Weinzierl

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Victoria’s Corner Bar.  Nightly Specials and Menus.  952-443-9944

8 First Street in Waconia.  952-442-2885

942-443-2078

Funeral Home & Cremation Services

952-474-9595

Pediatric Rehabilitation Clinic.

Occupational Therapy.  Speech Therapy.

952-443-9888

Huber

City of Lakes & Parks  952-443-2363

“Trees Are Our Roots”

8099 Bavaria Rd * Victoria * 952-443-2990

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         As Kathy Bognanni gave me a personal tour of the Victoria Library last week, I was amazed at all that it offers.

         The first time I stepped into a library was when I was in the elementary grades at St. Eloi Catholic School in Ghent, Minnesota.  The library was about the size of a large bedroom.  Only two of the walls were covered with bookshelves from top to bottom, since the other two walls were mostly windows -- one side facing the street out front where we played softball during recess, the other side looking toward the convent and playground.

         I remember the first book I checked out of that library at St. Eloi.  It was the first "chapter book" I ever read.  In other words it didn't have big pictures and sentences like "See Dick and Jane.  See Spot and Puff.  See Spot and Puff run.  See Dick and Jane run."

         The book was Call of the Wild by Jack London.  I have no idea why I chose it but I read the whole thing from beginning to end.  It's what you do with books.  I mainly did books that came with my Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmetic.

         Then my mother listened to a traveling salesman and bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias.  They were deep red in color with a dark blue accent band and very expensive, but a monthly payment plan made their purchase possible.  Besides, they came with a wood bookcase.  It had two shelves and was placed in the living room under the Four Seasons, a paint by number series Mom did in the evenings while the rest of us were glued to TV.

         I also didn't spend much time in the Minneota High School Library.  Books were not for simple leisure in my world,  but for reference in writing term papers and reports and for getting good grades.  One of my first reports at MHS was "Zinzanthropus," a neanderthal unearthed by the Leakeys of South Africa.  Another biology report I entitled "Calling  Killdeer."  I thought it was clever since, at the time, Dr. Kildare was a popular TV show.

         I used the library at Briar Cliff College a bit more often.  Many chemistry reference books were downstairs on the level with no windows.  By and large, however, I used the bookstore at Heelan Hall to purchase required textbooks and weekly Honors English softbacks like The Popuation Explosion and Silent Spring but also Black Like Me and Man's Search for Meaning.

         Now I've also been in the Victoria Library. I loved it.  For one thing, I kept bumping into people I know.  "Hi, Elaine."  "Hi, Cathi."  "Hi, Tom."  Also, I love the printed word.

         I want to tell you that in addition to the various types of libraries that I listed in the opening paragraphs of my feature story this month, there is yet another category, Personal Libraries.  I have one.

         My Personal Library houses hundreds and hundreds of books, nearly 100% of them nonfiction, most of them purchased at area bookstores to suit my taste and interest.  I've read them all.

         My Personal Library has an area for Chemistry and Physics textbooks, those I used at Briar Cliff.  My Library includes a cookbook section, a children's section, and a set of classics from Emerson to Shakespeare and Tolstoy.

         My Personal Library holds stacks of journals and magazines, each marked with my personal notes since I read with a pencil.  It's how I acquire quotes and vocabulary words for the Gazette.

         My Personal Library is home to two sets of encyclopedias.  The prize is The American Peoples Encyclopedia, copyright 1947, which I purchased for $5 long ago at a neighbor's garage sale, Barb Hollway's.

         My second set is Encyclopedia Britannica, copyright 1972, which I purchased for $20 at St. Victoria.  Since a set of encyclopedias barely changes in size from one year to the next, I wonder what happens to the old information as it makes room for the new.  I suggest there is information in my 1947 set that is found nowhere else.

         My Personal Library boasts beautiful large coffee table books like Minnesota, London in Color, and Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, some of them gifts.

         My Personal Library contains hundreds and hundreds of CDs and DVDs, also chosen to suit my taste and interest.

         My Personal Library counts a compilation of music books and sheet music, much of it organized in alphabetical order. 

         My Personal Library is technological for it includes two computers, large screen monitors, two scanners, two printers, a copy machine, and cameras old and new.

         My Personal Library accommodates  books of photos, decades of them in physical album pages, some in shoeboxes according to date taken, with the last 15 years online, representing the photographic history of a family and also a community.

         To top if off, My Personal Library shelters a private collection of every Victoria Gazette that was ever printed and published -- in other words, the most complete history of Victoria and its people on the planet. 

         Without libraries, ours would be a sad and sorry world for we wouldn't know from whence we come or to where we are going.

From the Editor

Dedicated to the sunshine of truth,

the moonshine of meeting deadlines,

and the starshine of Victoria.

The Victoria GAZETTE

Sue’s Album

A symphony of photos

and fewer than a thousand words

at www.VictoriaGazette.com

April 2015