My first librarian was Paige Ellisor. He had a knack for connecting kids with books they liked. My likes included, among other things, dinosaurs, snakes, planes, space, buried treasure, The Hardy Boys, and the television show In Search Of, hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I was constantly looking at the color snake photographs (coral snakes, copperheads, king cobras!) in the S volume of Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. One book he suggested to me that I still remember was Three Boys and H2O.  I remember laying on my childhood couch in my childhood living room, looking at the cover and thinking about the implausibility of one boy snorkeling, in such shallow water, while two other boys stood just behind him. I remembered Mr. Ellisor handing me the book, the way he quietly explained that H2O was the "scientific name" for water. Recently, after an exhaustive search, I found a copy of it for about $2 from a used book dealer and received it a week later. I reread the book in one sitting. After so many years not much had changed. The cover was exactly as I remembered; same orange, yellow, and green colors, same improbable snorkeler. The boys called their grandmother Gran, just like I did. I had not remembered any specific illustrations inside but recalled most after thumbing through the book. The book mentions "pieces of eight" and I remembered as a child asking what "pieces of eight" was. I was fascinated by the prospects of finding treasure, both buried and the under-the-sea variety. I contacted my elementary school to see if by any chance there were still any teachers there who were there 35 years ago. Perhaps someone remembered Paige Ellisor? Maybe there was a plaque hanging on the wall in the library? He was old then (at least that's how I remember him) so it is very likely that he has been a librarian at that great library in the sky for some time now. After talking to three different people and being on hold, the school secretary (she'd only been at the school "a few years" and "wasn't alive 35 years ago") took my name and number and said she would ask around. I never heard back from her. If there isn't a plaque honoring Paige Ellisor in that elementary school library then there should be. There should be a large portrait in oil! He was the first librarian at that school. He was my first librarian.

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Billy Parrott—below, in the Ellisor Era—is now the associate director of the Mid-Manhattan Library in New York City.