A column by By Larry “Ratso” Sloman

By Larry "Ratso" Sloman

I grew up in the ‘50s in a middle-class family in Queens. My father was a salesman; my mother was the bookkeeper for a small business in Manhattan. We didn’t have enough money to fly off to vacations in France or Italy. When we left Queens, we’d pile into my dad’s Chevy and drive to places like Vermont, Massachusetts, and once, all the way to Kentucky to see the fabled stable where Triple Crown winner Citation was living out his remaining years.

But there was a place near my apartment building where I could go and travel to the most exotic places in the world – and even time travel to boot. That was my local library. It was hallowed ground to a young kid like me. During the hours that I spent there I was totally free – free from doing chores, free from the gossip and shifting alliances that young children are so famous for, free to be whoever I wanted to be.

I didn’t have to travel to Russia to immerse myself in the intrigues of St. Petersburgh in 1805 – I only had to pull down Tolstoy’s War and Peace from the shelf.When I wanted to experience Paris I pored over Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. I felt like I was right there storming the Bastille back in 1789.

But the library was much more than just a substitute for travel for those who couldn’t afford it. No matter what your interest was there was a friendly librarian there who could point you to a section that could expand your horizons.

One year I got a cool magic kit for my birthday. Within a few days, I was curled up in corner of the library reading the secrets of the great Harry Houdini. I was a rabid Yankees fan and my hero was Mickey Mantle, but thanks to the library I could learn about Mickey’s heroes like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

The library was also a refuge for older people who would spend hours there reading one of the many daily newspapers that competed for primacy in New York City back then. All in all, it was a great place to hang, a place where young and old and those in-between could co-exist peacefully under the watchful gaze of the librarians, most of whom were female, making a strong case for matriarchal rule!

I began a life-long love affair with the printed word (I have over 5,000 books in three different storage spaces) and thanks to Mrs. Piazza, a wonderful teacher in junior high school who encouraged my writing, I went on to write twelve books of my own, including two books with Howard Stern, two books with Mike Tyson, and a controversial biography of my old pal Harry Houdini.

When my wife and I bought a house in this area in 1998 we were thrilled that the library on William Floyd Parkway carried a very extensive catalog of DVDs. In fact, libraries had adapted with the times and not only offered books, CDs and DVDs, but also provided computer services, community group meeting rooms, and would even allow people to print out documents from their mobile phones.

Which brings me to the bond vote being held on Tuesday December 10th at the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Library on William Floyd Parkway in Shirley. The vote, if approved, will enable the library to issue $22, 690, 964 in bonds which will not only pay for a complete renovation of the existing building but would fund the construction of two state of the art satellite branches – one in Mastic Beach and another in Moriches. That sounds like a lot of moolah but the average homeowner in the area will only have to shell out about $7 a month to pay for all the treasures that will be housed in these three buildings. That’s cheaper than a Netflix subscription. Or even a two-piece chicken dinner at Popeye’s!

Look, I’ve never been to China. But I can get there in my mind reading Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth sitting in a comfy chair in one of the three buildings of the fabulous new Mastics-Moriches-Shirley library. And that’s good enough for me.

Editor's Note: Larry "Ratso" Sloman, of Mastic Beach, is the author of 12 books including the Howard Stern best-seller, Private Parts.