Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [252]
RICHARD PRICE AND THE ENTIRE STAFF OF THE JUNCTION CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY REMIND YOU THAT APRIL 6TH - 13TH IS NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK COME AND SEE US!
Did I know that? Sam wondered. Is that why I grabbed this particular box? Did I subconsciously remember that the second week of April is National Library Week?
Come with me, a tenebrous, whispering voice answered. Come with me, son ... I'm a poleethman.
Gooseflesh gripped him; a shudder shook him. Sam pushed both the question and that phantom voice away. After all, it didn't really matter why he had picked the April 1981 issues of the Gazette; the important thing was that he had, and it was a lucky break.
Might be a lucky break.
He advanced the reel quickly to April 6th, and saw exactly what he had hoped for. Over the Gazette masthead, in red ink, it said:
SPECIAL LIBRARY SUPPLEMENT ENCLOSED!
Sam advanced to the supplement. There were two photos on the first page of the supplement. One was of the Library's exterior. The other showed Richard Price, the head librarian, standing at the circulation desk and smiling nervously into the camera. He looked exactly as Naomi Higgins had described him - a tall, bespectacled man of about forty with a narrow little mustache. Sam was more interested in the background. He could see the suspended ceiling which had so shocked him on his second trip to the Library. So the renovations had been done prior to April of 1981.
The stories were exactly the sort of self-congratulatory puff-pieces he expected - he had been reading the Gazette for six years now and was very familiar with its ain't-we-a-jolly-bunch-of-JayCees editorial slant. There were informative (and rather breathless) items about National Library Week, the Summer Reading Program, the Junction County Bookmobile, and the new fund drive which had just commenced. Sam glanced over these quickly. On the last page of the supplement he found a much more interesting story, one written by Price himself. It was titled.
THE JUNCTION CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY
One Hundred Years of History
Sam's eagerness did not last long. Ardelia's name wasn't there. He reached for the power switch to rewind the microfilm and then stopped. He saw a mention of the renovation project - it had happened in 1970 - and there was something else. Something just a little off-key. Sam began to read the last part of Mr Price's chatty historical note again, this time more carefully.
With the end of the Great Depression, our Council voted $5,000 to repair the extensive water damage the Library sustained during the Flood Of '32, and Mrs Felicia Culpepper took on the job of Head Librarian, donating her time without recompense. She never lost sight of her goal: a completely renovated Library, serving a Town which was rapidly becoming a City.
Mrs Culpepper stepped down in 1951, giving way to Christopher Lavin, the first Junction City Librarian with a degree in Library Science. Mr Lavin inaugurated the Culpepper Memorial Fund, which raised over $15,000 for the acquisition of new books in its first year, and the Junction City Public Library was on its way into the modern age!
Shortly after I became Head Librarian in 1964, I made major renovations my number one goal. The funds needed to achieve this goal were finally raised by the end of 1969, and while both City and Federal money helped In the construction of the splendid building Junction City 'bookworms' enjoy today, this project could not have been completed without the help of all those volunteers who later showed up to swing a hammer or run a bench-saw during 'Build Your Library Month' in August Of 1970!
Other notable projects during the 1970's and 1980's included