A Little Library Tale

Patty Bailey is a Circulation Assistant at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Patty's column in the July12, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. 

As a little girl growing up in South Norwood, I was fortunate to have two library sources in my neighborhood.  One was in the Balch Elementary school; the second was the little South Norwood branch of the Morrill Memorial Library.

Thankfully Filling Another Mother's Shoes

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the July 5, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I’d like to believe that my great days always outnumber the bad.  I’m far from a Pollyanna who sees the world through the rosiest of glasses, but I like to think I am a positivist.  Once in a while, I tumble out of the wrong side of the bed but I’m ordinarily thankful I have a comfy one to slumber in. Every so often I have a bee in my bonnet about my husband’s quirks or kick up a fuss about one of my lovely daughter's latest antics but every day I am more than grateful to have them in my life.

Finally Growing Up with Zeppelin

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the June 28, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Led Zeppelin is the greatest band of all time.  Or so some would say.

When I was growing up in the 60s, their music just seemed to hurt my ears and my brain. I was more of a Simon and Garfunkel fan. In the early 70s, I preferred the mellower music of Cat Stevens and Carly Simon.

Even though I wasn't a Zeppelin fan, full disclosure is the fact that I was married to a Led Zeppelin fan.  There was no way but to listen, sort of, to all eight of the Zeppelin albums.  Dazed and confused, however, I think I simply tuned them out. Led Zeppelin never really got this 60s girl rockin’ beyond their most famous song, Stairway to Heaven.

Welcome to My Party, Pal

April Cushing is the Adult Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column published in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin on June 21, 2013.

My youngest got the green light to graduate over Memorial Day weekend, having returned the last of her overdue library books. I got to shiver on the sidewalk for three hours hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of her as the Class of 2013 cavorted down College Street in cap and gown. Meanwhile, my sister and her husband were holed up in the warmth of their hotel room until lunchtime. Life was good. There was just one little problem.

There and Back Again: Random Thoughts Traveling To and From Boston

Margot Sullivan is a part-time reader's advisory and reference librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column as published in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin on June 14, 2013.

    For approximately 8 months I used public transportation to travel to hospitals in Boston and Cambridge.  My primary routes involved leaving from Norwood Central via commuter rail and disembarking at Copley Square to then catch the Heath Street trolley green line to Brigham and Women’s or disembarking at South Station to catch the red line trolley to Harvard Square in Cambridge for Spaulding Hospital.  Always held close my “Charlie” card and senior commuter rail pass made traveling into Boston very reasonable and easy.  I began to treat my travels as adventures: observing and listening to people.

 I grew incredibly tired of “noise” everywhere especially cell phone conversations on the streets, in subway cars, in coffee shops, in the bathrooms EVERYWHERE. Conversations were never stopped or interrupted while crossing intersections, getting on trains, elevators, escalators, and meetings. My traveling companion Tina and I were reprimanded twice for not knowing we were on the commuter rail quiet car but we were only trying to catch up and establish the day’s agenda.  The quiet car is very nice! HOW DID WE EVER COMMUNICATE BEFORE CELL PHONES? People have no problem bearing their inner most secrets and problems out in public!  Street musicians often play music which is not pleasant and in the subway stations way too loud.

Boston: Our Fair City

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the June 7, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Although I grew up in California, I was always proud to announce that I was born in Boston.  Not exactly Boston, of course, but within an hour’s drive to the Boston Common or Cape Cod.  My mother never lost her Boston accent and our mother said things like “pahty” and “cah”.   We suppered on baked beans every Saturday night and feasted on Boston Cream pie for special occasions.  Growing up on the west coast, our family loved our semi-exotic flair and reputation.

Of course, in the 50s and 60s, Boston was a long airplane ride from San Francisco.  We talked to our faraway relatives on the telephone only a few times a year and letter writing was a standard ritual in our house.

Walking the Woods with Thoreau

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the May 31, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

When I decided to become a librarian, I had already spent the first half of my life raising my family of daughters.  I had just turned 47 when I returned to graduate school in library science.  It was a natural reinvention of my life after having spent years reading to my children and volunteering in their school libraries.  After homeschooling one of my daughters, and serving as home librarian, I slipped effortlessly into the role of children’s librarianship.

I was wise to subscribe to these words attributed to Confucius (551-479 BC): Find a job that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. (A friend of mine left his career as a certified public accountant because he wanted to love his job as much as I loved mine. He is a librarian today, working as a public library director in New York State.)

A few of my favorite books published during the years I worked as a children’s librarian were the unusually illustrated picture books known as the Henry Books by D.B. Johnson. In them, Johnson whimsically make sense of some of the complicated, yet paradoxically simple philosophies of New England’s Henry David Thoreau.

Living Off The Land

Diane Phillips is the Technical Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read the published version of her column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin on May 24, 2013.

I’m about to embark on a new venture.  I just purchased a share in a community farm.  In my opinion, there’s nothing better than sitting down to a meal prepared with fresh, locally grown vegetables.  It reminds me of my childhood.  My grandmother used to have the best garden that yielded bushels of green beans, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes, and so on.  From the early summer to early fall, my family had homegrown vegetables.  I’ve tried my hand at gardening in the past, and I learned that I don’t have the knack for it.  I forget to water it and weed it.  I don’t provide adequate protection to keep out our resident rabbit and neighborhood woodchuck.  Because of my ineptitude at living off my land, I made do with the offerings at the local grocery store.  I’ve tried to make sure to buy organically grown fruits and vegetables to avoid the genetically engineered or pesticide-laden products.  It just wasn’t the same as that fresh-picked taste that I remember from my grandmother’s garden.  I figured I’d have to make do with what I could buy since I clearly didn’t get the gardening gene from my gram.

The Sweetness of Memory, or the Icing on the Cake

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the May 17, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

As my 61st birthday raced past me this year, I was reminded of the occasion of my 8th birthday. That spring, my mother planned a butterfly birthday for me. This special day, as all my birthdays were, included a handmade dress. Colorful butterflies adorned the yellow polished cotton. The dress had a sash that was tied crisply at the back of the waist and its short-sleeves were perfect the California weather in May. That day, I most certainly wore turned-down lace-trimmed socks and my black, patent-leather Mary Janes.

Living in the college town of Berkeley, California was one of my childhood’s treasured experiences. School friends from my local public elementary school were comprised from nationalities across the world. Some were daughters of graduate students or professors. Others had parents who were missionaries and scientists. More were from families like mine with fathers in blue-color jobs and mothers who stayed at home. In short, my friends that year were as varied as the multicolored butterflies on that birthday dress.

In addition to my dress, there were gifts wrapped in butterfly paper, butterfly decorations and an unforgettable homemade birthday cake.

Mothers Across the Ages - by Norma Logan

Norma Logan is the Literacy Coordinator at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Norma's column in the May 10, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Mother’s Day is right around the corner with the promise of flowers, warm sunny days and the time to reflect on the state of being that the holiday celebrates.  In reality, motherhood is a rollercoaster ride of joy, fear, hope, anticipation, energy and weariness.   

American society and culture have changed over the years, and life has, in many ways, become more complicated.  However, the basic emotional ties of mothers to their sons and daughter,s I believe, are ageless.

Since my daughter became a mother four years ago, I have watched her and my grandson, remembering some things and not remembering others.  I have been careful about giving her advice except, as always the educator, to tell her that it is never too early to read to him. I look for books that I can recommend to her from the professionals, much like I gravitated to the Dr. Spock books in the 70’s.

The Pattern in My Family's Glass

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the May 3, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

When I was a very young child, my mother whisked my brother and me from Massachusetts to a brand-new life on the Northern California coast. About a month later, a moving van deposited our family’s modest trove of clothing, pastimes and treasures into our new home in Berkeley. As a little girl, I was much more absorbed in my own sorely-missed belongings and I hardly noticed my mother unwrapping her own treasures, tucking them into cabinets and closets.

Nevertheless, over the years, I became keenly acquainted with most of these family heirlooms. The Taft Family Revolutionary War sword and the Bruce Family Civil War medals were displayed with much pride. My great-grandmother’s hand-sewn quilt lay in a chest wrapped in tissue. Six antique glass goblets and a matching pitcher sat front and center in a china cabinet, rarely used.

I admit those glasses never impressed me much. They were stout and thick and bore lines up the stems. Stored in a cabinet, the sunlight never emphasized the fine honeycomb pattern that covered their bowls.

The Gifts of Philanthropy

Read the published version of Charlotte Canelli's column in the April 26, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

 Today everything seems to be big business. Music, sports, the film industry, beauty and even education (with its online colleges and professional degrees) are some of today’s big businesses.  And let’s not forget health care, one of the fastest-growing businesses today.

And That's the Way It Is, April 19, 2013

Read the published version of Charlotte Canelli's column in the April 19, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

It was less than four months ago when the tragedy in Newtown left me wordless.  That weekend before Christmas 2012, I idly sat in front of my computers, both in my office and at home. Shocked and saddened,  I contemplated the tragic event at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  Very slowly that day, the column I was writing materialized.  I wrote about Fred Rogers and Rabbi Harold Kushner and listed their books and others that might help readers find their way to understanding this terrible event.  I added that 2013 would be the 20th anniversary of the Random Acts of Kindness movement, and I urged readers to continue spreading compassion across the world on a daily basis.

How to Recognize Spring

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Nancy Ling's column in the April 12, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Yes, it’s official! Spring is here. The daffodils are peeking out from the soil. The robins are flying in the heavy way that they do. Even the neighbors are lingering longer outside to talk about the Red Sox or the garden they are beginning to plot.

Road Trip to the National Parks

Read the published version of Charlotte Canelli's column in the April 5, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Nearly a half century ago my family of six took one of our rare vacations and traveled for a month across the United States. This was no easy ride from Berkeley, California to Boston and back again … with four children between the ages of 1 and 15 in the car.

Now I simply can’t imagine how my mother packed all of our clothes and toiletries for the journey, let alone stowed away all the suitcases in the trunk. (Remember, though that a 1960s Oldsmobile possessed a giant trunk.) I am further awed that my mother and step-father organized the trip without the Internet. Nevertheless, AAA was amazingly helpful before the inventions of the GPS and the Google map. These were also the days before handheld devices, iPods and portable DVD players. We amused ourselves with transistor radios, books, maps, writing pads and a plethora of tolerance and patience.