Tolly P. Salz

Imagine having graduated from both Princeton University and Harvard Business School: you face a beautiful future that most certainly awaits, with myriad job opportunities that surely abound. But rather than enter the world of business, rather than accept job offers that will place you on the fast track to the top, you decide instead to serve the very country that provided you with so many opportunities to thrive.

You join the Marines.

Not something most of us would do, but yet a conscious decision that was without question the right choice for Mr. Donovan Campbell, a man who just so happened to finish at the top of his Marine's Basic Officer Course and who later would serve his country twice in Iraq and once in Afghanistan. In time, Campbell would command his own platoon—"Joker One," so named for its radio call sign—through bloody combat in Iraq. Campbell, a survivor and much-decorated soldier, would then write a meaningful memoir documenting the bravery of his men.

And just the other day, I had the opportunity to hear him speak. My life wasn't the only one changed that day as he addressed a group of high school students and their teachers, sharing with us the lessons he has learned by serving our country.

• Lesson One: Each day is a gift from God.

• Lesson Two: You are stronger than you realize.

• Lesson Three: Pursue virtue. Don't ask yourself, "What do I want to do?" Rather, ask yourself, "Who do I want to be? What kind of person do I want to be? And what do I need to do to get there?" Strive to better yourself as a person.

• Lesson Four: The best way to say thank you to our troops is to make sure that they are coming back home to a country worth fighting for. Ask yourself, "What am I doing to make this country a better place?" What is each one of us fighting for right here at home so that when the troops come back, they find a place that is markedly better than it was when they left?

• Lesson Five: Faith is important. It's the only thing you can take with you when you die, and it's all you have to use to deal with and understand life.

Today is Memorial Day, a day set aside in this country to honor those who have gone before us, those who have so selflessly given their lives so that we could have the freedom to live ours so comfortably. While first observed in May of 1868 and made official by Congress in 1971, Memorial Day must now, in 2011, be a day that still matters.

As we reflect on our lives, as well as on the lives of others, let us celebrate the gift of these young women and men who have served us; let us honor their strength; let us admire their virtue. Let us give to our country selflessly in the ways that we can to serve, helping to make this place better. And let us never lose faith in the country that was established and created by rebels, renegades, visionaries, and scholars; by lovers and fighters; by those who never knew the meaning of the word "quit."

Ours is a country worth fighting for, and fight we must, no matter where we are: sitting in a classroom while you are away at college; working in an office so that you can make ends meet for your family; or fighting on the front lines so that you can ensure a better world for all.

To all of those who fight the good fight, I say, Thank You.

By Tolly Salz

My memory contains an image of a young Jane Eyre, curled up in a window seat with Bewick’s Book of British Birds, escaping in solitude to enter a realm of meaning.  Next to this vision is a realization, illumined by Scout Finch as she understands that not reading is akin to not breathing.  Take books away, and something inside is certain to die; for books—like nothing else that exists—provide invisible cities that render worlds of wonder.

When I was a child, my mother took my brothers and me to HP’s Town library on Tuesdays (as it was closed Mondays—a technicality that still irks me to some small degree).  In this place I would become lost, yet found again in a sanctuary of sorts, in a place unlike others that allowed me to hear that still, quiet voice I could not hear elsewhere.  Some people attend church to discover such inspiration; but put me in a library, and I’ve found with certainty the true nature of the divine.  These Tuesday trips fed me in ways I wasn’t completely aware of back then, and because I want my own children to experience this sort of communion, I take them on this same pilgrimage—often with my mother in tow—to my own Canterbury on Drexel Drive as often as I possibly can.

Books not only become passports to places less traveled, but also transform us into people we have imagined—and yet have never dreamed—we’d actually become.  For any child to be denied this pleasure, this basic need, is to be robbing her of the greatest joy.  And this joy isn’t simply the joy of reading or the pleasure of the printed page; this joy is the fundamental element of knowing who you are in a world that sometimes asks for something, for someone else.

Several years ago, three former students of mine went door-to-door, collecting books from residents, with hopes to establish a public library for one of the largest towns not to have one.  I can remember thumbing through my collection of works, deciding which titles I could possibly part with, a difficult task for someone who views her books as cherished family members.  But the cause was too great:  books needed to be held in the hands of neighbors, discovered, rather than sitting on some shelves, ignored.  I bid a fond farewell to a few old friends and, with faith and hope, sent them into the great unknown. 

And thus, with a motley collection of various tomes from various community members, a town’s public library was born.

Even though my three-year-old calls it “Arthur’s Library” (named for his best friend, a frequent visitor), other residents know it as the UP Library.  I know it as the vision of three high school girls—in connection with other like-minded citizens—who sowed the seeds for a bountiful harvest, food for the future so that others would never feel hunger.

Let community libraries be not, but rather instead house, invisible cities of sorts. Let libraries be places that our children can visit in all stages of their lives, feeding that curiosity and wonder, finding that sanctuary and solitude, well into adulthood.  Let these, then, be the places where we discover who we are, as well as dream of who we can become.