Mask Image 1

Join Pressible, a link to sign up for Pressible

Learning at the Library

Contact | Feed RSS Icon

Contributors

Related Tags

News Displays RSS Icon

18 posts
1 authors
101 tags

The Chicago Picasso

I catch a glimpse from the corner of my dad’s office window high up in the glass skyscraper. Sitting cross-legged, dizzy looking down, I try to replicate the puzzling sculpture on paper with pencil. Is it a bird, dog, an aardvark, baboon head, or possible profile of a woman? I have not heard yet of …

Posted 23 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Patent in Play

Her favorite blue jeans sport a gaping hole across the right knee,  seam to seam. Hand-me-down from her brother and previously her neighbor, the Polos are faded comfortably to a soft speckled gray in some places, reminding us of tiny eggs in a bird’s nest. Together we ponder the first real bike ride, seeing her …

Posted 24 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Sugarplum Visions

My father smiles gently and bends down, whispering that I will see the Sugarplum Fairy. During the next few weeks at Mrs. Klaus’ class, I anticipate through all five ballet positions how the eponymous candy translates into Joffrey at Chicago’s Auditorium Theater -- a sweet piece of dried plum becoming a perfect twirl of pale …

Posted 30 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Charting Columbus

The dock is our compass, our legs, the arrows facing west. Staring up into the inky blackness, we draw a path from star to star resembling the hull of a ship, as little waves lap the salty posts like a cat licking a bowl of cream. The harbor is quiet, but for the soft purr …

Posted 32 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Home Fortitude

Built in 1870, our house survived the Great Chicago Fire. She witnessed from her large bay windows the greedy flames devouring our town after Bessie, the cow, kicked over the lantern in the O’Leary’s barn. Just how close she was in her infancy, I could never be sure, but the sight and smell must have …

Posted 32 months ago by Jennifer Govan

1 Comment(s):

Jennifer, What a fine post…

Cave Visit

The long, jagged crystals look like light blue icicles, hanging there from the roof of the cave as they reflect the watery depth of 55 feet. It is beautiful, delicate, and eerie at the same time – a subterranean palace of precious mineral nestled beneath the warm, pink sands of Bermuda. Though they were visited by …

Posted 33 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Of Metal Boxes and Money Trees

Intent on depositing a week’s worth of waitressing wages and tips, I was directed by the suited teller to a metal box in the entrance to my local bank. I was working that summer in an ice cream parlor, saving my hard-earned dollars for college, and I worried whether automation would prove a reliable substitute …

Posted 34 months ago by Jennifer Govan

1 Comment(s):

My mom always prefers going into the bank and working with a teller - she says "you can never trust a machine"…

Beyond the Eclipse

Our family telescope sits in a silver tripod close to the early red geraniums, their green leaves fuzzy against my kneecaps. I am barely tall enough to look through the lens, hoping to examine the fine details of the Moon as she passes between the Earth and the Sun which will look like a dark …

Posted 34 months ago by Jennifer Govan

1 Comment(s):

Jennifer, you are a poet…

Henry Ford at Old Farm Road

My grandfather Felix owned a vintage collection of car prints, a prized possession that featured all the early Fords, many of which are  physically on display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The colorful prints included the 1896 Quadracycle, Ford’s first car; the 1905 Model B; 1909 Model T Touring;1916 Apperson Jack Rabbit; …

Posted 35 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

NYC Black Out

The message I’m composing disappears like a genie in a bottle. Words vaporize into the monitor, the unfinished sentence tilted in the air like an italicized question mark. I look up and see the fluorescent lights flickering, punctuated by the sighs of nearby librarians. The mustard brown air conditioners rattle like arthritic snakes, then drone …

Posted 35 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Football Folly

It is July 9.  We are rolling up I-95 in Betty Blue, a leather-seated 1964 vintage Mercedes, and listening, windows down, hair flying, to the sultry sound of the Gipsy Kings, a Spanish-language music group from Provence, France. Foxboro Stadium is hosting the 1994 World Cup semi-finals between Italy and Spain, "two great southern European …

Posted 35 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Z is for Zoo

I never visited the Philadelphia Zoo, lodged on a Victorian 42 acre site as the first U.S. Zoo, but I made countless trips to the Lincoln Park Zoo -- one of the nation’s oldest, including a July birthday celebration in which a goat nibbled a hole in my mother’s hand sewn lettuce green dress. And …

Posted 36 months ago by Jennifer Govan

1 Comment(s):

As an international student, the zoos in New York have always enthralled me…

WW1: Finding a Frame of Reference

Late at night I thumbed through The New York Times Book of World War 1 (Arno Press, 1980), a compilation of headlines in a home resource of fine books on military history. I knew that these stories were easily accessible through Proquest Historical Newspapers, but it was somehow more immediate and satisfying to see the …

Posted 36 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Pledging Allegiance

At my daughter’s kindergarten closing ceremony four children walked to the center microphone and asked parents to “please stand as we recite the Pledge of Allegiance.” They retreated into lines, as the two classes of 2018 turned in unison towards the flag, placed hand over heart; and dutifully began. The sweet voices of some sixty …

Posted 36 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Baseball Musings

A while back we received a query from a fellow librarian at the College Baseball Hall of Fame who hoped to acquire several Teachers College dissertations. I learned of the existence of this unique organization, a central point for the study of the history of American college baseball, located way out in Lubbock , Texas …

Posted 36 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

World Oceans Day – Marine Animals and Sea Workers

In the Ziegfeld Collection of International Children's Art, there is a set of pastels entitled Marine Animals, a diptych created around 1955 by an unknown artist  under the direction of Teacher Elias Nielsen at the Emdrupborg Kommuneskole, Copenhagen, Denmark. The work celebrates simple ocean life in deep rich sea colors: the greens, yellows, oranges, blues, …

Posted 36 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Radio Stories

We were sitting around the dinner table, telling stories as we do, when my six year old daughter began (verbatim), The Annoying Radio Once there was a radio. A very annoying radio. He lived in a store, and the store was owned by a man. The man sometimes heard the radio.  Once he turned on …

Posted 37 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Remembering Lincoln

When I was eight, my father treated  us to a very special  field trip -- a visit to Macon County, Illinois, where my three brothers and I  stood on hallowed ground: the spot where Abraham Lincoln lived as a young man. I remember the sweltering hot summer's day, having journeyed hundreds of miles by car …

Posted 37 months ago by Jennifer Govan

Post a comment.

Recent Posts by Author