Category Archives: Readers Page

April Cushing is the Adult Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud. Podcasts are archived on the Voices from the Library page of the library website.

I know someone who claims to have never lost anything. Is that even humanly possible? If the name weren’t so fraught with pejorative connotations beyond the inability to keep track of stuff, I’d join Losers Anonymous in a heartbeat. I’m thinking of two particular incidents.

I picked up my daughter at the 128 train station recently to take her to the dentist while I waited in the parking lot. After dropping her back at the train en route to the Morrill Memorial Library, where, ironically, I help people find things, I reached for the shoes I’d tossed on the floor of the front seat. I found a single brown flat.

Like the Red Sox, I was on a losing streak but determined to reverse my luck, so I spent lunch retracing my steps. Apparently no one had turned in any footwear at 128 that day so I sped back to the dentist. Not that I held out any hope of success, but I wanted to leave no stone unturned. Lo and behold, I spied a two-toned suede slip-on basking in the sun on the pavement precisely where I’d parked. Is there any better feeling, with the possible exception of finding a thousand bucks (more on that later) than locating something you’ve lost? It’s infinitely more satisfying than never having misplaced it in the first place.

I did pretty well, for a while. Until I reached for my cell phone at the Faulkner Hospital to update my sister on our mother and came up empty. I felt like one of those scientists wintering over in Antarctica, totally cut off from the outside world. Back home I searched everywhere, and some places more than once in case I’d overlooked it the first three times.

Replacing the phone wasn’t totally unreasonable, considering the last time it went missing I found it the morning after book group on the street in front of my friend’s house, but not before it had been run over. Most likely by me. The fact that it still worked, if you didn’t mind squinting to see through the cracked glass and were careful not to cut yourself, I took as a sign that I didn’t actually need a Smart phone.

I found the darn thing in my bedside table drawer that night.

Not everyone, it turns out, suffers from this affliction. Some people have the opposite experience. A close friend who recently bought a fixer-upper in Walpole got more than an aging roof and smelly shag carpeting the cats had mistaken for a litter box. Puttering around the basement one day, the new owner spotted the edge of an envelope protruding from beneath some plywood. Reaching inside, he withdrew a picture of a scantily-clad coed striking a provocative pose. Plus $1,000 in cash. Much rejoicing and discussion of the myriad ways to blow the bundle ensued. The windfall went toward refinishing the stained wood floors, but it was a fun fantasy for a while. Despite my friend’s good fortune, I would caution against embarking on a home-buying spree in the hope of duplicating this scenario. Chances are this will never, in the course of your natural lifetime, happen to you.

But back to reality. Rummaging through the library’s Lost & Found for my reading glasses last week, I found evidence of a lot of other losers out there. A thorough inventory of the drawer yielded no magnifiers but a wealth of other items, including money–$2.14 to be precise. Also one eyeglass lens, two pairs of funky sunglasses, a set of monkey-faced keys, a mini iPod, a pair of unmatched mittens and a handwritten note that read “To Mommy from Rob, I love you bekus you are the bestist mom in the hol intiyr wrld.” Forget the flash drive, the portable umbrella and the other paraphernalia. If I were Rob’s mom that’s the one thing I’d want back.

Most unclaimed items get tossed after three months, but not all. The oldest denizen of the Lost & Found drawer is a little musical hairbrush that’s been there almost 20 years. Our head of Circulation can’t bring herself to, um, part with it, so if this brush rings a bell, be prepared to present some solid DNA evidence to establish ownership.

There’s no known cure for losing things, but your library can lend a hand. Check out “One Year to an Organized Life: from Your Closet to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized, for Good,” by Regina Leeds. Can’t find your reading glasses? No problem; we own the large print edition as well. For a less daunting title consider “What’s a Disorganized Person to Do?” by Stacey Platt. If you’re feeling ambitious, Milton’s “Paradise Lost” might help put your problems in perspective. Or read the mystery of the same title by Judith Jance about policewoman Joanna Brady in Cochise County, Arizona.

Generally speaking, it’s easier to lose things than find them. You can lose yourself in a book, lose track, lose weight, lose ground, face, focus and control, lose out, lose touch, lose heart, lose your cool, your lunch, your marbles, your nerve, your identity, your train of thought, your inhibitions and your virginity, or you can just plain lose it. Granted, some things can be both lost and found, as in your way, your place and your glasses, but what can strictly be found is limited. Besides finding yourself, your calling and your drishti in yoga, there’s finding the answer, finding fault, finding out, finding true love and Finding Nemo. And if you happen to find yourself at the Morrill Memorial Library, we guarantee you’ll find a fabulous assortment of fiction, non-fiction, audiobooks, magazines, DVDs, downloadable books, databases, storytimes, Speed-Reads, literacy tutors, lectures, movies, music CDs and more. If you haven’t been to the library lately, find out what you’ve been missing. And not merely by checking the Lost & Found

Read Charlotte Canelli’s column in the April 20 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud. Podcasts are archived on the Voices from the Library page of the library website.

In the 1998 bestseller, “A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail”, Bill Bryson recounts his experiences, with and without his friend, Stephen, along the 2,184 mile challenge of the Appalachian Trail. Bryson hiked the trail from Georgia to parts of Maine. It doesn’t matter much that Bryson, never completed the hike. Only one-quarter of those who attempt the hike as a “thru-hike” in one season actually complete all of it. His obsession with the trail, his humorous exploits and his discoveries, among them how hard it is to team up with a friend under extenuating circumstances, made for a bestselling memoir.

Somewhere in the 1990s (before Bryson’s book was published, I might add) I had the very silly and romantic thought of hiking the trail myself. I had hiked the notorious Mount Washington in my 20s and had done my share of backpacking and camping over forty odd years. However, I had lost my enthusiasm for hiking around the time my young daughters and their father began leaving me in the dust on all trails, hiking and otherwise. Out-of-shape, overweight and much more interested in the feat of cooking gourmet camping meals, my interest in hiking the Appalachian Trail lasted about a week. I do remember receiving a guidebook for my birthday that year when a friend took me much too seriously. I was reminded of my humiliating quest when I read “It’s Always Up: Memories of the Appalachian Trail” by the Mountain Marching Mamas.

Six Mountain Marching Mamas began hiking one fall in the late 1970s when their children were small. A weekend together with women, no matter what the reason or weather, was an inviting thought. Several were close friends, two others were sisters and most of them lived in Florida, near enough to the Georgia mountains where the southern trailhead of the AT begins.

Six, and then five, of the women began spending time backpacking together each year. With grime in their knees, wind in their hair and families left far behind, they soon began hiking parts of the Trail until all “five million steps” or over 2,000 miles were complete. All of them took the quest seriously and Charme Burns, one of the Mamas, wrote that once they started talking about hiking the entire trail, the mission took on a life of its own. From mothers of young children who were left in the care of their supportive husbands, the Mamas have hiked together for over forty years becoming grandmothers, senior citizens and very experienced hikers.

We had the pleasure at the Morrill Memorial Library of presenting one of the Mamas (and authors of the book, “It’s Always Up”) on Tuesday, March 6. Mother-in-law of one of our trustees, Charme Burns shared her experiences with photographs, anecdotes and readings from the book she co-authored with the other four of her lifelong friends. All of us lucky enough to be in the audience were amazed at the dedication of this group of adventurous women. It is a story full of friendship and fellowship, humor and humility. It is complete with tales of the strangers they meet along the way, the antics they share and the challenges they endure. Near the end are accounts of the celebration after their 27th hike, the end of their trail, in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. That didn’t end their hiking days, however, as the women still meet annually somewhere in the world.

Many others have written memoirs about hiking the entire length of the AT. “The Things You Find on the Appalachian Trail: A Memoir of Discovery, Endurance and a Lazy Dog” by Kevin Runolfson was published in 2010. Another hiker, Jeff Alt hiked 2,160 miles along the Appalachian Train for charity. In his inspirational account, “A Walk for Sunshine” (2009), Jeff trekked for his brother who has cerebral palsy and he has raised over $150,000 with his annual Walk-With Sunshine for the Sunshine Home where his brother lives.

In “Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail” (2010), Jennifer Pharr Davis shares her solo experience of completing the trail in fifty-seven days, when she was 21 years old. In 2000 Leslie Noyes Mass decided to walk the Trail during a ‘thru-hike’ at the age of 59 and recounts the story in her book, “In Beauty May She Walk” (2005). A college professor, Leslie is not only challenged by the hike but is also confronted with the needs of those she left behind, her family.

For those who think they might like to take on the challenge, there are recent books such as “The Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike Planner” (2009) by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, “The Appalachian Trail Food Planner: Recipes and Menus for the 2,000 Mile Hike” (2009) by Lou Adsmon and at least twenty other publications focused on specific portions of the Trail.

For the less adventurous (and more practical) there are guidebooks for taking the trail one day, or one night, at a time. Victoria and Frank Logue have written “The Best of the Appalachian Trail: Day Hikes” (2004) and “The Best of the Appalachian Trail: Overnight Hikes” (2004).

We in New England have the wonderful luck of being within hours of many of the trailheads and overnight huts of the Appalachian Trail. Some of it, in Western Massachusetts, is easier hiking. Much more of it is daunting, such as the Mt. Katahdin section at the conclusion of the trail in Maine. Many of the books I’ve included above, such as the one by Mountain Marching Mamas, will inspire you to try at least a day’s hike or put a smile on your face thinking about it. As the Mamas like to sing, “Some trails are happy ones, others are blue. It’s the way you ride the trail that counts, here’s a happy one for you.”

If you would like to reserve any of these titles in DVD or CD version please call the Reference or Information desks of the library, 781-799-0200 or reserve them in the Minuteman Library catalog.

Read Charlotte Canelli’s column in the April 13 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud. Podcasts are archived on the Voices from the Library page of the library website.