New Subject: Let's move on.

Do not despair.   People actually read!  People learn things!  Does it get any better than that?

I am sick and tired of writing about the Tribune. 

The Medford Central Library is wonderful.  If you haven't been in it recently you are missing something.  You will feel better about your life, your community, and the future of America if you drop by.

People use the library. I counted the number of people in the library in a quick walk through that I did Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m.   Every minute there were people leaving and people entering.  There were 135 people at one time, but surely five or ten times that many people over the course of the day. A staff person told me it was an average day in business.  

The Children's section will make you feel great.  There are young mothers and fathers with children.  Children walk around clutching a bundle of books to check out.  This isn't a chore or duty for them.  It is a joy.  They beam. 

Children sit in the sculpture bench with the bronze "monster" reading to his pre-school child.  You see evidence of engagement between young people and the world of books and serious information: names on the Wall of Fame of active readers.  In visits past I have watched a room full of young mothers, sitting on blankets, with toddlers playing together in some group. Yesterday I watched a 4 year old girl pushing a toy train up and down the tracks of a tiny train village, observing how it coasted down if she let go at the top.

There is a Teen Room, with young adult books.  There is an open area with at least a hundred different current periodicals along the wall. Readers everywhere.

Here with his young father

Looking.

Book a day for 3 years.

Scouts write "peace" in 48 languages

My father, Robert Sage, funded this bench.

Group play schedule

"Refrigerator Wall" near the Teen Area.

Rusty. Practicing 8 + 7.   Taken with mother's permission.

Library Volunteer helping out.

Donated books

Reading Room

Reading Room. Periodicals on the wall.