What sounds like the title of a Nancy Drew novel is actually my most recent fascination. In Britain they call them stones, but they’re really rocks—big ones. I’m referring to the roughly 1300 Neolithic monuments found throughout the U.K. known as stone circles and standing stones.

I just got back from my daughter’s wedding to her British beau in the Cotswolds. Having crossed the pond for the nuptials–and paid the annoying surcharge to check a bag–my husband Brad and I were in no great hurry to leave. We hired a car and drove four hours on the wrong side of the road to Cornwall, the rocky peninsula at the southwest tip of England that’s warmed by the Gulf Stream–allegedly. It wasn’t exactly balmy, despite the presence of palm trees, but it was definitely picturesque. Devotees of Poldark, Doc Martin, or the BBC mini-series of Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn might recognize some of the scenery.

We looked forward to hiking the cliffs, taking photos of fishing boats and quaint villages, and feasting on traditional Cornish pasties and cream teas. What I didn’t anticipate was how our first stop at the Avebury Stone Circles would spark an obsession with searching out smaller versions of the same over the next few days.

It was cool and misty the next morning as we contemplated the stones from our window seat at the inn during our first full English breakfast. If you’re not a fan of cooked tomatoes, beans, and blood sausage, I suggest passing on this quintessentially British staple. We had planned on a brief walkabout before making our way to Stonehenge but were persuaded to join a tour with a volunteer from the National Trust. I’m so glad we did.

You can stroll right up and touch the lichen-covered stones here, the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world. From our knowledgeable guide–big on enthusiasm but oblivious to the cold and damp that reduced our numbers to a mere four by the end of the tour–I learned the definition of “henge.” It’s a circular bank with a ditch on the inside, indicating it was not built for defensive purposes.

The village of Avebury, including our humble inn which I’d highly recommend save for the blood sausage, lies smack in the middle of this Neolithic, or Stone Age, marvel. It’s also the only stone circle that contains a pub and a chapel. Tragically, pious Avebury residents in the 14^th century toppled and buried dozens of what they deemed to be pagan stones. 400 years later their descendants smashed and, uh, repurposed many of the remaining stones to build stuff. It seems Avebury was designated a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site a few centuries too late.

Fortunately, antiquarians William Stukeley and John Aubrey mapped much of the site during the 17^th century before its destruction. Most of these rocks remained buried until the 1930s when archaeologist Alexander Keiller led a project to excavate and replace them in their original positions. Also unearthed was the skeleton of one of the original stone tippers, no doubt crushed to death, who was dubbed the Barber Surgeon based on the pair of scissors found nearby.

The million-pound question remains. Considering the… monumental time and effort required, why were these megaliths erected in the first place? Archaeologists believe they were probably used for ceremonial purposes, or in some cases, as solar calendars. Others have suggested they represented an attempt to appease the malevolent powers of nature, to commemorate the final battle of King Arthur, or that Native Americans from the Appalachians—or even the Druids–were involved. Lacking written records, we can only surmise. The theory that the tall slender stones and the shorter, wider ones stood for male and female seems reasonable enough to me.

Anxious to reach Cornwall before dark—and peel off our wet socks–we decided, somewhat reluctantly, to forgo Stonehenge. Distracted by the scenery and the surfers, I forgot about the stone circles for a bit. While Brad navigated the narrow lanes bordered by thorny hedgerows, I tried to stay on top of the pile of maps, books, and brochures rising steadily at my feet. One site that kept cropping up was the Merry Maidens Stone Circle.

We were heading back to our little Cornish cottage, but this called for a detour. Minutes later we pulled into the tiny lay-by, climbed over the stile, and there it was. I was instantly transported back in time, imagining those who had trod this same path and what had brought them to this mysterious ring of 19 rocks in the middle of nowhere.

According to myth, the Merry Maidens got its name from a group of ladies enjoying a night out on the turf who lost track of time and danced into the Sabbath. Greatly displeased, God turned the women to stone as a warning to others. It was so pleasant and peaceful among the stones that only the promise of seeing a nearby burial mound, believed to be the tomb of a local chief from 2000 BC, got me to bid the Maidens goodbye. But having met them, whenever we saw a Standing Stone on our map, we were on a mission.

Not entirely sure where we were going, we pulled into a farm, tromped through a field, scaled another stone wall and were rewarded by the sight of a lone 10’ high slanting stone. Unable to pass up a cheesy photo op, we pretended to hold it up like tourists at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We spied another tall stone in the adjoining field and realized to our delight that we had stumbled across the Pipers. According to legend, the pipers who played for the maidens were also turned to stone as punishment for performing on Sunday. I love stories like that.

Driving back to London for our flight home, I had that slight let-down feeling you get when you leave a place that moved you and wonder if you’ll ever be back. Traffic on the A30 was stop and go when Brad suddenly exclaimed, “There’s Stonehenge!” In the distance stood the iconic monoliths silhouetted against the late afternoon sky. I’d been there decades ago, before they put up the barriers, but it was still breathtaking. Moments later we picked up speed and it was gone.

Had I known I’d become fixated with stone circles I would have checked out some of the many books on the subject available through the Minuteman Library Network before my trip. Circles and Standing Stones: An Illustrated Exploration of Megalith Mysteries of Early Britain, by Evan Hadingham, and Aubrey Burl’s Rings of Stone sound intriguing, as does The Atlas of Sacred and Spiritual Sites by David Douglas. To see the truly awesome nature of these enigmatic monuments, check out the DVDs Britain’s Treasures: An Aerial Journey and Standing with Stones: a Journey through Megalithic Britain. I plan to look at all these and more. After all, there are still hundreds of stone circles standing around patiently waiting to be discovered.

April Cushing is the Adult Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 25, 2019 issue of the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

In many ways the 21^st century public library and its role have been re-imagined. In this digital age the library has become much more than a repository for great books. Libraries are promoters of community as well. Take a look at the Morrill Memorial Library events happening in the month of April alone. We have everything from Musical Sundays to talks on Stone Carvers of Old – from Beginning Yoga to The Secret Lives of Owls.

Part of our shifting role includes providing information on the run. As mentioned by the Brookings Institute, “This ‘go-to’ role has influenced library programming and events, with libraries providing advice and connections to health, housing, literacy, and other areas.” Or, in author Neil Gaiman’s words, the library is “a community space. It’s a place of safety, a haven from the world.”

And yes, I could not agree more. In this digital world the library serves as a connector, providing access to information through workshops and speakers and more. At the heart of it all though, the library returns to two essential ingredients 1) free access to information and 2) our beloved readers.

In many ways the idea of free information for all began in Franklin, MA. The Franklin Public Library is considered America’s “first public library” because of Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s book donation for the use of the town’s residents in 1778. The original Franklin collection is still housed in the library’s Reading Gallery, and the United States is now populated by public libraries from sea to shining sea. According to the American Library Association, an estimated 116,867 public libraries exist today. Thankfully, the Morrill Memorial Library is one of them.

Several times at the library I have been approached by a person who recently immigrated to the United States. They cannot believe that our programs and services are free; this world is at their fingertips. Not only is this true here, but in the next town, and the town after that, and the one across the state, and across the country.

Which leads to the other essential ingredient at the heart of our libraries—our beloved reader, the person who lives and breathes for a good book. The person who enters the library, whether child or aged 102, with an empty tote bag, excited to fill it with 5, 10, 15 new reads. For FREE!!

During my years working in the Outreach Department, I have had the privilege of becoming a friend to many beloved readers. Often they are unable to come to the library on their own, so our volunteers deliver books and other items to them. While they miss browsing the bookshelves, they are grateful when these treasures arrive at their doorstep. It’s like a having a birthday every few weeks.

I have worked with many of these beloved patrons over the years but a few have stood out in my mind. Annette Webber was surely one. Sadly, she passed away this March just shy of her 93^rd birthday. Every other week her Outreach volunteer delivered about 15-20 books to her. The most amazing thing was her interests were limitless. Not only did she reread To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee but she gave Lee’s latest novel Go Set a Watchman a try as well. She always loved biographies, especially about politicians. The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher and A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts by Therese Anne Fowler were two of her latest. However Annette could not be pigeon-holed onto a certain shelf. All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers’ Row by James Paterson and Alex Abramovich was also one of her reads, along with Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis.

Sylvia Clark was another life-long learner. I first met Sylvia when I was running a book discussion at Benchmark Senior Living. She had lost much of her eyesight from macular degeneration but as soon as she realized she could borrow a CD player and audio books from the library, she signed right up. Later I learned that she was an educator who had taught at Maynard High School, Needham High School and Regis College. How I marveled that she was willing to become an auditory learner when necessary. Historical fiction was a favorite genre of hers and she relished books like Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. That said she could tackle a mystery series with equal aplomb, so we would toss in a James Patterson or Daniel Silva novel to keep her going.

Of course these are just two examples of the many beloved readers who have loved the library and all its treasures. It’s nice to know our patrons need the library as much as the library needs them. While the library has stepped boldly into the 21^st century, our doors are always open to the patron who is searching for the perfect read.

Nancy Ling is the Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 18, 2019 issue of the Norwood Transcript.

In the 1986 film The Breakfast Club, Andrew Clark and four odd rebels are restricted to the high school library in an all-day Saturday detention. 23-year old actor Emilio Estevez performs the part of clean-cut Andrew, the state wrestling champion. Estevez’ character feels out-of-place in detention; he is the jock in his letter jacket, confined with what he considers as misfits. He begins this long day annoyed that he is punished for a cruel prank that his father made him do.

The day in detention is spent with bad behavior, rude pranks, bitter tears and heartless insults, and, finally, with sincere confessions and friendship. While The Breakfast Club is a story of civil disobedience against what might seem ridiculous and unfair rules, it is, most of all, a lesson about the bonding and relationships that can arise when social barriers are broken down amid tension and emotional honesty.

In his twenties, Emilio Estevez went on to act in other films with his fellow Brat Packers – costars Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, and others – starred in ten coming-of-age movies beginning with The Outsiders in 1983 and ending with Wisdom in 1986.

Estevez is the son of Martin Sheen and the brother of Charlie Sheen. When he began finding acting success, his father Ramon Estevez took the stage name of Martin Sheen, a name that is a blend of people who had helped him in life.  Young Emilio chose to keep the family name of Estevez partly because he wanted to be recognized on his own merit, without the influence of his father Martin.

Estevez gives credit to his father, however, for gifting him with the talent that runs through his family, and for giving him a movie camera at the age of 11. Father Sheen brought 14-year old Emilio on location of the filming of Apocalypse Now when he was 14.  If Emilio wasn’t born an activist and advocate for social change, his father’s influence and avant-garde upbringing certainly put him on that path.

In high school at Santa Monica High School in California in 1980, Emilio starred in a film he co-wrote about Vietnam veterans, Echoes of an Era. After he had acted in, wrote, and/or directed 26 films before 1999, the nearly 40-year old actor decided he wanted to “start making films he wanted to see.” That resolve resulted in only nine films between 1999 and 2010, the year of his last film.

In 2007, 13 years ago, Estevez read an April 2 Los Angeles Times column by the retired Assistant Director of the Salt Lake Public Library, Chip Ward. Written Off was actually excerpted from a blog post by Ward.* Ward sympathetically described the homeless, harmless, poor, and mentally ill who simply are looking for a warm, safe place to welcome them. Ward writes, “Public libraries… are open and tolerant, even inviting and entertaining places for [the homeless and mentally ill] to seek refuge from a world that will not abide their often disheveled and odorous presentation, their odd and sometimes obnoxious behaviors and the awkward challenges they present.” Estevez was intensely moved by the article – both by his own need to expose humanitarian issues that trouble today’s society, but also by the honest prose of a librarian who felt much the same.

Estevez knew the public library well in 2007 – he had spent days a decade before in the Central Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library researching for his film Bobby, based on the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Bobby premiered in 2006 to critical reviews.

Estevez set about writing The Public in 2007, after reading that LA Times article, and then began hanging out again in the library – this time people watching. He wanted to write an important screenplay about the Public – the homeless and mentally ill in our society who find acceptance and comfort in the embrace of the open, tolerant and welcoming rooms of another Public (the library).

It’s no secret that the homeless and mentally ill have nowhere to go during the daytime hours when the shelters are closed. Stores and other off-limits public buildings do not welcome them. But libraries do not discriminate – there is “no first-class cabin within the walls of the library.”  Public libraries across this country are hives of activity for all social classes. Darien, Connecticut, one of the most affluent communities in the United States, boasts that over 95% of its residents have a public library card. Lady Bird Johnson said of the public library, “There is no place in any community so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.” And interest in a safe and welcoming environment is what has become the de facto shelter of the public library.

Public libraries have also become government and private business access points – Social Security, IRS, healthcare and job applications have moved online where vulnerable populations must go to complete them.

The Public hit theaters on Friday, April 5 after 12 years in the making. I was fortunate enough to see the movie both in July 2018 and again in January 2019 during screenings at the American Library Association conferences with Estevez in attendance. He was interested in learning what librarians felt about the depiction of their profession. The standing ovations said it all. Librarians felt that the business of librarianship was well-represented and that the fragile populations who find safe haven in the library were depicted honestly.

Estevez’ co-star Christian Slater also starred in the film Bobby. Slater says, “One of the things I truly admire about Emilio is… his passion… to take on the real issues and raise awareness.” The lessons Andrew Clark learned in the high school library were not lost on Emilio Estevez. In The Public, he is again amongst the rebels he must bond with to move beyond society’s social barriers.

The Public will be screened at the Dedham Community Theatre this month. The library will screen the film once the video becomes available and will have copies to borrow.

Chip Ward’s entire blog post can be found in How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel at TomDispatch.com, April 2010.

Charlotte Canelli is the Director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 11, 2019 issue of the Norwood Transcript.

Swoosh. Swish. Chatter. Crunch. Silence. Swoosh. Chatter. Crash.

The sound of me learning to ski, just a few weeks ago at the end of the ski season at Killington Vermont. Even though I grew up in the frozen north, I never learned to downhill ski. My mother had me on ice skates almost as soon as I could walk, and we had weeks of snowshoe and cross-country ski units in gym class. But the downhill skiing never took.

I recall one school trip as a young child to Ski Big Tupper. I don’t remember now what prompted them to take us on a skiing field trip over an hour away, but I do remember that I didn’t like it. Not one bit. I fell over, got cold and wet, couldn’t get back up, and the other kids laughed at me. I tried something new, probably under duress, failed immediately and vowed never to ski again.

Cut to winter 2019, and someone has convinced me that although I had a bad experience trying to ski as a child, maybe I should try it again as an adult who is not under duress to learn, and who at the very least could enjoy the benefits of après ski. It would also help to use better equipment (I don’t even think we had ski poles or real ski boots in Tupper, let alone goggles) and take an actual instruction class for adult novice skiers.

By the end of the trip I was off the learner slope and happily skiing on actual trails, but I failed a lot before I succeeded. People have different learning styles, and for whatever reason I wasn’t quite getting what the instructor was saying. The instructions made sense, but my feet just weren’t doing what they should and he couldn’t explain it in a way that would correct me. My biggest obstacle was being able to turn – kind of an important skill to master if you’re going to do anything other than ski in a straight line. My friend finally hit on the mental trick that worked for me: to learn how to turn I held my hands out in front of me and actually moved my hands like I was steering a big wheel, and bingo presto I was turning. My theory for why this method worked is because I’m good at hand-eye coordinated tasks, but am hopeless at foot-eye activities such as soccer and, apparently, learning to ski.

Learning brand new things as an adult is difficult. Lifelong learning is important for brain health and makes you a more scintillating conversationalist, but teaching yourself to do something you’ve never tried before is scary. For one thing, we’re afraid of failing. Ego and the desire to save face gets in our way, and we can get discouraged when we don’t immediately succeed at a new endeavor.

We see this all the time in the library. When I’m working on the Reference Desk, I help people do all sorts of things on the computer, on their phones or tablets, and on library technology such as the scanner or copier. Every day, adults apologize to me when they don’t do something perfectly the first time they try it. This self-deprecation really isn’t necessary though, because every single person who knows how to do something well started out not knowing how to do it. We all had to turn on the computer for the first time, muddle our way through the first screen of prompts on the fax machine, and figure out how to get back up again after falling on a pair of skis. Whatever the skill, none of us do it right the first time. The important thing is to take a breath, dust yourself off, and try, try again.

I’m especially proud of the students in our Learn to Knit and Learn to Crochet classes, which we offer on alternating months in the fall, winter, and spring. We get a lot of adults who have been curious about knitting or crocheting, but who have never thought of themselves as crafty or worked with yarn before. We keep the classes small and create a safe space where we all start with the basics, helping students along on an individual level. These folks are literally training their muscles to do something they’ve never done before, and learning a craft can be frustrating at first – we know it’s frustrating, because we’ve been there. As an instructor, it’s a fun challenge to try to figure out just the right way of explaining the technique or helping the student visualize what they need to do next, until suddenly the craft clicks for them.

We offer a number of hands-on learning opportunities at the library, including Learn to Knit and Learn to Crochet classes. We also have one-on-one technology appointments where you can bring your device or use our laptop, and sit down with one of our Technology Librarians to learn a new skill. Please contact the Reference Desk, 781-769-0200 x110, or visit our website, norwoodlibrary.org, to join one of the “Learn to” classes or book a technology appointment. If you’d like to experience the challenge and reward of teaching someone a brand new set of skills and make a real impact on their life, consider becoming an English as a second language (ESOL) tutor through our Literacy program (781-769-4599).

However, I regret to inform you that at this time the Morrill Memorial Library will not be adding learn to ski classes to our roster of services.

Liz Reed is the Adult Services Library at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 4, 2019 issue of the Norwood Transcript.