On Friday of this week, Mobile Number 1 – the big, bright red bookmobile that visits many communities in Lunenburg and Queens Counties – will pull in to the Caledonia corner for an extended visit.

Partly as a result of the fire which destroyed the community’s elementary school, the visit will begin at 10:30 and last until 12:30, then open again from 1:30 to 3:30. The schedule will be in effect on alternating Fridays from now until Christmas, at which time its use will be reviewed.

Anne Everts, the popular librarian aboard Mobile 1, told me that the idea was to be in the area for a longer period. They planned to initiate the service last Friday, when the elementary children were still out of school, but the transmission on the bus developed problems and the trip could not be made. She said that if the service were there a longer time, possibly teachers could bring their classes down.

This would help alleviate some of the difficulties created when the school library was destroyed in the fire. Anne said that it was impossible for the mobile library to get any closer to the school, due to construction and the moving of portable classrooms to the site, but the hope was that teachers and children would be able to make use of the service.

And since, under the split shift arrangements, the elementary students use the high school in the mornings and have the afternoons off, parents can help their children by taking them to the mobile library between 1:30 and 3:30. Last year the mobile library visited the school so that nursery school students could use it, but this year, with the nursery school forced to move to the fire hall, the extended hours will make it possible for those children to use it at the corner as well.

Teachers are able to sign out collections of books for their classes. Besides the extended Friday hours, the mobile library will keep its usual schedule of coming to the village on alternating Saturdays, between 10:30 and noon. Anne Everts said that the library was also looking for books which can be donated to the elementary library once it is up and running again.



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For years and years, one of my favourite writers in my favourite magazine has been Calvin Trillin, whose gently humourous way of looking at people – the things they do and eat – has often graced the pages of the New Yorker.

The New Yorker is a weekly magazine and we eagerly read it week to week, full as it is of astute political comment, reviews, cartoons, stories about the world and fiction. For writers, publishing in the New Yorker is about as good as it gets.

Calvin Trillin has a summer home in Port Medway. Occasionally he writes about the experience of coming to Nova Scotia with his family, something he has done since 1972. A few weeks ago the New Yorker put out its annual style issue, and in it was a piece by Calvin Trillin called “Letter from Nova Scotia: Rag Time.�

It was, as you may have guessed, about the experience of shopping at Frenchy’s, particularly the one in Liverpool. Calvin writes that when he first came to the area he was introduced to Frenchy’s by “a friend of ours named Judy, who was the high-school librarian in Liverpool.� This would have been Judith Comfort, who went on to write several books about food and travel in the Maritimes.

What brought Frenchy’s to Calvin Trillin’s mind again, he writes, was that another woman he knew in Liverpool, Kate Killam, had decided to become a sort of sub-industry of Frenchy’s. He is, of course, referring to Kathryn Killam, who sells quality second-hand clothing in her shop on Church Street, as well as in Mahone Bay, New York and Toronto.

“Kate,� Trillin wrote, “who had carted off dozens of trash bags full of clothing from Guy’s Frenchy’s during the winter, was excited about plans to expand her operation. She’d had the garage of her house in Liverpool converted into an attractive showroom called Killam Studio to serve local customers by appointment.�

He describes how he went with her one morning to Frenchy’s in Liverpool were he watched her in action, working her way steadily through the sweater bin or the blouse bin. “She seemed to be in a sort of focused high,� he wrote, “like a .340 hitter in the batting cage.�

Tom Sheppard can be reached at tsheppar@ca.inter.net