TWF 317 - Praise For The Freeport Memorial Library

Hello, friends.

Libraries around Nassau County are amazing places.  Not only do they have books, but they have digital books.  They provide access to computers for those who might not have working internet connections.  They host classes.  They also provide services for children's enrichment.

Growing up, I remember spending hours upon hours at the Freeport Memorial Library's computer desk.  I remember having to sign in and wait my turn to work on some tremendous CRT monitor and - well, let's be honest, I went there to play games.  My parents encouraged me, since it gave them some time off and it trained me to operate those machines-of-the-future.  You know, like the one I'm writing this on?

I can still see flashes of images in my head from that time.  They're very welcome.

Image courtesy of the Memorial Library webpage.

Yet all is not well as we approach January of 2022.  CoVID-19 has continued to be mainline threat to all of, yanno, Humanity (maybe worthy of a hyper-local update article?).  As a result, in-person community events are largely suspended.  Yet, thanks to the proliferation of technologies such as Zoom (far from the first, but arguably the most widespread), the Library has continued to provide events.  Here's the list for tomorrow, 12/22/2021, and Thursday 12/23/2021:

Click the link near the top of the article to check out the full library schedule!
 - Also, I believe the Chorale Holiday Caroling was cancelled.  Bummer.

There's really no greater purpose to this post than to praise the Library.  Libraries are one of the last great free services provided by our society to our society, and while we really do need more of those, we also need to praise the ones we've still got.  Times are tough.  I know first-hand that librarians at all levels, from the NYC system down to your local elementary school, work extremely hard.  I know CoVID has taken a toll on them.

So, for no particular reason, thank you for everything.

Jesse Pohlman is an author from Long Island, New York, who spent his formative years and many more in Freeport.  He's presently thinking of his parents and good memories because it's his first Solstice without his father, and that's rough.