Wendy Rank – January 2025
“Perhaps no place…is so totally democratic as the town library,” Lady Bird Johnson once said. “The only entrance requirement is interest.”
Years ago, when a ne’er do well stole my wallet, rented a squalid hotel room with my credit card, imbibed illegal substances bought with my cash, then tossed my wallet in the hotel garbage before jumping on cars in the parking lot, the first thing I replaced was my library card. So it should come as no surprise how drawn I am to lectures offered by my library.
Last year, I attended a presentation on the great Southampton train crash of 1921. At the close of the lecture, the speaker opened the floor to questions. And that’s where his control of the room derailed more than that Southampton train crash of 1921. A hand went up. What, the questioner wanted to know, caused the Philadelphia Amtrak crash in 2015? Wait. What?
The speaker, obviously flummoxed by an inquiry into an event nearly one hundred years after his presentation’s event, said he didn’t know. This answer was what I’ll call unsatisfactory. The speaker was already turned away, clearly prepared to address another question amongst the sea of raised hands. But this man came for answers – and answers he was going to get. “That’s not good enough,” the questioner said sternly.
I was now on the edge of my seat. This little library slideshow just went from Friends good to Jaime Lannister pushing Bran Stark from a window good. The speaker conceded the Amtrak crash was not his area of expertise. I mean, come on dude. The speak- er – he doesn’t know.
Our questioner, though, was not done. Who investigated the Amtrak crash? Was a report issued? On and on the questions went, despite the speaker’s deft attempts to defer. Had the questioner lost someone in the Amtrak crash perhaps? Did he know a survivor? Not at all, the questioner said. His interest was a hobby, a downtime pursuit. And then he was down another rabbit hole of Amtrak questions. And that was it. Nobody else could – would – ask a question.
So when the library offered a presentation on John Wanamaker a few weeks ago, I had to go. Now, I’ll probably be dead by the time you read this. The amount of coughing in that room – one might have mistaken it for the abysmal tuberculosis wards of yore. I mean, it really costs nothing to cough into your elbow.
An audience member arrived, packing tape sealing the tears in the back of his puffer vest. This warmed my heart. My dad used to do the same thing with duct tape. “Where’s the duct tape?” my husband asked a few months ago. It’s hard to tell your husband you buried your household duct tape with your dad. But I’ve seen The Mummy. Read Pet Sematary. Spent time with Night of the Living Dead. If my dad gets reanimated through an ancient curse, he’ll need that duct tape.
Packing Tape Guy and his companion found the last two empty chairs in the room. The chairs were piled with coats. A purse. A scarf. The seats had been occupied by another couple. But they left their accessories behind when they moved to the front row.
I – I don’t know why this couple’s accouterments required their own seating. Were they sentient? Like the magic carpet in Aladdin or Dr. Strange’s cape? I was so preoccupied by the detritus the seat-jumping couple left in the rear rows of seating, I missed the speaker’s introduction.
You know, I’ve always told my kids books are magic. The same, I think, can be said for libraries. And their presentations.
Contact Wendi Rank on Instagram @wendirank
