by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Six year olds and four year olds don't talk much when handed sandwich bags full of popcorn, so the motoring was atypically quiet to the arts'n'crafts open house. The snack-fuelled junior female duo skipped to a front door. But a sign announced the cancellation of the scheduled merriment. So the Arctic April afternoon activities continued unabated to the swimming pool, but after five minutes of ecstatic splashing we were all kicked out because some kid unwisely opted to upchuck his St-Henri breakfast into the pool.

The quest for an indoor weekend kiddie distraction is not one to be undertaken casually. So there was a third option at the ready.

So back into the Taurus, in which I've been known to burn reds while yakking on the cell and chomping 99-cent pizza while steering with my knee. But when there's young'uns on board, I drive like a granny, complete with plentiful triple-attempt parallel parking sessions.

The three of us hit a story-telling session at a library in northern NDG, an area I usually avoid and still can't navigate without a map.

The Fraser-Hickson Library is named partially after Hugh Fraser, who donated enough dough to open a library at what is now René-Lévesque and University in 1885. It got its appended name when it moved in 1956, using a million-dollar donation from a Professor J.W.A. Hickson.

Like all old public places, this library is full of ghosts. The atmosphere was even weightier on this day. The age-old institution is closing forever next Tuesday due to lack of funds.

At two sharp, a middle-aged storyteller with horn-rimmed glasses flipped through a pair of books. The kids - oblivious to the gloom - chirped their input about the fire engine with amazing powers.

Word got out that the chess club was meeting upstairs. Livia and Annika predictably lobbied me to let them play "chest." Up we trod to play that dreaded game. The afternoon took an uplifting turn when a resident chess teacher took over my game with my daughter, leaving me with a joy a parent feels when another person does their parenting duties for them.

Around the adjacent display of scientifically-valuable spinning tops and dinosaur models stood a man buttonholing people to get signatures on a petition to save the place. The charitable institute that once sat on a $10-million stash has seen its fortunes dwindle and is asking the city for under a quarter-mil per year to keep going.

Governments have made it almost impossible to donate to charity. They take so much in taxes that few have the extra bucks or desire to dig deeper. As a result, if you're not on the government tit, the bailiff's on the way.

The city notes that the Fraser-Hickson is but one of a dozen private libraries on the island that could go under. They promise some sort of study by the end of the month, but offer no guarantees. Meanwhile, as this one closes due to its manageable cash shortage, the province has been pouring dozens of millions into building the obscenely lavish and excessive downtown Grande Bibliothèque.

Before leaving I examined a poster of Canada's former prime ministers, at the same time as an old-time Filipino named Sam. We ended up talking about the world. One of us noted that the first PM - Sir John A. - was in power when the library opened. Hopefully something can be done to keep it open long enough to see a few more politicians come and go.

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If the PQ gets re-elected, blame the demerger movement. Charest's promise to allow certain neighbourhoods to secede from Montreal - a plan which would necessitate the revival of the Montreal Urban Community bureaucracy - won't bag the Liberals any seats they weren't going to win. But if Charest's embracing of the great Westmount crusade costs the Liberals points among francos, the demerger movement will have sentenced the rest of us to another four years with the PQ.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca