Meeting Louisa May Alcott

I met Louisa May Alcott. Stop doing the mental math, I am not THAT OLD.

Jan Hutchinson, curator of Orchard House, the place that Alcott lived and used as a backdrop for Little Women, did a one-woman performance as Alcott at the Boston Public Library. Using the trick that her carriage had broken down when a kid rolled a hoop into it, she spent an hour talking with the people that she found in the "waiting room" congratulating those females dressed in slacks or pantaloons.

Although the American Library in Geneva is indeed cozy http://www.amlib.ch the three small rooms cannot compare to the Boston Public Library www.bpl.org where I spent hours doing research, reading, exploring. The American Library also has programs in English when I need to escape French culture.

On the other hand, although the resources, are infinitesimal in comparison, the warmth and friendliness more than make up for it. And for the small membership fee in Geneva, I can save a fortune in feeding my reading in English habit. Although I do read in French, the book has to be fascinating to hold my interest.

It would be lovely if someday, Ms Alcott could travel to Geneva to talk to the residents there in the same way she did to the BPL.

For anyone near Concord MA who loved Little Women, maybe Ms Alcott would be around http://www.orchardhouse.org However, as Alcott (Hutchinson) complained about the visitors that interrupted her to knock at her door for autographs, she sometimes put on apron, dusted her hands and face with flour and pretended she was the maid. The museum is worth the trip with or without an introduction to Ms Alcott.