This is the plaque outside the Yorba Linda Public Library, which was pretty much my second home as a child. I frequented this place 2-3 times a week and almost always had the maximum number of books checked out (35). I volunteered here starting from fifth grade all the way through school where I eventually became a "VIP" volunteer (Volunteer Internship Program) and headed up all the other summer volunteers. I remember when I was reading to a child and he peed in my lap. Good times. I got paid $100 that summer for 100 hours of work or something weird like that. My name is still immortalized on a plaque on the second floor, haha. Small triumphs in my life.
I have three library cards (Santa Monica Public Library, Los Angeles Library System and the Yorba Linda Public Library). Oh, I guess I have a card to the Newport Beach Library too, but I think I owe them money so let's not remind them of that. What kind of place charges $1 a day per book when it's overdue?! That's blasphemy. I think YLPL charged 10 cents per day per book with a grace period when I was a young'n. I digress. The point I was trying to make is despite all the libraries I've frequented in my life, my favorite is still always the Yorba Linda Public Library. I remember when they remodeled it to the two-story structure it is now and for a year or so the library was confined to a portable trailer (a PORTAKABIN?). There's just something so homey and nice about it. It isn't weirdly stiff and lifeless (I feel the Newport and Santa Monica ones are sometimes) and there aren't hobos laying around outside asking you for money. I'll always feel at home there. I still have my first library card I got when I was 4ish with my name scrawled in blue Sharpie. I think I'll hang onto that thing forever.
