It is a typical Wednesday at the Town of Johnsburg Library. John, a chimney sweep who sometimes sells cutlery door to door, is studying the classifieds. Joyce, who is retired, is shelving returns.
Voices rise and fall like breathing.
In Johnsburg, the remote and isolated township in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state where I live, that place is the library. As if to prove my point, in walks Bill Thomas, taking a break from his job as town supervisor. Maybe he meant to look for a book, but he stops short of the stacks to console a man whose relatives have just lost their house to a fire. But he is savvy enough to know that he has been working the whole time. A woman who cleans houses for seasonal residents comes in with her two children, who disappear into the children's area and flop down on a beanbag panda.