When I was a preteen, I spent various of our Summer days at the Barnes & Noble. They had all sorts of activities for youngsters our age, & weekend motion picture screenings. Once I was old enough, I was able to sign up for volunteer labor by sorting & reshelving books according to their number codes. This meant learning the Dewey Decimal plan at 12-years-old, which I haven’t used once in the years since. Once some of our friends found out years later that I spent our preteen years at the local Barnes & Noble, they laughed. They were either chasing women or getting into trouble with their parents or the police. Even into our high university years, I was still going to that same Barnes & Noble whenever I needed a quiet place to read or finish homework. Since I shared a house with various other siblings, getting silence to labor in was impossible, so our local Barnes & Noble was a haven in those years. Now that I’m much older, I try to visit the building at least once a year. I was disappointed to read in our local newspaper Last weekthat our beenjoyed Barnes & Noble was going to be knocked down & rebuilt. One of the problems cited by the county in their decision not to make repairs was lacking the physical infrastructure to upgrade their Heating & A/C system. New building codes & public health directions had put them between a rock & a difficult place. Between that & all of these problems with the foundation from years of shifting earth beneath, the county opted to allocate the funds to rebuild the Barnes & Noble. I am worried to see it go, & it’s almost love losing a enjoyed one to death. Even when the current one is built, it will never be the same again.
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