To its everlasting credit and honor, the Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council has saved countless Springfield buildings and the neighborhood’s legacy of civic pride and spirit.

Once, the library was one of these old mansions, substantial, but no Klutho. Now, it sat by itself on a short block surrounded by massive oaks which jutted incongruously out of the thin, sandy white soil. How could such weak looking sand nurture such big trees?

As a young married couple, my parents had once lived near the library. Now, at least once each week, they drove the vintage Model A the five miles or so into Springfield from the north side neighborhood of North Shore near the Trout River.

In the summer, when we arrived at the library, the late afternoon heat would be shimmering off the sandy parking lot and the red tile roofs nearby. What a relief to climb the steps and be welcomed by the shade of the porch, followed by the deeper cool of the library itself.

[At the time, about the only public building that was “air conditioned” was Cohen’s Department Store in the St. James Building on Heming Park. For northsiders, that required a 20-minute, five cent ride on the 26 North Shore bus that dropped you off in Heming Park.]

Before air conditioning, as a Jacksonville kid in summer to get a brief respite from the heat, you would go to the refrigerator, ostensibly for a slug of ice water from the jug that was always there (woe to the one who did not refill it after gulping down its life savings contents). Deep down however, you wanted to feel the delicious cool–even for a few seconds–when the door was opened, and the frigid air poured invisibly out of the box, swirling deliciously around your sun-baked legs and ankles, often showing the traumatic effects of a bike fall or the revenge of a stubborn oak’s rough trunk before being conquered of a summer morning.

We went “bare foot” all summer. Shoes were put on only for church on Sunday. By the end of summer our calluses were so tough we could walk barefoot through the sandspur patches and rarely get stuck. We had an old GE refrigerator–still referred to as an “ice box”–some habits died hard, especially when daily ice deliveries were still being made to North Shore in mule-drawn wagons, whose precious cool blocks of ice were covered with a sodden canvas tarp. If you were polite, the iceman might give you a precious chip off a block to gnaw on for a few minutes of pure pleasure. What ice didn’t go into your mouth to cut the thirst and numb the tongue, dripped onto the tops of your feet leaving muddy gullies through the dust and dirt. It was wonderful.