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Openshelves
December 2006 The Reading Library Friends Group is sponsoring a holiday cookie swap on Thursday, December 14, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the library. There will be an even swap of homemade cookies: if you bring a dozen cookies, you leave with a dozen; if you bring 2 dozen, you leave with 2 dozen; etc. The library will provide liquid refreshments. Kevin Forrest & Sara Norcross will perform holiday music. A festive evening is planned to kick off the season. Everyone's invited. Additionally, the Friends Group will be creating a community cookbook of main dishes, sides, desserts, etc. Interested townspeople should submit 1-3 recipes, one or more of your own and one or more that have been passed down from a relative. We'd like to include photos and anecdotes concerning the cook or the dish. The deadline for submission is February 1, 2007. Recipes, stories, and photos may be mailed, emailed, or brought to the library. Photos will be scanned and the originals returned. The library's email address is reading.public.library@adelphia.net. The phone number is 484-5588. The library bathroom, which paralleled the Florence Cathedral in building and design complications, is finally up and running. We want to thank everyone who lent a hand during the gargantuan enterprise, which lasted some two decades. A special thanks is owed to Charlie Howgate for guiding us through the snarl of twenty-first century zoning regulations. The Ladies' Night Out Book Club has proved to be a whopping success. I am the only male participant and have been serving as the group's mascot, not a bad gig. We'd like to thank Chris Bohjalian, Sarah Stewart Taylor, and Reading's own John Philpin for discussing their books with us. A grant by the Freeman Foundation has provided the library with a thousand dollars to spend on CDs and DVDs. The new additions will be on the shelves and ready for circulation in the coming weeks. The library has a photocopy of a reminiscence by Adin Estabrook. He was born in Reading in 1828. Much of the thirty-page document recalls settlers on or around Stone Chimney Road. A while back, my daughter and I walked the length of the road with Cornelia Sanderson and Laura Griggs. We inspected the Old Stone Chimney, we visited some cellar holes that used to provide the foundations for houses where some of the people mentioned by Estabrook lived, and we found four or five graves, tucked in the woods, where a few of the people are buried. The following is from Estabrook's reminiscence: "The Reading Library was formed about 1820, and burned in Levi Fay's shoe store about 1845. It contained about 300 volumes and was supported by contributions. Among the books was Stephen Burrows and How He Was Caught on the Hay Mow by an Accomplice, who when asked where Burrows was, pointed to the hay mow, saying, 'He is there if not in the barn.' The librarian was Henry Conant, uncle of T. C. Conant of Felchville. He did little more than read and take snuff, with which his white apron was completely covered by the yellow. He was also used to snuffing till he had become deformed." Not an auspicious start for our library, I'll admit, but I like it.
Cordially,
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