What a real library was like.

Lib rary?

You mean Database, right? Never heard of this liberary.

Is it like the Internet Movie Database? Where if you want to look something up, you peruse the list of things, and when you find it, you can then read it?

That's a Database. DATA BASE.

Kids these days.... don't know anything.

First time I went.
You got something for my son?
He's just small, but he's obsessed with the Incas.
Yeah they did, and that's how it all started.

Not sure why it came out sideways, or how to rotate it.
But through the years, I collected all those books.

Oh please Papa, won't you take me to the library ...
I want to see Montezuma, Atahualpa and the Mayas.
("Die" means "The" in Germanic: Afrikaans or German.)

Every small town I got to as a kid.

You all go shopping, I want to see what they have on the Incas in the library.

And then you discovered, librarians are the most fascinating people.
Across the country - across the planet.

You should be playing rugby with your comrades, why you sitting here talking to old spinsters?

I tell you why, because they knew where the books on the Incas and Aztecs were.

And then you get a letter - you must report as a soldier in the apartheid army.
Me? A soldier?
Well, what could I do?

And on weekends you could join a church close to the barracks of your choosing.
If it wasn't on their list, the Sarge would choose for you.
The dude before you in the line: "I'm an atheist".
Atheist? That sounds like "communist".
Not on the list?
For the next two years you will go the Roman Catholic Church.
Yeah and he had to.
Then me, so fed up, can I please go and sit in the local library?
Flip, they were stunned.
Yeah, go and sit in the library - approved!

I couldn't believe it!
OK the closest library was no bigger than a room.
But flip I was so grateful.