When I was 10 years old, my world consisted of Pearl Harbor, World War II, playing ball morning til night on carless Flemington Street in Greenfield, and devising front-porch games with my collection of baseball cards.

I listened to Rosey Roswell, one of Pittsburgh's most beloved broadcasters, and sidekick Jack Craddock on the radio announcing Pirates games from Forbes Field or recreating away games from a ticker tape. Rosey had a wild imagination. At the time, I thought this is the closest I'd ever get to see the Pirates at Forbes Field. Baseball was make-believe for me.

Then one day, Rosey talked about "Knothole Day" -- when kids could get into Forbes Field for free. Boy, did that get our attention. It was a chance to see my first game at Forbes Field.

From Internet research, I'll share what I've learned recently. The "knothole" concept began in 1880. The New Orleans Pelicans are believed to have introduced the idea. The St. Louis Cardinals were the first to do it in the majors. The Brooklyn (now Los Angeles) Dodgers gave over 2 million free passes to kids in the 1940s and '50s.

I remember my first Knothole Day game. It was the summer of 1942. Armed with a sandwich and a piece of fruit in a brown bag and a baseball glove, our gang walked over the Greenfield Bridge, through Schenley Park, past Phipps, past dozens of parked chartered buses, past the Carnegie Library. With hundreds of other kids, we lined up outside, ready to storm Forbes Field when the monster, green overhead gate would clang open. We charged the right field stands behind the big screen and headed for a front row seat where we would see players close up and get autographs.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw. Remember, this was years before color TV. Most of us had never seen a major league park. Newspapers and Movietone News seen at theaters showed ballparks only in black and white.

Forbes Field was a field of dreams. The field itself was enormous. I couldn't get over how far home plate was from center field. The grass was real. It was the greenest and prettiest grass I ever saw ... an emerald-green color in the outfield and infield. It was cut low and manicured and edged perfectly around the infield dirt. Seats were green, blue and red.

Believe me, after seeing this dream-like setting, the game itself was anti-climactic.

I would return to Forbes Field many times as a knotholer. But my next memorable visit would come in 1944, when Pittsburgh hosted its first All-Star Game, minus many great all-stars who were still in military service. I saw the game free in a crowd of 29,500 fans. I was a pop vendor. The National League won 7-1.

--BORIS WEINSTEIN, Shadyside

I was about 5 when my mother introduced me to a magical fairy tale, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon." For weeks, I refused to go to bed until she read me this story. Then, one dreary, damp fall day, Ma told me she had a surprise for me. She dressed me from head to toe in a hat, scarf, coat, mittens, leggings and boots before loading me in the car and taking me to a place "that lay east of the sun and west of the moon."

Within minutes, we were entering the old East Liberty Library.

I have no clear memory of the physical structure of the building, but I do remember how I trembled with excitement as Ma led me into a world populated by books. My library card became my passport to the prairie of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the parlor of Louisa May Alcott, the England of Charles Dickens, the Russia of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I could not believe that I could leave the library with both arms filled with books -- and not have to pay.

Thus began my lifelong love of libraries. I have explored the massive New York Public Library and donated books to the quaint library in Walled Lake, a suburb north of Detroit. I have squeezed trips to the library between errands, and I have spent hours curled in a comfortable chair while reading the latest best-seller or revisiting a classic.

Even though today's Pittsburgh libraries boast computer sections and other modern additions, including a cafe in the Oakland branch, I still prefer the rows of open stacks in the back where I can lose myself in the world of books.

And what is the cost for discovering the magic of books in a comfortable setting made especially for those of us who love to read? As Andrew Carnegie envisioned, "It is free to the public."

-- RONNA L. EDELSTEIN, Oakland