Here are two photos of the stairway by the library/ waterfall where I read The Stand. Makes me nostalgic. They cleaned it up considerably these days, so it's less rough-and-tumble, and I kind of miss the dilapidated-ness...
You can't see the waterfall from these angles, but, if you sit here, you can certainly hear it.
Here are some pics of other views from this little area behind the NS Library...
If you parked your ten-speed at the top of the stairs, it attracted attention, so it was best to lift it down the stairs and hide out of view. I can't tell you how many times I scraped my shins on those bike pedals while performing this operation... And that's what I associate most with that summer and reading The Stand: scraped shins and the stone summer steps behind the library.
You can't see the waterfall from these angles, but, if you sit here, you can certainly hear it.
Here are some pics of other views from this little area behind the NS Library...
If you parked your ten-speed at the top of the stairs, it attracted attention, so it was best to lift it down the stairs and hide out of view. I can't tell you how many times I scraped my shins on those bike pedals while performing this operation... And that's what I associate most with that summer and reading The Stand: scraped shins and the stone summer steps behind the library.
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ReplyDeleteLike you carved out your own little piece of the Barrens :)
ReplyDeleteThat's true! Thankfully... no Deadlights/ evil clowns.
DeleteAlong those lines, when I think of all the most-imprinting, fun memories I have of being a kid, nine out of ten of them were ridiculously dangerous and stuff I'd be horrified to discover my own kid was doing. Not that reading-behind-the-NS-library is all that dangerous, but if there was an out of the way spot, ratty-old-bridge-across-middle-of-the-woods-chasms, or old refrigerator or unexplored subterranean lair/ dangerous-construction site, I was magnetically attracted to it. (And this was all of course before cellphones, etc.)
I never commented on this?!? How'd that happen...?
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I love stuff like this. I don't know if it solely the tug of nostalgia or if books actually do help one remember the circumstances under which they were read; but I've got tons of associations like this, too, and a great many of them in relation to King books.
This is likely not a coincidence. I just don't know if the books caused the memories or if the memories caused me to love the books. Maybe a bit of both.
Amen, brother!
DeleteWe're headed to Rhodey at the end of next week for my parents' 50th anniversary and I will be taking a little walk down to the library with the kids. Show them where Daddy first met (the extended version) of Randall Flagg.
I guess this was the last summer I didn't have my driver's license, either - I missed the driver's ed class and had to wait until I was 17 to drive.
So you're saying that when you first read "The Stand," you were a walkin' dude...?
DeleteIndeed I was. (Now I've got Anthrax in my head...)
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