|
History & Genealogy For the Active Researcher IF YOU LIKE, PLEASE NOMINATE US FOR TEXAS COUNTY OF THE MONTH NOMINATIONS GENEALOGY FRIENDS OF PLANO [TEXAS] LIBRARIES, INC.SUPPORTING GLADYS HARRINGTON LIBRARY, THE LARGEST GENEALOGY COLLECTION IN THE COUNTY
GENEALOGY FRIENDS is not associated with any genealogy societies. We are certified under Section 501[c] [3] corporation of the Internal Revenue Code.
|
Return to Plano Memories Index PagePlano MemoriesBy Brenda Kellow
Nancy Drew: An InspirationThey had the appearance of a large accordion, those silver iron radiators that guarded the rooms from their guard post underneath the big windows that opened out into the room. In the winter time the north wind came barreling through the cracks that had formed through the decades. Steam rushed through the radiators, sometimes making a soft spewing sound, as it warmed the room.
Regardless of the large windows placed at adult eye level, when the Texas weather was hot, the room was hot. It was years before air conditioning, and fans were a luxury. There was seldom a breeze that slipped through the openings to cool the skin. The warmer it was, the more prevalent the puppy dog smell of the little tykes in the Plano School Building. Upstairs on the second floor, the conditions were the same, but the adolescent bodies of the developing teenagers often wreaked of old perspiration.
I can still remember those smells of the school building. The only thing missing in the classrooms was the years of oil rubbed on the hall floors giving off an oily, musty odor. My favorite smell was that of the bookroom on the first floor. I often helped the teacher get the books ready for the classroom just so I could smell that delightful smell and be near the books. I always loved books.
It was my love of books; mystery books in particular, which drew me over to the row of wooden and iron desks underneath the windows and across from the radiators. Cold or hot, the heat did not faze me, even though I have always disliked sticky hot temperatures. I was drawn to the first floor’s north walls to a desk across from the old iron soldiers underneath the wobbly windows and the brown wooden bookcases filled to overflowing with Nancy Drew mystery books I so dearly loved. Sitting there I was in my “element.” If I became bored I could lose myself in my imagination stirred by a title printed on the spine of a hardbacks in the collection. When we were given free time to do our homework, I finished mine quickly so I could be free to pick up the story where I had left off the time before.
I loved the Nancy Drew mysteries. I still do. Never cared for the Hardy Boys. Today I try to read one mystery a week. I prefer certain genres. I like mysteries based on genealogy, art history, anthropology, archeology, and ancient Egyptians. Today my job as book reviewer is sometimes so demanding that I have to forgo reading a sleuth book for financial reasons.
But it was Nancy Drew books in the old brown bookcase next to the iron radiators that stood underneath the windows in the Plano School Building that left the thirst for reading that remains as an important part of my literary development today.
Recommended citation:
|
Send mail to
GenFriends@comcast.net with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
