I went to the library with Miss Mary Mack last Tuesday evening, after we'd both spent the day doing chores.
It's summer time and the livin' is easy.
And when the livin' is easy, I don't want to run out of easy reading.
I checked out some Zane Grey westerns, one of Fannie Flagg's books, Paradise Lost, and Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut.
I only got the Vonnegut title because I've never read any of his work and I want to understand the references to him next time I hear/read them...they've cropped up so frequently lately that it's taken the bliss out of 'blissfully ignorant'.
(If you need to warn me, go ahead.)
Anyway, I got to thinking about the olden days, when I would take all six of the shoots to the library every two weeks and let them check out their limit of reading material.
If I recall correctly, we usually brought 56 books home each trip.
So you can imagine my alarm the day I discovered we'd somehow managed to lose a week and had returned our books exactly seven days late.
A library fine of that size blew a substantial hole in our finely-tuned budget during those years.
I'm sure it meant a few more meals of rice and beans or 'essence of chicken' soup.
During those busy home-schooling years, our time was as carefully spent as our money, and the kids loved to go to the library.
So, when the dentist asked one of the girls at her yearly check-up if she was going anywhere, or doing anything special on her summer vacation, she didn't know why he found her reply humorous.
"Yes. During the summer we get to go the library as often as we want, and we get to stay there as long as we want."
No motels.
No tents or sleeping bags.
No "She's touching me!" or "Are we almost there?"
Yep, those were our cheap and stress-free vacations.
And we still take 'em.