Monday's passing reference to the bad manners problem at the Marshall public library inspired author Wendy Lestina to recall her own Missouri library misadventures. "The board of directors of the Ferndale Library expelled me from 'entering the library at night unaccompanied by an adult' in 1959, when I was 15," Lestina recalls:

"I had been caught, with a group of 'juvenile delinquents,' playing poker in the stacks (near the Zane Grey shelf, just in case you've hung out at the Ferndale Library), and also 'yelling' at Mrs. Edith Broner, the night librarian. (We didn't yell; we mimed yelling. Mrs. Broner was stone-deaf.) As I live in my hometown once again, and several of my books are on the shelves, and it has been, uh, nearly 50 years, I mentioned in my weekly newspaper column that I thought it was time I was reinstated. It is not convenient for me, and becoming more and more unlikely, that I am even able to find an adult to go to the library with me after 7 p.m. The library board took it under consideration. That was two years ago. Still no word."

(Later, I found out that I really need to start reading these emails more closely, as Wendy Lestina is actually from California, not Missouri. There goes a beautiful headline pun; at least I didn't go with the "Show Me State" gags I'd been trying to polish off...)