Letter in a Library Book

Esquire Magazine, one of my favorite publications is celebrating its 75th Anniversary this year and every issue has a list of 75 things a man should do, try, experience, etc. They are mostly entertaining tidbits, but some of them are really quite interesting. This month's edition is "75 things every man should do at least once in his life".

Number 12 is as follows:

"Leave yourself a letter in a library book. Look for it twenty years later. Pick an obscure biography in a college (in our case public library), since no one there wants to insult obscurity by de-cataloguing a book, and the library will most likely always be there. One page. Be discreet. Type it on erasable bond, tuck it in the back, and hope no one ever notices. As for the content, skip the hopes & dreams. Mention the weather, tell yourself what you ate that morning, make a list of friends, note how much you weigh and whether you feel fat, remind yourself of a secret you want to keep.''

This is pretty neat advice on several levels; it acknowledges that libraries are notoriously bad a weeding their collections (but sometimes you wonder, is it a bad thing?). It also makes the assumption that libraries will always be there....that cheers me considerably; at last there is someone other than librarians who sees the permanence of libraries and their contents. Finally, it alludes to the value and the mystery of a book....you never know what gem of information might be contained therein, what kernel of memory is preserved for the generations, or better still who might pick it up and influenced by it. I hope you will all take the magazine's advice, slip a note to yourself in a library book....it might not change your world today, but it definitely couldn't hurt.