“I think that says a great deal about how much we as a society value the written word,” a shocked librarian said regarding the library book.
The following written content from Sasha von Oldershausen
A vintage children’s hardback turned up in the mailroom of the Queens Public Library in Auburndale recently. The book was “Ol’ Paul, the Mighty Logger,” by Glen Rounds, a collection of Paul Bunyan tall tales. According to the date stamped on the borrowing card inside, it was about 23,000 days late.
Betty Diamond, of Madison, Wis.,had sent it back after more than 63 years, along with a $500 donation to the Queens Public Library, which more than covered the late fees.
As a girl, Betty had been “too ashamed to go to the library with an overdue book,” she recalled. So, “Ol’ Paul” ended up staying with her as she grew up, establishing a career in academia and settling in the Midwest.
n 1957, Betty was a 10-year-old growing up in Whitestone, Queens. She read just about anything she could get her hands on. Books offered her a secret life apart from her parents, immigrants from a small town in what was then called Czechoslovakia who were less familiar with American culture. “That was actually great for me because that meant I could read whatever I wanted,” Ms. Diamond said, adding that her parents had their own secrets. They spoke to each other in Hungarian, their mother tongue, while addressing Betty and her older brother only in English or Yiddish.
For Betty, going to the library as a child was like “being in a candy store.” This was the backdrop of her grade-school interest in “Ol’ Paul,” which she checked out from the library that spring, with a due date of July 10, 1957.For Betty, going to the library as a child was like “being in a candy store.” This was the backdrop of her grade-school interest in “Ol’ Paul,” which she checked out from the library that spring, with a due date of July 10, 1957.
As the years went by, and Betty became a teenager at Bayside High School, and then an undergraduate at Queens College, the book simply got lost in the shuffle of her young life. On the odd occasion that she came across it, she said, she couldn’t bring herself to deal with the issue.
Throwing it out was out of the question. “I have a great fondness for books and I really regard them with honor,” said Ms. Diamond, who, in case readers need further proof, ultimately received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and would later go on to teach literature at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Read more from NY Times
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