Never leave home without your library card. I was leaving home to escape my own half-century mark, rather to fly cross-country to celebrate it with my brothers and sisters and have the dessert of my choice, rhubarb cobbler, three nights in a row in three different houses, with three different sets of nephews and a niece.
My father offered to take me to the airport and I accepted. It was daylight and noontime. As he dropped me off, my 89-year old father said to me, "Now, I think I know my way home..." Both our spouses had been away for several days already and we'd been keeping each other company.
I'd packed my bags for early May, lots of clothes for each day they might get soaked in Seattle, ten pairs of everything I needed for ten days away. I had a purse, a backpack, a small dufflebag, and a too-large suitcase on wheels. I was prepared for anything. Or so I thought.
"License, please", said the clerk behind the airline counter. I opened up my wallet and found everything but. I double-checked. Embarrassed and unnerved, my eyes began to flood with tears. I was turning fifty and my eighty-nine year old father was driving across the state of Rhode Island towards home.
"We need an ID; a passport will work." Mine was at home. I hadn't planned to leave the country.
"Do you have a library card?"
Oh, yes, I had my library card! I was good to go. Only in Rhode Island could this ever happen...
Never leave home without your library card.
Rowena Burke
February 25, 2013
