You were a library assistant at the Frankford branch of the Philadelphia Free Library in 1991 and the only one who would still deal with me after I told the nosy head librarian to “go home and pet your forty cats if you don’t feel like doing your job” when she attempted to deny me a copy of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. I was short, wore brown plastic glasses bigger than my face, and the same American International School of Rotterdam t-shirt as often as possible (because it had a wicked shark on it). You had long blonde curly hair, your Keds were always very clean, and you always had a book in the pocket of your oversized jacket with the rolled up sleeves.
On a Saturday morning in the middle of summer I returned Orwell’s 1984 and you said, “That’s some heavy reading for an eleven year old.” I said, “Maybe.” You asked what was next and when I shrugged you said, “I’ve got something for you,” handed me Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and changed my life.
This gratitude is 18 years overdue, but I want to say it anyway. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Elizabeth.
