A Morgue


Dear Eugene,

It's not the first time I've called a book out of its morgue, a place to keep what is dead, pending final burial.  A morgue can also be a reference file in a newspaper office, collecting old clippings and books and such for future use, to move forward by looking back.

Can you read the print on the sleeve?  It says: "Borrowers are responsible for returning this book in good condition.  Please examine before taking out and report any defacement."  Beneath it another line stamped on in all caps "OVERDUE FINES 10¢ PER DAY."  And the 10 was hand-printed over the original stamped 5.  That's an 100% increase.

The world has become more user-friendly now, a kinder place.  The fine system still exists but only to embarrass the service-givers.  Nowadays if there's a late fee to collect a librarian would by default suggest it can be put off to the next visit in perpetuity.  We've paid enough tax to take care of matter of 5 and 10.  Boys will be boys and one time I saw a group having some uproarious fun at a "Teens Only" reading area and no librarian could do nothing about the natural course of testosterone though one did try and was fitfully called a bitch.  At a different corner a child tore a page off a book with an Oops to earn the oh-so-cute approval from her mom who drooped her brows like a happy puppy.

Time has changed.  For good or bad, we are eating what we sow, and our next generations eating it worse, "for they were unseasoned, nor inured, not knowing this to be much less than the beginning of sorrow."

Yours, Alex

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