By Diane Wingert
Carter County Public Library
The Old Book Lady is here to tell you that our youth are not all lost to evil. I had two teenagers walk into the library. They were dressed in what I would call a sketchy manner, but what the kids probably just call “clothes.” I know prejudging should never happen; however, I did prejudge. Am I proud of that? No! They were dressed in black jackets with their hoods raised over their heads. They were nice. Quiet, but nice. They wanted to look around, just browse. I asked if they wanted to check something out. They filled out the applications for their library cards. They checked out DVD’s. I thought, “yep, (you guessed it,) we may never see those DVD’s again.” But I am here to tell you that those two boys brought those DVDs back, and they got another DVD. When they left I was very proud of them. I was so glad that I was wrong about my back of the head thought, the one of not being trusting completely. That, however, is not all that happened.
This is the amazing part. Get those tissues out.
One of the boys had come back up stairs to try to give me a dollar.
I said, “Sweetie what is that for?”
He said, “For the newspaper downstairs, it says they are a dollar.”
Now, this newspaper could have easily been picked up and taken out the door. No questions asked, no second thoughts. I am so proud to say he was trying to pay for a newspaper he could have thought about stealing. Sniff, sniff. He didn’t. I told him, “They are put there by the newspaper guy, Jeremy, free for everyone to read. If you want it, you take it, and read all you want. And thank you so much!”
I know, in a world like we have today, that we often forget, we still have some great people. I feel so good to have been confronted with this great eye opening, heartwarming, experience. So proud of our little community that can still amazes us.
