Raining Acorns

Sugar and mountain maple leaves are just beginning to show fall colors, maybe the mountains ahead of the sugars, some already fluttering to ground. Sometimes you can even hear the flutter. Acorns, on the other hand, are clattering down on roofs, shaken loose and well announced by the cacophony of cawing crows, rustling as one from tree to tree. The trees and crows, making music for the season.

Young doe eyes just watch me, seemingly unafraid. You have to look for them, though they seem to be everywhere today. They are silent. Silent, even in stride when fear does take hold. The air is cool and crisp; feels great. I am on my early morning walk on Woodland, appropriately named for this day. It is not Vermont, just Western Pennsylvania, which gets no credit for this. But I credit it. I am still here, a transplant from two other states, both notably very flat, after a lot of years, not tempted as my sons were to go elsewhere. I’ve told them they downgraded.

So, what does this have to do with Libraries? Well, historically Libraries are shh! places, barely a whisper allowed. Hollywood movies enforced that image. Architecture too. Maybe, if you do not frequent a public Library, you think that that is still the way. It is not. It is certainly not. For one, programming for children does not allow it. Dog Reading Pals and shh!? Adults at Book Club sessions do not shh! either; they discuss aloud, by design. TechNook at the Murrysville Community Library is by design an open meeting room for all of them at times, with video being streamed into shared space no stranger to any day. Jingles ‘n’ Gingerbread, a December holiday celebration for mixed cultures, includes dancing sometimes, and music of the instruments. Voices of patrons enjoying the party. It is a party.

When asked to reflect on what is the one big major change to Libraries in the last 100 years, patrons often name the transition to electronic cataloging across whole Library Districts and collections. That is a big change. But my walk that Fall morning reminded me to remind you of this other major change to Libraries, as we celebrate our Centennial at Murrysville Community Library: the welcoming of music and of enthusiastic voices of people.

It reminded me, too, to share this, from an anonymous author:

An Accolade to Geese

An end of winter sky, <indent>the almost cloudless clear,</indent> A gift in which to revel <indent>at any time of year;</indent> It has a gentle wisp, <indent> an echo to the ground,</indent> But in all its air <indent> there is no foreign sound.</indent> It is an accolade <indent> to airborne honking geese,</indent> A vee that breaks and brings <indent> an even greater peace.</indent>