[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 113 (Monday, July 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9008-S9009]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             KELLOGG-HUBBARD LIBRARY AND MRS. JEAN HOLBROOK

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier 
recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. The Kellogg-Hubbard Library 
holds a very special place in my heart, because I had my first library 
card there. I used to go almost every day. I would be reading a book at 
school or a book at home and sometimes a book in the library in the 
evening.
  Mrs. Jean Holbrook, who was the librarian, was one of those people 
who truly helped form my life and my educational accomplishments as a 
child. It was she who told me when I got bored with the curriculum in 
the third grade that I could also be spending my time reading Dickens 
and Robert Louis Stevenson, and I did with great enjoyment. It was she 
who told me that when I read just about everything in the children's 
library, that she would go with me to get a card in the upstairs 
library, the grownups' library. I guess I was probably the youngest 
grownup at the time, but this helped me, and it has helped me 
immeasurably throughout my life.
  Even today, when I give graduation addresses in high schools and even 
sometimes grade schools in Vermont, I tell the graduates they have 
already learned the most important thing in their life--they have 
learned to read. On top of learning to read, they have developed a love 
for reading, and every door in life will be open to them because their 
love of reading will allow them to expand their imagination and their 
love of life in a way they could not otherwise, but also help them 
learn to be whatever they want to be.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article I wrote for 
the Times Argus in Vermont about the Hubbard Library titled 
``Montpelier Boy Realizes Miss Holbrook Was Right'' be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Times Argus, June 13, 1996]

            Montpelier Boy Realizes Miss Holbrook Was Right

                           (By Patrick Leahy)

       The 100th anniversary of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library 
     triggers memories for all of us who have lived in Montpelier. 
     And they are great memories.
       While I was growing up, Montpelier did not have television. 
     We children did not have the advantage of cable TV with 10 
     channels giving us the opportunity to buy things we didn't 
     need and would never use or another 10 offering blessings or 
     redemptions for an adequate contribution.
       Depirved as we were, we made do with the Lone Ranger and 
     Inner Sanctum on the radio and Saturday's serials at the 
     Strand Theater on Main Street. For a few minutes on Saturday 
     afternoon, we could watch Hopalong Cassidy, Tarzan, Flash 
     Gordon, Jungle Jim or Batman face death-defying predicaments 
     that would guarantee you would be back the next Saturday, 14 
     cents in hand, to see how they survived (and I recall they 
     always did).
       Having exhausted radio, Saturday matinees, the latest comic 
     books (I had a favorite) and childhood games and chores, we 
     were left to our own imagination.

[[Page S9009]]

       That was the best part.
       We were a generation who let the genies of our imagination 
     out of the bottle be reading. Then, as now, reading was one 
     of my great pleasures.
       My parents had owned the Waterbury Record Weekly newspaper 
     and then started the Leahy Press in Montpelier, which they 
     ran until selling it at their retirement. The Leahy family 
     was at home with the printed word and I learned to read early 
     in life.
       At 5 years old I went down the stairs on the Kellog-Hubbard 
     Children's Library, and the years that followed provided some 
     of the most important experiences of my life.
       In the '40s and '50s, the Kellogg-Hubbard was blessed with 
     a whitehaired children's librarian named Miss Holbrook. Her 
     vocation in life had to be to help children read and to make 
     reading enjoyable. She succeeded more than even she might 
     have dreamed.
       She had the key to unlocking our imagination.
       With my parents' encouragement, the Kellogg-Hubbard was a 
     regular stop every afternoon as I left school. On any day I 
     had two or three books checked out. My sister Mary, brother 
     John and I read constantly.
       In my years as U.S. senator, it seems I never traveled so 
     far or experienced so much as I did as a child in Montpelier 
     with daily visits to the library. With Miss Holbrook's 
     encouragement I had read most of Dickens and Robert Louis 
     Stevenson in the early part of grade school.
       To this day, I remember sitting in our home at 136 State 
     St. reading Treasure Island on a Saturday afternoon filled 
     with summer storms. I knew I heard the tap, tap, tap of the 
     blind man's stick coming down State Street and I remember the 
     great relief of seeing my mother and father returning from 
     visiting my grandparents in South Ryegate.
       Miss Holbrook was right. A good book and an active 
     imagination creates its own reality.
       In my profession, I read computer messages, briefing 
     papers, constituent letters, legislation and briefings, the 
     Congressional Record--and an occasional book for pleasure--in 
     all, the equivalent of a full-length book each day.
       Interesting as all this is, and owing much of my life to 
     those earlier experiences at the library, the truest reading 
     pleasure was then. I worry that so many children today miss 
     what our libraries offer.
       During the past few years I have had many of my photographs 
     published. DC Comics and Warner Brothers have also asked me 
     to write for Batman or do voice-overs on their TV series. In 
     each case, I have asked them to send my payment to the 
     Kellogg-Hubbard Library to buy books for the Children's 
     Library.
       It is my way of saying: ``Thank you, Miss Holbrook.''

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I see my good friend from Washington State 
on the floor. If he is not going to seek recognition, I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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