Essay: Library cards unlock the wonderful world of books

My second-oldest daughter Rachel, on her last visit from North Carolina, opened her wallet in the Safeway checkout line, and I noticed her white Sonoma County library card - replete with a faded Hello Kitty sticker - on top of all the other debit, credit and ID cards.

“You still have,” I asked, “your old library card?”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s one of my prized possessions.”

I was touched.

Rachel was probably 6 or 7 when I took her to the old library (off Commerce Boulevard by the old TG&Y) to get her key to the real Magic Kingdom.

Books are essential in our family. We all read them voraciously, and I’ve written several, even occasionally sell a few. I still recall looks of childhood horror and confusion when Rachel and her older sister Danielle had slumber party guests and we would turn off the TV at 9 p.m. and pull out books - R. L. Stine or “The Babysitters’ Club” series for the girls and a Ross Thomas or Lawrence Block mystery for me - and begin to read while there was a fully functioning television with a state of the art VHS in the room (“Be Kind, Rewind!”).

Books are still paramount in our family’s experience, and today I had the privilege of taking my youngest daughter Elisa’s two girls, Gillian and Gwenyth, to the shiny new library in Rohnert Park to get their library cards.

It involved two trips because I needed to provide ID for the children. In the olden days, ?you could just point to the actual kids, and their physical presence in the universe sufficed. But today you are not official - despite the fact you are standing there - until you’ve been quantified and verified by a scanned barcode.

But I digress, and the double trip allowed us to squeeze in a trip to both the Fundemonium hobby shop and Baskin Robbins, making an important and enjoyable day even more so.

Gillian and Gwen filled out the paperwork, displayed ?their health insurance cards for ID and devised their own four-digit PIN codes. (The years of their births, but please don’t tell anyone. I’ve been sworn to secrecy.)

Then we browsed the stacks, and 10-year-old Gillian (after proudly pasting an “I Got My Library Card Today” sticker onto her blue tanktop) checked out the young adult novel “A Touch of Frost.” Eight-year-old Gwen opted for volume one of “The Jewel Fairies Collection” (and saved her sticker for a secret, distant, compelling application).

Their pristine turquoise library cards were filed away into Gillian’s flowered purse and a tiny pink-and-white wallet with a bow that matched Gwen’s shirt. A successful, fun, landmark day. Perhaps, like Aunt Rachel, a cherished rite of passage day: an initiation into the world of reading, delight, illumination.

But even though Rachel’s white, Hello Kitty-festooned Sonoma County library card proves that I did indeed, 30 years ago, take her on a similar adventure to obtain the treasured card, I honestly don’t remember that day.

I’m certain we smiled and joked.

She was happy.

I was proud.

I cannot remember what books she checked out, what she wore or if an “I Got My Library Card Today” sticker was involved. I didn’t remember what color her library card was until I saw it three decades later, framed and prominent in her wallet.

And so it turns out that some memories, much like library books, are borrowed and loaned, not owned.

I don’t know how often Gwen and Gillian will use their cards, but if they’re like their mom and aunts, they will wear them out. I doubt they will save their cards like Rachel, but I hope they at least remember their first library experience.

As for me, like little Gwen tucking her “I Got My Library Card Today” sticker away, I am resolved to be more vigilant, less reckless with today’s fragile, borrowed memories.

Rob Loughran is a Windsor-based author whose mystery novel “Beautiful Lies” unfolds in Windsor and Healdsburg. Contact him at rjploughran55@gmail.com.