When I was a child, my grandfather kept his heavy Webster’s Third New International Dictionary on a midcentury oak side table by his desk. Nothing else was on that table, although underneath was a little drawer with a large knob in which he kept an old tobacco pipe or two that he no longer smoked.
The little table is now in my house (as is the dictionary, now rarely consulted). The drawer, now empty, still smells of those pipes, but until recently, every time I passed the table, I’d wince a little. A few years ago, acting inattentively toward my inherited furniture, I’d piled some magazines on the shelf below the drawer, cracking the dry old wood.
I thought I might be able to fix the split, but then I noticed that in the distant past, someone else had made repairs to the shelf that were no longer viable, and I’d have to do a lot more than just glue the crack. The shelf then broke in half.
Despite having many tools at my disposal, this seemed overwhelming. Hence, I simply removed the magazines and adopted the stance of willful blindness. The problem with willful blindness is that you always know there’s something wrong — hence the wince whenever I passed the table, which was daily.
My guilty relationship with this table persisted until a couple of months ago, when I finally resolved to take action. Curtis Memorial Library was hosting a Repair Cafe and I decided to bring my table there.
If you haven’t been to a Repair Cafe, I cannot recommend them enough. This is a worldwide endeavor. Volunteers from the community with expertise in all manner of repairs, including small appliances, jewelry, electronics — and, yes, wooden furniture — convene monthly. Not only can they fix your broken items, but they also can show you how to effect repairs yourself.
Within a matter of minutes, the volunteer who took on my table expertly glued the two halves of the shelf together and removed the wonky nails from the 1970s that were holding the shelf to the legs, replacing them with hefty screws. He then instructed me about how I might add supports on the bottom.
Because the glue needed to dry with clamps, he asked if I would leave the table and return later. When I came back, he had already located and installed extra brackets. The table was much more solid than when I inherited it, and now when I see it, I smile.
Our local Repair Cafes circulate among various locations, including the Patten Free Library in Bath. However, the next one is Sept. 20 at 10 a.m. at Curtis Memorial Library. I’m already considering what I might bring.
While you do not need a library card to patronize a Repair Cafe, September is Library Card Sign-up Month, which is a good reminder to procure your card if you haven’t already. This year’s national theme is “One card, endless possibilities,” which is truly the case; as the American Library Association notes, “It may be small, but a library card packs a mighty punch.”
You can borrow books, of course, but you also can procure museum passes, musical instruments, tools for home repair (Note to self!) and, most recently, a Maine GearShare pass, with which you can borrow everything from tents to backpacks to paddleboards. There’s never been a better time to stop by the library.
An important note from Curtis Memorial Library: Our hours will change beginning Sept. 2, when we will start opening earlier and closing a bit earlier. The library will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.
“Library Connections” is a monthly column that rotates among the three libraries that serve Harpswell: Cundy’s Harbor, Orr’s Island, and Curtis Memorial.
