To the Editor,
A year ago you were kind enough to print a letter of mine. Its first sentence was "What this town needs is a library," and many readers wrote to agree with me. I am writing again because I owe them, and you, an account of what happened next.
After my letter, I went to the town council. The officials were polite. They agreed that a library would be a fine thing. Then they showed me the budget, and there was no line in it for books, or a building, or a librarian. I came home discouraged, and I told my family that the idea was dead.
It was my granddaughter who changed my mind. Sevara is twelve, and she does not tolerate excuses, from me or from anyone. She listened to my story about the council and then asked a question that I have not stopped thinking about. "Grandfather, is a library a building? Or is it books and somebody to open the door?"
I had no answer. Seldom have I felt so humbled by a child.
That week we emptied my garage. A neighbour who is a carpenter built the shelves, and I put a notice on the gate asking for books. What surprised me was not that people gave. It was how much they gave. In six weeks we had four hundred books: novels, children's stories, dictionaries, old textbooks, and one beautiful atlas from 1974.
The library opens on Saturdays from ten until two. It is Sevara who keeps the register of who has borrowed what, and she is far stricter about late returns than I would be. Last Saturday thirty-one people came, and eleven of them were children.
So I must correct my letter of last year. It is not money that this town lacks. What it lacked was a door that somebody was willing to open. All we needed was a garage, a carpenter, and a twelve-year-old who asked the right question.
Readers are welcome on any Saturday. Please bring a book — and please return it on time.
Karim Toshev, retired engineer