The adults that patronize this library have been the highlight of my nearly 16 months here.
For many years, connecting students to seniors in the Frankfort community was not only the best time of those two age groups, but it was a selfish high point of mine.
Every year after nine months of weekly postcard writing, the pen-pals would meet for a Community Pen-Pal Reception on May Day. I would tell the pen-friends the story of how the idea for this connection began.
My Kansas City cousin was a student at KSU in the predominately male, at that time, study of electrical engineering. My grandmother, who lived in Manhattan, grew very accustomed to Sharon dropping by and telling of college life and all that that involved for four years. After graduating, Sharon got a job in Dallas, Texas with Texas Instruments as one of their handful of women engineers.
Nanny truly missed Sharon’s visits and stories.
Sharon decided to place a stack of stamped postcards in her desk to send to Nanny before she left every Friday and in turn, Nanny grew very attached to the idea of receiving these postcards every Monday as she proudly showed them to family and neighbors. When a postcard would not show up in her mailbox, Sharon would get a phone call wondering if she was alright.
The postcards were ALL in a pretty basket when Nanny passed away, and Sharon got to relive those Dallas years by rereading them almost like a journal.
One of the best parts of my month is sending out cards to 25 of our Waterville seniors. An “All About Me” questionnaire was sent out and I was thrilled to see a number of them returned, but like Nanny, wonder where the rest are. One of the questions was “a favorite book”. The answers included cookbooks, Little Women, The Bible, and one answer was she had “many”.
New titles have been shelved for your enjoyment along with a few new audiobooks. If you know of someone with vision difficulties that could use this service, please ask me about it.
As in the paraphrased words of Dr. Seuss, “You’re never too old, to wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read “like” a child.”
Happy Continued Reading!