I'm bragging again
03/03/24 01:46
My friends may be getting a bit tired of my constant bragging about our son’s leadership and vision, but one of the joys of my life is being able to brag about our children and grandchildren. I am genuinely proud of them and my life is filled with so much joy because of the work that they do. If you are a regular reader of this journal, you’ve already read about the Mount Vernon Library Commons project and I’m sure that there are many more entries yet to come as the Commons building nears its dedication which will be sometime this summer.
Benjamin Franklin is often credited with being the organizer of the first library in America. He certainly claimed the credit in his autobiography. It was his conviction that access to a library of literature contributed to the common good of the country. An educated citizenry was deemed to be essential to democracy. Franklin’s vision was soon picked up and put into practical use around the nation in the development of community libraries in cities and towns across the nation. Dedicated citizens, seeking to improve the quality of life for themselves and for their fellow community members joined together to create public institutions to serve their communities and contribute to the education of their neighbors.
I grew up with our community library located just a block from our home. The brick facility with a split entrance was crammed with books both upstairs and down and I visited the collection and checked out books nearly every week. I took for granted that everyone should have access to as many books as they could read. I used to go to the library and check out as many books as allowed on my own library card and head back home to read, returning the next week to exchange those books for more.
That love of libraries went into a kind of overdrive when we moved to Chicago and as graduate students had University of Chicago student IDs, which granted us access to The Joseph Regenstein Library with over 4.5 million books. That library is now open to the general public. Visitors who wish to have full library privileges can obtain a Library access card.
These days, I have library cards for two libraries and frequently have books checked out of both at the same time. Our county library system has multiple libraries and we can check out books in multiple locations throughout the county including a small branch facility down by the bay, though we generally visit a larger branch in a nearby town to check out books.
Libraries are evolving to provide many different services to the communities they serve. Modern libraries are much more than collections of books. They are partners with families and public schools in providing literacy education for children and teens. They are centers of learning for those wishing to expand their employment skills and those who want to expand their entrepreneurial skills. The new Mount Vernon Library Commons will provide a commercial kitchen with all of the facilities for safe food production for those wishing to develop food service businesses. It will have expanded spaces for children and teens including room not only for reading programs, but also maker spaces, and room for programs that already attract larger crowds than can be housed in the current library facility. It will also provide much needed public parking and will be the largest public access electric vehicle charging station in the nation. All of this will be supported by a giant solar array and housed in a building that is built to the greenest standard currently available.
The foundation that supports the Mount Vernon Library Commons is well aware of their century long history and its leaders are dedicated to building a facility that will serve well beyond the projected life of most public buildings currently being built. The Library Commons is carefully designed to serve the community for a century or more.
All of this has grown out of the actual needs of an actual community. Community meetings surfaced the goals of the citizens of Mount Vernon including making a different with climate change, providing community gathering space, supporting local businesses and supporting the advance of professional and academic careers.Meeting rooms that can be configured to different sizes combine with an incubator kitchen for catering and a commercial kitchen as well as supporting library programs. It will help food-based businesses transition from dreams to reality.
I can go on and on about this project. Click here for a link to an article in an independent local news web site that has more information. I will be bursting my buttons proud to attend the dedication of the commons this summer.
The saying goes, “Like father, like son.” I’m not sure that the saying is accurate when it comes to me an our son. He certainly has far surpassed his dad when it comes to community leadership and service. But he is raising two sons and one of them was really making his grandfather proud yesterday. The Bellingham Coding and Robotics Club and the Skagit Coding and Robotics Club had a robotics competition yesterday. Teams of middle school aged club members have been working throughout this school year to make and program robots to perform tasks in a competition and the contest was held yesterday. Our grandson’s robot performed well scoring the fourth highest point count of the entire competition and working together with a second robot of a teammate to earn the competition’s singles highest score in an individual round.
I’ve tried running the controllers they use to direct the robots, and I am at best very clumsy and awkward. I have no ideal how to do the programming necessary to direct a battery powered machine with small servo motors to move about an area and perform tasks such as picking up blocks and depositing them into containers. I lack the engineering skills to know how to make the various components work together to work with other robots. The entire process is amazing and surprising to me. Watching our grandson operate with confidence and skill in that field, formulating a strategy for the competition and following through to success has made me incredibly proud and grateful that I could be there to watch.
One of the deep joys of growing older comes from being able to witness the contributions of those who are much younger. I feel grateful that I was allowed to live long enough to see what they are doing.
Benjamin Franklin is often credited with being the organizer of the first library in America. He certainly claimed the credit in his autobiography. It was his conviction that access to a library of literature contributed to the common good of the country. An educated citizenry was deemed to be essential to democracy. Franklin’s vision was soon picked up and put into practical use around the nation in the development of community libraries in cities and towns across the nation. Dedicated citizens, seeking to improve the quality of life for themselves and for their fellow community members joined together to create public institutions to serve their communities and contribute to the education of their neighbors.
I grew up with our community library located just a block from our home. The brick facility with a split entrance was crammed with books both upstairs and down and I visited the collection and checked out books nearly every week. I took for granted that everyone should have access to as many books as they could read. I used to go to the library and check out as many books as allowed on my own library card and head back home to read, returning the next week to exchange those books for more.
That love of libraries went into a kind of overdrive when we moved to Chicago and as graduate students had University of Chicago student IDs, which granted us access to The Joseph Regenstein Library with over 4.5 million books. That library is now open to the general public. Visitors who wish to have full library privileges can obtain a Library access card.
These days, I have library cards for two libraries and frequently have books checked out of both at the same time. Our county library system has multiple libraries and we can check out books in multiple locations throughout the county including a small branch facility down by the bay, though we generally visit a larger branch in a nearby town to check out books.
Libraries are evolving to provide many different services to the communities they serve. Modern libraries are much more than collections of books. They are partners with families and public schools in providing literacy education for children and teens. They are centers of learning for those wishing to expand their employment skills and those who want to expand their entrepreneurial skills. The new Mount Vernon Library Commons will provide a commercial kitchen with all of the facilities for safe food production for those wishing to develop food service businesses. It will have expanded spaces for children and teens including room not only for reading programs, but also maker spaces, and room for programs that already attract larger crowds than can be housed in the current library facility. It will also provide much needed public parking and will be the largest public access electric vehicle charging station in the nation. All of this will be supported by a giant solar array and housed in a building that is built to the greenest standard currently available.
The foundation that supports the Mount Vernon Library Commons is well aware of their century long history and its leaders are dedicated to building a facility that will serve well beyond the projected life of most public buildings currently being built. The Library Commons is carefully designed to serve the community for a century or more.
All of this has grown out of the actual needs of an actual community. Community meetings surfaced the goals of the citizens of Mount Vernon including making a different with climate change, providing community gathering space, supporting local businesses and supporting the advance of professional and academic careers.Meeting rooms that can be configured to different sizes combine with an incubator kitchen for catering and a commercial kitchen as well as supporting library programs. It will help food-based businesses transition from dreams to reality.
I can go on and on about this project. Click here for a link to an article in an independent local news web site that has more information. I will be bursting my buttons proud to attend the dedication of the commons this summer.
The saying goes, “Like father, like son.” I’m not sure that the saying is accurate when it comes to me an our son. He certainly has far surpassed his dad when it comes to community leadership and service. But he is raising two sons and one of them was really making his grandfather proud yesterday. The Bellingham Coding and Robotics Club and the Skagit Coding and Robotics Club had a robotics competition yesterday. Teams of middle school aged club members have been working throughout this school year to make and program robots to perform tasks in a competition and the contest was held yesterday. Our grandson’s robot performed well scoring the fourth highest point count of the entire competition and working together with a second robot of a teammate to earn the competition’s singles highest score in an individual round.
I’ve tried running the controllers they use to direct the robots, and I am at best very clumsy and awkward. I have no ideal how to do the programming necessary to direct a battery powered machine with small servo motors to move about an area and perform tasks such as picking up blocks and depositing them into containers. I lack the engineering skills to know how to make the various components work together to work with other robots. The entire process is amazing and surprising to me. Watching our grandson operate with confidence and skill in that field, formulating a strategy for the competition and following through to success has made me incredibly proud and grateful that I could be there to watch.
One of the deep joys of growing older comes from being able to witness the contributions of those who are much younger. I feel grateful that I was allowed to live long enough to see what they are doing.
