Riggs Library at Georgetown University is my Ideal library. It is perfect. This is where I want to go when I die.
If I believed in heaven this is what it would look like to me. Since my first Dick and Jane book I have been fascinated with books. Old books, new books, comic books, big books and in fact any books. How to books, story books, history books and reference books I like them all. Also any place that sells, houses and lends books. Book stores and library's are my church and my refuge. Just being in a bookstore gives me peace and comfort because time stops for me. If I go in knowing that there is no reason to hurry I quickly lose track of time and cannot give a reasonable estimate of how long I've been there. I was once ask by a girl friend, who had dropped me off at a bookstore while she went shopping, if I knew how long I'd been there. I said, "sure about an hour or so". It turned out to be "or so" as I had been there over four hours. If she had wanted to carry on with someone else she would have had a easy time of it. Just drop the book idiot off at the bookstore
If you are in a hurry don't go to a library or book store with me. It drives SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) nuts (it's a really short drive) as she is a "in, find what she wants, then out" sort of person. She is a reader but she doesn't understand the book place experience. Not me, I'm there for the full experience. I hang out to savor the smell and the feel as well as find what I want. I often don't know what I want so I'm there to let the book find me.
Need and desire for the house of books started in Arkansas in Brady elementary school in the late 1940's. The school didn't have a library as such but it had a bunch of bookshelves on the stage at one end of the fifth grade room. The fifth and sixth grade room had a folding partition between them and the fifth grade room had a stage at one end. On that stage, when it was not being used as a stage, there were 6 or 8 large double bookshelves and that was our library. I was allowed to go there, sometimes even during class. I was already hooked on reading but this library gave me something else. It was a place with no windows to the outside but with many windows to the universe, a place that shut out the rude noises of the school, a place that calmed my fears (believe me I had plenty) and gave me escape. It was there that first traveled around the world, visited the jungles of Africa and traveled among the stars. More than once I had to be reminded that it was time to get back to my desk. The only thing I remember of that school year is the "library" and the teacher Mrs Hogan who, when I could not remember how to spell my last name (I guess it was a mind numbing summer), helped me with out making a big deal of it. It was the place where books became a religious experience. It expanded my desire from just reading books to wanting to be around books and to own books. It was downhill from there.
My only other access to books was the Book Mobile until I discovered the Pulaski County Library. Iit was like finding the ultimate Cathedral. We lived in the woods west of town but on Saturdays I could go

and spend the day there. I was there so much that I was given access to the stacks so that I could read the piles of back issues of magazines like Popular Mechanics and Popular Science which I read all of. I read all the Black Beauty Books, the Tarzan books, all the Jules Verne, all the Tom Swift they had and so much science fiction that at one point I was taking home books to read that were so new they had not been on the shelves yet. I could go up the big staircase to the Little Rock City Library, find books and check them out through the County library. The city library fronted on the cross street. I had so much freedom there that when I got older (puberty) and certain questions arose about anatomy I would sneak into the adults only section and read for myself why that thing did what it did, how it did it, why and what I was supposed to do with it. That was a relief because I thought it was broken and no adult wanted to discuss these matters except for a few men in overcoats and sticky shoes on the streets who would teach you everything you needed to know. I still marvel at the thought of anatomy being unsuitable for young people. How backward. In those days things like anatomy and sex were to be learned in the barn and later in the back seat of a car like all good Christians. The library gave me power through knowledge
There was no money in those days so I never had occasion to find a bookstore. The book of the month club became my start in owning books. But in my lifetime I have found many magnificent book stores. There was the "Either Or" in Hermosa Beach, Ca. It always smelled of incense and was divided into little rooms. Your were invited to sit and read. There was the old "Book Rack" in Houma, La. Crowed, tight and cluttered with thousands of books. I loved it but I'm not so comfortable in where they are now and I can't put my finger on the reason why. It's still a great book store with just enough clutter to make it comfortable. My favorite is a book store in Moss Landing California by the name of "Yesterdays Books". A magic place for me. I bought several books there but the magic part was the first one A first edition of Antoine De Saint Exupery's
Wind, Sand and Stars. I opened the cover and the copyright was 1939 the year of my birth and written there just inside the cover was "Mildred, October 15, 1939. Mildred is my mother's first name. SWMBO said "I think you were meant to have that". These are only a few of the many bookstores I have visited. I have so many memorys of bookplaces in my head that I can't remember what town many of them are in.
Cars and girls took me away for a while in my teens. I did four years of sea duty while in the Navy and became a

young married so I didn't really have much time ashore that I could spend in a Library. There was only one ship that even had much in the way of books and I was only aboard for a little more than a month (in transit). I did work my way trough the small rack of books in the mess hall that was called the library and in fact that is were I was first introduced to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. I didn't understand it but it made me want to. Then there were the bookstores in China, lots of them. Thousands of books in English and all cheap. They were all copyright violations but I didn't know anything about that. Not that it would have made any difference at the time.
When I was a young adult fresh out of the Navy I discovered the Redondo Beach Library. It was a beautiful building in a park on the be

ach in Redondo Beach Ca. It's was a beautiful setting and I spent many hours there. There wasn't much time to read randomly as I liked to do while I was attending school but by a stroke of good luck I found my ""calling and soon had plenty of time. When I think "library" now that Redondo Beach Library is the place I think of. That was in the 60's and like everything it has gone away. According to Google maps the building is still there the the library has been moved. Just as where I grew up it now only exist in my memories.
I have found books and book places to be a comfort. Weird

More books.

And more books. There are more under the chairs, beds and in the front seat of cars. "She Who Must Be Obeyed" has two in progress in the front seat of her pickup truck (a Ford F150 of course). I cleaned mine out since I drive so seldom they would mildew.
I have more in boxes, somewhere. I think. It is an affliction or an addiction and I don't rightly know which.
Now it's time to mount my trusty bicycle and be off to the library.