A Day with the Book Man

Final Preparations A DAY WITH THE BOOK MAN by Ruby Boleyn Allen "Of every work the silent part is best, Of all expression that which cannot be expressed." These words of William Story might well refer to the Appalachian book lovers who down through the years worked quietly, tirelessly, year by year to implant book love into the hearts and minds of Eastern Kentucky hill people. They sowed their seed and watched it take hold and grow, marveling at its harvest of undreamed-of rewards. These unsung heroes would agree with Story that the best is the silent part, mute, inexpressible. The following describes a day with one such Book Man, Everett Allen, who after graduating from Berea College in Depression years, found this "temporary" assignment at Homeplace Community Center in Perry County and stayed on for thirty-eight years to see his bookmobile work span three generations of readers. 58 Perhaps Longfellow long before had pinpointed the forces motivating bookmobile librarians: "The love of learning The sequestered nooks And all the sweet serenity Of books." "I always like to make it to Meadow Branch just before morning recess," he said, guiding his Bookmobile onto Buckhorn Road leading to Grapevine, down past Red Hill to the Kentucky River and beyond to the "Meadows." Inside it was hard to hear for the rattling of bookshelves. But outside, mountains stood serene and silent. The spring sun highlighted hints of redbud, sarvis and sycamore leaves eager for unfolding. Shoemake and sagegrass, dead from winter cold, stirred beneath pines as scraggly and strong as the slate-gray cliffs above them. Slim black shadows of leafless trees stretched across ground not quite yet ready for greening. The road wound through the Old and the New, notably mingled. A two-room pioneer cabin with a lean-to boasted a pile of shiny coal by its front paling fence; opposite stood a brick home, modern tri-level design. Weather-bleached barns and outhouses overlooked the site of a maverick Sno-Cone stand, newly-sprouted. Powdery carbon of soil "burnt-off" for plowing lay alongside patches newly-seeded and conserved with pine seedlings. A discarded schoolhouse had been transformed into a dwelling for taxi-drivers. Beyond, shiny new coal-gons sat on railroads waiting for mineral stripped from scarred land on high ridges. It was Tuesday's regular run. "That school I pick up tomorrow. . . It used to have two teachers with a curtain down the middle of the one large room, but now the lop three grades go to the consolidated school farther down. The rest will move, too. I see a lot of empty school houses now. . .remind me in a way of graveyards." It was Everett Allen driving. That spring made his thirty-eighth to travel Eastern Kentucky's backroads, up hollows and across creekbeds to take "story books" to schools without libraries. A Berea College chemistry major, he had found this "temporary " work during the Depression years and somehow lost the heart to go. Four days of every week he visited schools, Fridays being reserved for mending worn covers, erasing cryptic messages, and reloading bookshelves. The years had piled up, and the miles did the same, to over 88,000 on this truck alone. Eleven years before, the shiny new sides of the panel-bodied, 3/4 tonner had been split lengthwise to swing open for outside shelves for the upper grades. Interior shelves were fastened to rollers that extended them out the back opening for primary students. And the readers, like the miles, had grown into the thousands. Some even grew up to go off to college to return as teachers to their home schools still served by the Bookmobile. 59 Underway, Loaded With Books Sixty-three thousand loans were made in a peak year, a deceiving figure since one book often meant several readings by family members. Eight hundred miles were logged weekly with the help of an assistant added later to serve as many as forty-eight schools in five counties: Perry, Knott, Wolfe, Breathitt, and Powell. The school year's work expanded into summer runs with stops at store porches, by front fences, and in oak-tree shade. Drop-outs...