Reading about the awards ceremony for the Chilton-Clanton Public Library’s summer reading program brought back fond childhood memories.

I spent many summer days at the Alabaster Public Library. My great aunt worked there, and it seemed my mom took me to the library daily.

That’s one thing I’ll always appreciate about both of my parents–they always had time to spend with me. I’m not sure how they did it, but they did–and their effort in raising me is how I’ve become who I am.

Being an only child probably helped, but it never hurt when the activity I was interested in was one they thought would help me in school.

I won some prizes but don’t think I ever read the most books in a summer. I enjoyed reading, but I also loved to play outside. But I do still have plenty of fond memories of the library, probably the same kind of memories the Chilton County children will have of their reading program at the library.

I hope these children are one day as appreciative as I am now of the effort the library staff made in hosting the program and of the effort their parents made in allowing them to participate.

One memory, though, I hope they can do without: The air conditioning in the boys’ bathroom at the Alabaster library sounded a lot like the machine aided breathing of Darth Vader off the Star Wars movies, making me think the villain was going to sneak up behind me at any minute.

But I’ll still take a vivid imagination–nurtured by all those books I read–over the alternative any day.