Date: Fri 24-Oct-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Booth-Library-bricks

Full Text:

Path To Knowledge Is Lined With Bricks

(with photos)

BY DOROTHY EVANS

Thanks to the generosity of its literary citizenry, Newtowners can now look

forward to skipping down the proverbial Path To Knowledge (or up it, in this

case) to reach an actual Magic Kingdom located right in the center of their

town.

Of course, we are not talking here about the yellow brick road leading to the

Emerald City of Oz, though the reference to the children's book does seem

appropriate to this story.

The vision we are describing is a "concrete" one, and very real indeed.

It concerns the walkway that has just been installed at the rear of the newly

renovated and expanded Cyrenius H. Booth Library on 25 Main Street, leading

from the parking lot to the library's new main entrance on its sunny south

side.

The walkway curves invitingly across a newly seeded lawn and past a rather

Narnia-like lamp post that could have come right off the pages of C.S. Lewis's

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe .

The Sarah Mitchell Rose Garden may be seen nearby, though this year's blooms

have gone past, and a mature maple tree is dropping its leaves like gold coins

into the pachysandra and azaleas planted below.

Sandblasted Messages

The new walkway is lined on both sides by more than 380 Memory Bricks, each

one purchased by a Newtown resident and Booth Library supporter for $40 and

inscribed or sandblasted, with a special three-line message.

The lines convey words of wisdom or commemorate births, absent family members

and beloved pets. Some take note of special dates and occasions.

The Digman family writes that, We Loved It Here '93-'97.

The Ober family advises us to Read Proverbs 9:10.

Books Are Good Friends , writes the Kotch family.

Many bricks were donated by Newtown clubs, businesses and organizations.

Some of the more intriguing messages are meant to provoke thought or action

and do not reveal the identities of their donors.

Stay Warm, Eat Well, Have Fun

Read Books Not Bricks

To Read Is To Learn

A Place To Grow

Take The Gentle Path

Read E.B. White

So Many Books, So Little Time

Others are just plain fun and rather cryptic, leading the passerby to wonder

about all sorts of things the donor might have had in mind.

For example, exactly who is the Tigger that writes I Love You Pooh ?

And what does Wysiwyg have to do with a Technology Oriented Car ?

We do think we have solved the mystery about the identity of Janus, The

Literary Hound . That would be the wise and obedient fox hound we observed

helping Barbara Yarbrough at the Labor Day Book Sale.

He was so well-behaved and his "Sit, Stay" so exemplary that he definitely

deserves his own brick.