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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Touch-A-Truck Day

truckgarbage
recycling or garbage truck
Touch-A-Truck Day
The local library has free summer programs all summer long. I can imagine how children loved this. There appeared to be about two dozen people there when I drove by. I caught this driver as he was leaving later in the day. The truck has the recycling bins underneath, so I guess it is the recycling truck. If not, it is the garbage truck. Hmmm, the back looks like the garbage truck.

(Blogger is having its own way about formatting today. No, this is not supposed to be centered.)

Isn't it shiny and clean? This must be a new truck or they washed it specially for today. I also saw the largest tow truck ever and a fire truck leaving, all appeared to be newly washed. However, fire trucks and tow trucks always look new and clean. The other trucks had left when I drove by last.

When my son was four, if anyone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he answered, "A garbage man." After all, it was the most exciting thing that happened in our little quiet neighborhood. Men jumped on and off the moving truck. What more can a little boy aspire to than jumping off moving, large, noisy vehicles?

So, I can imagine how happy the children, especially the little boys, were today.
This library also has many other free programs beyond just summer reading.  Well, not "just reading" since reading is so important. This program may have gotten parents or children into the library, parents and children who normally don't go to the library.

I wanted to go see the trucks and hear what the drivers had to say, but I thought that might be dorky or weird. Besides, it was in the 90s and on pavement. It just seemed less interesting when I thought of it that way. I have done my mommy duty and stood and sat in the sun long ago. I just smiled as I passed by. It was always very good to find free and educational events for my children.

Your turn 
If you have children, do you watch for the free programs at the library? If you don't have children on grandchildren, do you ever notice that there are interesting happenings at your local library? What is the best or most interesting program the library has held on their premises?

8 comments:

  1. I've been a frequent flyer to the library every since I was a little girl. It was the only place with air conditioning! Took our DD to every free program they had. She loved it, but now that she's older, she never goes. I tried! *sigh*

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  2. Can imagine how the children would've enjoyed that!
    Yes, I started to really appreciate libraries and their activities for children when our grandchildren came along. Our local one, even though small, would close for part of the day, have story-telling with painting afterwards depicting the story they'd just heard. Good fun!

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  3. You did spark her interest the and acquaint her with just being in a library. She may take her children some day just because it was part of her childhood. I hope she does read even the books are purchased. What I think is sad is the person who in adulthood exclaims that this is the first time they ever went to the library. I took my grandson when he was 2.5 years in NYC. Six months later he was point to the chair I sat in at the table and commented that it was "Memaw's chair." His father told him I had gone home to Alabama. My grandson said, "No, she is at the library." Yes, I did take him several times.

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  4. Susan, Ours does not close or have painting, but they do have some sort of reading program and reading to the children. The library stays open. I just try not to go there then...lol. There are no parking spaces or room to turn around in the library. I think that motherhood leaves little time to appreciate somethings. There may not have been as many programs back then. Ours is a very small library in a small town. Back when the children were small, we did not go to the library enough, but they had activities, nonetheless in the form of swim team, thespian activities, all sports.

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  5. Man do I have fond memories of hours spent at the library as a kid. Don't get me wrong, I loved the outdoors, but nothing beats the smell and feel of a good book :)

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  6. tlc, the last course I had to take in grad school, working on MA in English was a research course. The professor said he just wanted us to touch and feel the books, to learn to love the scent, to be able to find a bookstore with our noses in the mall,to relish the feel of paper under our fingers. We were getting MA, uh, you think maybe we already had those feelings towards books? I wondered aloud why we did not have to take this research course as an undergrad or as the first course in grad school. Classmate agreed it would have been helpful two years prior and for all the papers we had to write. Actually, the Transcendentalist and Romantic authors led to a renewed desire to be outdoors for all of us in grad school and buried in the library. Wordsworth and Thoreau will inspire one to leave the institutions for the wild.

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  7. might be out of scope but I went when at school to our local library and met Michael Bond - man who wrote all the Paddington books. I still remember it vividly today so it made a big impression on me for some reason

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  8. Furtheron, you are right on track. Library experiences change us. We look more to the world around us and inside books for experiences. We find role models and larger than life examples of what we could be.

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Okay, hoping the annoyances have gone away.