Sometimes I arrive at the library a few minutes before it opens. Almost always there are other people waiting on the steps, and there is an immediate sense of fellowship amongst us, as if we might be prepared to give each other a secret handshake. We are an eager and expectant small group waiting for the Closed sign on the door to be reversed, listening for the little click that announces the door is now unlocked. Because I am old, I am often deferred to, urged to go in first, but no matter what the order, each of us courteously holds the door open for the person behind us. We are imbued with the kind of civility appropriate to a company of adventure-seekers about to enter a realm of unlimited possibilities.

Invariably, I stop first at the shelves of new non-fiction books. When looking at the array of volumes dealing with the real world, I immediately begin to have a surreal experience. There is no way for my brain to accommodate in any conventional way the subject matter that ranges from how to raise a puppy or get a divorce or make wise investments, to how to read tarot cards and/or travel in outer space. My selections are mostly random, and may deal with people and matters that have held no previous interest for me. These serendipitous choices have amazed, horrified, delighted, flabbergasted and educated me. I am rarely disappointed.

Next, I browse in the new fiction section, seeking a best-seller recommended by a friend. I consider eye-catching titles, examine dust jacket illustrations, check the reviewers' comments, read brief author bios and eyeball the author's picture. With the same kind of discrimination as a candy-lover picking his favorite caramels out of a box of chocolates, I make my selection and drop another couple of volumes into my book bag.

Then I remember that the reason I came to the library in the first place was to locate a copy of Don Marquis's Adventures of Archy and Mehitebel, published in 1925. This is one of the choices my reading group has made. When I cannot find it among the M's on the fiction shelves, the librarian locates it for me in the literature section. We laugh together as we look at the illustration on the cover of the old volume, and she comments that it has been years since she's thought about that particular book. She obligingly scans the computer to see if the county library system has other holdings by the same author. My book bag now bulges with as heavy a load as I can carry.

While my books are being processed, I look about me and am surprised to see that now there are many more of us in the library than the small flock of early birds I came in with. All of the computers are busy, their users staring into them with the hunched fixity peculiar to the technologically involved. A man and woman are discussing possible selections from the video section. A lone man is looking over the collection of audio books. Several people are seated at the reading tables with outspread newspapers or a stack of magazines. A woman is gathering up pages from the copying machine.

I realize that I am standing in the midst of marvels. I am amazed by the bustle and vigor of this library, so seemingly unrelated to my home town's small Carnegie Library, the one I first entered eighty years ago. That was a hushed and hallowed place which I humbly loved, a place where I tip-toed up to the librarian's desk to check out the Raggedy Ann books I adored. Going to that library was not too different from going to church, and indeed I did learn to worship there; I developed a life-long reverence for books.

The library of my old age is a lively place which I enter without my childhood humility but still with the same joyful anticipation of long ago. The old reverence lingers, too, and I carry away my bag full of books with a feeling of exaltation.