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Many years ago, the arrival of Memorial Day meant I could safely wear white shoes until Labor Day without making the worst-dressed list. This didn't really mean much to me since I was a farm child who looked forward to completely kicking my shoes off to run in the relentless summer sun. By the end of the summer, the bottoms of my feet were tough with calluses. My siblings and I had shoes for dressing up and going to town, but we didn't put much wear on them in the hot days of summer.

My mother made frequent trips to town during harvest and planting time for repairs for the machinery and additional food to feed the crews. Usually we accompanied her, shoes taken along, but not placed on our feet until necessary. However, our favorite place to go with our shoes on our feet was the Stevens County Library. It was a frequent stop for us in Hugoton. The building in those days was an adobe-style structure with wooden poles instead of clerestory windows, which stuck out all around. It would have been architecturally at home in Santa Fe. In the summer, it was dark and cool inside, a refuge from the brutal summer sun and heat.

For me, it was like visiting a mystical land set aside from my humdrum everyday existence. There, I could find the ticket to visit the Red Rock of Petra where the desert Queen Zenobia rode her white camel as she surveyed her kingdom. I read Elizabeth Coatsworth's books about heroines of various historical periods. She wrote many young-adult stories and poetry that captured the many lands and civilizations she had visited from early childhood on through most of her adult life.

I learned more geography and history from her books than I ever learned from a straight textbook of history. Another story I loved was one called "Dear Enemy" by Jean Webster. This book was a bestseller in 1916 and tells a love story through letters exchanged between two people who work toward the same end with institutionalized children but have differing views on how to accomplish their goals.

And, I loved Louisa May Alcott's books, which helped me frame my ideas on life. They advocated the education and emancipation of women in ways that became the fabric of my consciousness.

The Stevens County Library is still one of the top-rated libraries of its size in Kansas. It was as important to me in many ways as any other aspect of my development as a person in my school and home. I could shed the boundaries set upon me by my body and my environment as easily as I could cast off a confining pair of shoes. It meant real freedom to me and to my siblings.

This city is blessed with a good library, which will only get better when it moves to a new structure with room to house a more complete collection of books and room for children and adults of all ages to browse and relax and learn. In the meantime, be sure to get your children to the library's opening of the Summer Program at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 31, at the Bonner Springs gymnasium. There will be sign-ups for the craft and reading programs, refreshments and a puppet show for all ages.

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