Barb Smorynski, Sartell
Democracy is a wonderful thing. Saw you at the caucuses where you were eager to vote your choice. Thank you! Busyness, Status Quo and Minnesota Nice dropped everything and came in record numbers. Platform ideas were energetically offered. Some asked what had ever happened to the one-half-cent library sales tax voted on twice here in Sartell. A former legend of the evening news, Walter Cronkite, when asked about the value of a library said “Whatever the cost of our library, the price is cheap compared to an ignorant nation” (Library quotes.com).
The mess our national government is in resonates in our hearts, making us uneasy, nervous. The global economy is overtaking us. Where are our basic strengths of “hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, wisdom, transcendence” as psychologist Erik Erikson has stated? A mom bathing her 3-year-old daughter, upon hearing her mother was going to visit some older church ladies, cocked her head to the side, considering, and said: “Too bad they don’t have mothers!”
A trained librarian is like a mother with a good heart who has the skills to be the best search engine, program developer and problem-solver. She will provide inclusiveness, connectivity and enlightenment to help counter apathy and disenfranchisement. Walking a library’s book stacks is an adventure that reinvigorates your imagination. Your Erikson basic strength tools of “trust, initiative, industry, identity, integrity and wonder return” – or begin: A little boy who had lost his mother paged through easy books they had shared. As he wiped his cheek, the librarian leaned down, smiled and held out her hand. “I bet you’ll love the adventure of the Hardy Boys. Its right near The Baker Street Irregulars, a kind of Sherlock Holmes sleuthing gang.” That little boy spent many hours with this librarian’s friends and grew up to be a doctor.
Drop everything again to insure your hard-earned half-cent sales tax be allocated for a centrally located Great River Regional Library branch in Sartell. The meeting is 6 p.m. Monday, March 14 at Sartell City Hall. Help correct the misunderstanding in the government that its citizens no longer want a library.