists Of Cornerbrook

With a few bob in me pants, and a pint in me belly, dat the ingredients, my Irish neighbour just finished sayin. We were discussing the garden we share between. From there it went onto attitude, and living the life you have, and enjoying this here and now. Be damned the naysayers, and boo-whoo-ers.

He said…“I’m getting rather good ya naw at being a bum”. He’s a poet too, don’t ya know. Truly. And a retired carpenter.

That Irish lilt gives everything he says a special quality, they have more power behind them. Yet still just words.

But somehow spoken as though with every word chosen there is a story.

inbetweenJust words. But words string communities together. Words tell stories. Some truths can only be shared through words written, while other words can be spoken silently to a friend.

Words may unite, they free, they can imprison.

In Newfoundland, you know Mom, this week it was announced that due to the government’s inept management of the province, the people will loose 60% of their libraries. Boom. And tax books. Boom.

In a province with the highest illiteracy in Canada, this new budget seems to have a mandate of stripping them of a community. And removing potentially the one, perhaps, intellectual some citizens may ever see. Rip out the gathering place a Library provides.

It’s more than just about words.

“If you want to destroy rural Newfoundland and harm children, it’s an excellent start.”
Rick Mercer rants about Newfoundland library closures (listen to full show)

What the heck is my title referring to you ask? You’ll have to listen to the show for a clue.

But seriously Mom, could you imagine how hard those years of our childhood would have been without the library? I recall many library books, open, face down on top the magazine rack, or beside the toilet upstairs at the Homestead. On the wall waiting, or in your hands as you took that time to escape to wherever those words took you. SLAM would go the sliding door between, cutting you off from the world, remember? Over at the little brick house.

We all knew better than to disturb you, or risk having our head torn off.

I don’t remember any bookshelves, but instead piles of library books sitting on the kitchen counter.

How could they be so incredibly dense as to take away such an essential element of any community? These places of gathering, these are more than just mere shrines to books and they’re words.

Normal School from front herb bedWhatever. Guess community is no longer deemed an essential service. I wonder what this draconian budget will cost them. Of course, they’ll have some fiscally factual response to those of us who turn our head sideways at them in complete shock at their stupidity. These issues will be the problem of some other government besides.

And their kids don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff. Libraries are dinosaurs of another time, another place. People don’t read. They skim the news on their smartphone via Buzzfeed. News doesn’t mean the same thing as it once did.

And books are still here, but some prefer them digitally. But not as many as some thought, and books still have a tactility that people crave.

And dagnabit, and you know I rarely myself go into libraries for the stories in the books. But I have needed them when I had no internet, or when I had no job. I use libraries, I just don’t use them for the books. I use them for their knowledge, for their tools, for their internet.

Anywho, Irish, of the four legged kind, is patiently awaiting me to take her for some sort of walk. The dishes need doing, and so far today I have accomplished neither task.

Love you Mom,

PaulaB

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