I went to my old high school today. It ceased to be a working school building shortly after my youngest sibling graduated, I think.
I've been there plenty of times since it was remodeled, but never really down most of the halls.
A lot of it has changed.
The senior hallway was rebuilt so that the Board of Education could use it as office space. Most of the rest of the classrooms are being used by the Senior Activity Center and a couple other organizations, including a chapter of a tech school. But today the building was mostly shut down but for the old cafeteria, which hosted a hoard of students preparing to participate in a charity run.
I was there for moral support and to meet up with a good friend of mine who is, and was, a teacher at the old high school and, now, the new one.
I got there early. Not one to hang out in a flock of teenagers if I can possibly avoid it, I ventured down the halls that still existed, a little surprised that no one had seen fit to pull the lockers out yet. The first hall was the 'science' hall.
As I walked down it I remembered that the first door on the right was the classroom for one of my favorite teachers. He had a Mr. Roger's meets Bill Nye The Science Guy quality to him. And I did a lot of diary and note writing in that class...not necessarily because of the teacher. Mostly because there were days when I got done with my work quickly and decided to do other things instead. I also remembered that the only violent outburst I recall happening at my school happened right there, in the hall. And the science teacher had to step in and seperate the boys.
Another room to the left was the room where I took anatomy. It was one of the few classes I liked because it was hands on, and I could stay awake better, and the time didn't drag, if we did hands on things. I was always good with my hands. We got to dissect rats in that class as our final project, and since I had the only pregnant rat I got to 'give birth' to the babies with everyone watching. I learned two things that day. One of them was that I wasn't nearly as squeamish as most of the other people in the room, and that I was a kinetic learner. I learned more from dissecting that rat, than I did from a whole semester of lectures.
Up the hall on the left were more room doors. At least one of them I was sure didn't exist when I went to school. But on the left was a room that I knew very well.
The computer room.
I took computer class and journalism there. I remembered the typing tests we did at the start of every class, and that my best friend and I always sat beside each other, both because our last names were together on the class list, and because we wanted to be side by side when we took the test. Both of us had typing speeds upwards of 90 wpm, often breaking 100 wpm.
Journalism was different. I got into the occasional bit of trouble with it. Mostly I hated magazine layouts, loved typing out spoofs for the April issues, and for a brief time made a total mockery of the horoscope portion of the paper. I think I was my biggest fan then.
The hall ended there, becoming a new wall that someone had put up to finish the offices for the Board of Education. I doubled back and headed down towards the band hall.
The best place. Past the place where the stairs used to be that would let you go to the basement classrooms. Rooms that had been torn down when the high school moved, mostly because of the incipient mold that grew everywhere.
I turned down the hall and I walked very slowly down the first set of stairs, past the locker room entrances. I felt the pock marked, painted brick walls; leading to the double door entryway that I almost didn't want to see, for fear that the room was no longer there.
I stepped into the door well and jumped. Someone had set up a dummy right inside the door and it was dark enough to make the expressionless face lifelike.
Sixteen years ago, it had started. Even before I became a high schooler. I had been in love with the marching band the day my family attended the State OMEA competition. We sat in the stands eating peculiar sandwiches that my father had concocted and watched as the band thrilled us.
My brother, in the percussion section, was all snap and flare and military precision; and when they were done and the judges started handing out the prizes, our boy (and a hundred other teenagers) won, receiving the highest possible rating.
The next two years, while I labored away in junior high, I spent the weekends helping the marching band at competitions and games.
Thirteen years back I was a freshman. Finally allowed to be a part of the band. A part of the big kid club that I had been longing for so very long. And better still I was there with my big brother. The hero of my life. Every day of that year was fantastic. The band did great, and I, a clarinetist, was confident and excited and fully dedicated to the work.
Twelve years back and I was a sophomore. I hated school, hated life in general, saw my family going down the tubes, and had lost the small amount of guidance that my big brother had provided me. But when band was happening I was happy. Even if it was a little scary. I had only had the preparation of my freshman year of concert band on the trombone, and now I was the head of the section, along with another newbie, a former flautist.
Eleven years back I was a junior, not quite as sure about leading my section, but giving it my best shot. I had just had an argument with my divorced mother and was in a hurry, late getting to rehearsal. I rushed into the horn storage room, grabbed my trombone, then tripped over the slew of empty cases cluttered in the narrow room and went face first into the lip of a baritone case.
A moment later, on hands and knees, I found myself staring at a puddle of blood collecting on the tile beneath me. The assistant director came in, helped me stand up and mopped up the blood. But busted nose or not, the band was the only thing I wanted to do that night, and working around my swelling lip, I went out and marched into the dark, evening hours, with seventy other kids.
Back about ten years I was a senior clomping down those stairs at a few minutes before eighth period, grabbing my beat up tenor trombone from a case labeled "The Big Monty" then rushing my section back out the door to line up for pregame formation on the practice field. And keeping a watchful eye on the clarinet section, where my freshman sister was just beginning.
I had decided then that I wanted to be a music teacher. I got the chance to direct a few times and I was given the "Director's Award" at our banquet at the end of the year. Not quite the "Sousa Award" that my brother got but...
I stood today, outside that room, sniffing at the dust that was choking the concrete hallway, wishing I could go in there, just one more time. I knew the trophies were gone, and that my old band teacher wasn't going to be in his office. That I wouldn't see the plunger that my brother's class got for the teacher, with "That Crap Don't Flush" burned into the handle. Nor the cymbal that the percussion ensemble signed or the myriad of other bits and pieces that had sparked so much into what was otherwise a lifeless high school career.
One of the students that was participating in the run started down the hallway and I decided salivating on the band room door was unseemly. I continued down the hallway, down past what used to be the shop class room and to the health room door. Down near the band entrance was the old wall mounted heater and I perched against it for a bit.
The old high school wasn't what it used to be. Not hardly. But those two hallways alone had brought back so many ghosts of memories, so sharp and strong. Memories that crowded out other ones.
My family is scattered now and relationships aren't what they used to be. I don't have the friends I had then. But in that brief walk it felt like I was watching the shattering of glass reversing it self in slow motion. All the little scattered, microscopic pieces returned precisely to the position in which they belonged without a gap.
Some people say our memories are deceptive, but I disagree. I think our memories now are as wonderful or as awful, as our present was then.
Like watching a reverse of glass breaking. The glass is always perfect in the end.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Bookless Libraries
Some...okay well, part of one....of my works has been published recently on a website that, as I understand it, intends to become a magazine. I was the first person that the editor contacted which made me feel special up until I started reading all the other works that he was starting to compile and well...now I feel kinda sad and lonely and vastly under-talented in comparison with the others...
The site is called Site Unseen and it's unique, certainly. More than anything I've started looking into the blog that the editor has included and I'm learning things from it. But this morning my hackles rose just a little when I read yet another article about an encroaching storm known as paperless technology.
http://unseenfiction.com/2013/01/18/bookless-library-a-reality/#respond
The above link will take you to the specific article. I encourage you to read it first before getting to my commentary below. And from the above page you can of course explore the other authors that have been featured on the site and hey...! If it makes it to the stands, buy the magazine!
Here is the response that I started typing in the 'Leave A Comment' section, before I realized that my comment was more than three paragraphs.
First I am a librarian. We see a standard collection of people day in and day out.
When I look at that photo of the prospective lay out for a 'bookless library' I cringe. What I see, in between the pretty pixels of that image, is a collection of the worst of what we get in the library every day. And I do stress that this is the 'worst', and not necessarily, the 'only' patronage we get.
The first thing I see is a row of teenagers navigating around any excuse for security on the computers and finding illegal download sites for games, music and pornography, and anything else they can take advantage of thanks to the free Internet that most modern libraries now provide.
Off in another corner, where they are alone only by virtue of no one else daring to be near them is the massive swelling, seething beast known as the homeless and chronically unbathed.
Children, men, women, teenagers, older persons. All of them with their own weird, and sometimes lethal, quirks, all of them with their own foul and oft 'turpentine' strength stench, spending four to eight hours of their day watching YouTube videos, posting funny stories on Facebook and updating their blogs. And none of them, and I say this from experience, not one of them actually using the Internet to search for a job.
Yes there are those that come in and use the computers briefly to print, because they haven't got printing capability at home. There are some regulars that use the computers for writing projects, research, or some of the many historical or educational resources that they have free memberships to thanks to their library patronage.
But the the main, and ultimate, attraction of computers in a library today is free Internet.
We only have eight computers. We're a small town library. Imagine how much worse it gets in bigger towns, cities! Megacities!
I never do see the homeless people in the stacks. Rarely do they actually take a book off the shelf and open it up. The chairs we have stationed around are rarely ever used because there is nothing effortlessly entertaining sitting in front of them. If they are used it is by the homeless so that they can catch a quick nap.
The only person who does move from the computers to the stacks and back again is so blind that he has to hold the book less than a few inches away from his nose in order to read.
No human being could stand to be that close, and the computer screen is wiped down every day thanks to our certainty that he is the main source of colds and flues in our place.
Maybe I sound a little harsh but when your everyday health expectation lies in the hands of people who can't be bothered to bathe, blow their nose, or cover their mouth, and especially when you know that people who never set foot in the library when they are healthy, are guaranteed to come out to grab materials if they know they will be home sick for several days, you quickly lose appreciation for them.
So now they want to put these disease ridden, smelly, loud, rude, self-entitled and self-centered people into a tiny building with row after row of super close stools with nothing but germ-collecting surfaces between them!? And they say this is our bright and shiny future!?
We're not even touching on the population that is sixty and over. Many of whom don't have an e-mail address because they are so afraid that if they turn on their computer it will immediately be attacked by viruses and identity thieves and they won't be able to protect themselves from the big scary Internet!
Most of this age group will come in hoping to pay a bill online armed with nothing but their bank debit card and a stack of scrap paper, with wavering scribbles covering them. These 'notes' that they've taken are ultimately useless because the person who helped them the first time, usually a grand child, didn't bother to explain what they were doing, or teach their grand parent how to do it themselves. They just did it.
I have met fifty year olds that don't know what a mouse is for, forty year olds that don't know how to 'hunt and type'. Thirty year olds that can't spell 'Google'. Twenty-somethings that have to ask for my help because they can't find their e-mail. I.E. "I typed yahoo into the thing and I got here!"
Here turns out to be a Google search for the word 'yahooooo'.
And these are not people that I would have placed in the learning disabled category. These are people that work for a living in a small but real world where computers just don't exist beyond a cash register and a hand scanner.
Granted I live in farming country, but even I am shocked at how technology has disappeared for some Americans.
So, bookless libraries. Please...give me a break. Those aren't libraries, those are Internet cafes. Only the sign says 'no food and drink', instead of 'come in and have a coffee'.
By the way, whatever the sign says, they will still bring in picnic lunches.
The site is called Site Unseen and it's unique, certainly. More than anything I've started looking into the blog that the editor has included and I'm learning things from it. But this morning my hackles rose just a little when I read yet another article about an encroaching storm known as paperless technology.
http://unseenfiction.com/2013/01/18/bookless-library-a-reality/#respond
The above link will take you to the specific article. I encourage you to read it first before getting to my commentary below. And from the above page you can of course explore the other authors that have been featured on the site and hey...! If it makes it to the stands, buy the magazine!
Here is the response that I started typing in the 'Leave A Comment' section, before I realized that my comment was more than three paragraphs.
First I am a librarian. We see a standard collection of people day in and day out.
When I look at that photo of the prospective lay out for a 'bookless library' I cringe. What I see, in between the pretty pixels of that image, is a collection of the worst of what we get in the library every day. And I do stress that this is the 'worst', and not necessarily, the 'only' patronage we get.
The first thing I see is a row of teenagers navigating around any excuse for security on the computers and finding illegal download sites for games, music and pornography, and anything else they can take advantage of thanks to the free Internet that most modern libraries now provide.
Off in another corner, where they are alone only by virtue of no one else daring to be near them is the massive swelling, seething beast known as the homeless and chronically unbathed.
Children, men, women, teenagers, older persons. All of them with their own weird, and sometimes lethal, quirks, all of them with their own foul and oft 'turpentine' strength stench, spending four to eight hours of their day watching YouTube videos, posting funny stories on Facebook and updating their blogs. And none of them, and I say this from experience, not one of them actually using the Internet to search for a job.
Yes there are those that come in and use the computers briefly to print, because they haven't got printing capability at home. There are some regulars that use the computers for writing projects, research, or some of the many historical or educational resources that they have free memberships to thanks to their library patronage.
But the the main, and ultimate, attraction of computers in a library today is free Internet.
We only have eight computers. We're a small town library. Imagine how much worse it gets in bigger towns, cities! Megacities!
I never do see the homeless people in the stacks. Rarely do they actually take a book off the shelf and open it up. The chairs we have stationed around are rarely ever used because there is nothing effortlessly entertaining sitting in front of them. If they are used it is by the homeless so that they can catch a quick nap.
The only person who does move from the computers to the stacks and back again is so blind that he has to hold the book less than a few inches away from his nose in order to read.
No human being could stand to be that close, and the computer screen is wiped down every day thanks to our certainty that he is the main source of colds and flues in our place.
Maybe I sound a little harsh but when your everyday health expectation lies in the hands of people who can't be bothered to bathe, blow their nose, or cover their mouth, and especially when you know that people who never set foot in the library when they are healthy, are guaranteed to come out to grab materials if they know they will be home sick for several days, you quickly lose appreciation for them.
So now they want to put these disease ridden, smelly, loud, rude, self-entitled and self-centered people into a tiny building with row after row of super close stools with nothing but germ-collecting surfaces between them!? And they say this is our bright and shiny future!?
We're not even touching on the population that is sixty and over. Many of whom don't have an e-mail address because they are so afraid that if they turn on their computer it will immediately be attacked by viruses and identity thieves and they won't be able to protect themselves from the big scary Internet!
Most of this age group will come in hoping to pay a bill online armed with nothing but their bank debit card and a stack of scrap paper, with wavering scribbles covering them. These 'notes' that they've taken are ultimately useless because the person who helped them the first time, usually a grand child, didn't bother to explain what they were doing, or teach their grand parent how to do it themselves. They just did it.
I have met fifty year olds that don't know what a mouse is for, forty year olds that don't know how to 'hunt and type'. Thirty year olds that can't spell 'Google'. Twenty-somethings that have to ask for my help because they can't find their e-mail. I.E. "I typed yahoo into the thing and I got here!"
Here turns out to be a Google search for the word 'yahooooo'.
And these are not people that I would have placed in the learning disabled category. These are people that work for a living in a small but real world where computers just don't exist beyond a cash register and a hand scanner.
Granted I live in farming country, but even I am shocked at how technology has disappeared for some Americans.
So, bookless libraries. Please...give me a break. Those aren't libraries, those are Internet cafes. Only the sign says 'no food and drink', instead of 'come in and have a coffee'.
By the way, whatever the sign says, they will still bring in picnic lunches.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Bad Ideas and NaNoWriMo
I think I've taken a full departure from the original purpose of this blog. In fact my reenacting career may be taking a semi-permanent back seat depending on what happens with my unit following Gettysburg next year.
In the meantime I've rediscovered a way to get back into the theatre world, which is something that I've missed since my former theatre group came to a close last May, after fourteen years of performances. I also just scored a singing gig with a Jazz/Swing/Funk band and while I was mind-blowingly nervous before I sang, I did enjoy every moment of it.
For the first time ever I had someone explain to me the meaning of NaNoWriMo and I kinda sorta took up the challenge, writing lots and lots of words. Unfortunately the words took the form of about three different stories, all of them fan fiction.
But I had fun, and I challenged myself to complete some things.
I have also received my Christmas gift early this year. I now have a lovely digital video camera to call my very own and have been making little, mildly comedic videos with it. I have in the past been able to create through the art of stories, songs, plays, paintings, crafts and now, HA HA, I have it all! Follow that with the maniacal laughter of the moderately insane and you have the perfect opener to one of the videos that I have been dying to shoot.
I went for a walk last night. It was dark and cold and as I started out I noticed all of the houses that already had lights up for Christmas. I came up with a great idea for a gift for a wonderful lady in my life. Later in the walk I was heading by the solitary laundromat in town. It, the town grocery and a pizza parlor were the only businesses still open at 8:30 pm. I watched clothes tumbling in the dryers as I approached and noticed a man and woman seated at a table inside the laundromat eating dinner.
Immediately I wished I had brought my camera with me, and wished I had a camera man. I could imagine myself dressing up a bit and barging into the laundromat.
"Hello, I'm Diane." I would introduce myself, shake hands then tell them. "Right now you're on camera. That fellow there is recording you. You have the right to decide whether or not this video is used in any formal capacity but before you do, what is your relationship?"
And just launch into this impromptu interview. Ask questions, get a tableau of exactly what was happening in the laundromat before I went in. Then, as an added twist, just to get a reaction say something like.
"Thank you very much for your time. I would like to tell you that as we speak there are men ransacking your home. They are a part of our crew and we were sent as a distraction to keep you all occupied while they did that. You can call 911 if you like, but of course you may regret it should this be a prank."
And leave...
And see what they do.
Breaking the fourth wall, breaking the barrier of believability. And starting with something good (fifteen minutes of fame?) and turning it into something very bad (btw, while you're gabbing excitedly with what may be your fifteen minutes of fame, your house had been broken into!)
This morning I went for breakfast, listened to a pair of elderly ladies tell a passing elderly gentleman all about a mutual friend. "Hey did you hear about, Shirley!? Oh yes, she broke her hip the poor thing. She fell off the treadmill and just broke it like that."
Then I went to Kroger's to waste time while my tires were rotated. Standing in line at the Starbucks, while a Kroger customer insisted on buying her milk and magazines at the Starbucks kiosk along with her Chai Latte, I heard a woman say, "I swear by my right hand to God, I will get those to you!"
I felt like turning towards her, with a camera planted somewhere back in the veggie department.
"Pardon me, Ma'am. I couldn't help but overhear what you said. I was wondering are you swearing by your right hand, or by God? Which is of more value to you? Where did you first hear that phrase and did you really mean it? If you had to lose one or the other which would you rather have, seperation from your right hand or from God?" Maybe part of the point is that I have problems with people who blurt the first quaint phrase they think of whenever they're surprised, and I certainly take umbrage at people swearing to God about trivial things.
But more than anything else, the woman was speaking loudly and I'm sure, was very aware that what she was saying was being broadcasted to all the other people in line. If she's intentionally putting it out there for us to hear, why not draw more attention to it.
After I get her to answer I'll point out that there's a camera back there, just to the right of the tomatoes, and was there anything else she'd like to say to her audience, or swear to...or by.
I got my Mocha and traveled the store, observing people and pondering my idea.
Since I didn't have my camera with me I can blame the missed opportunity on lack of equipment instead of lack of guts. But I can't help but wonder. How many more people are going to start thinking about what they say, or about how visible they are when they think they are alone, if I were to start doing that?
Or would it just amount to me being precocious and annoying.
Dunno.
In the meantime I've rediscovered a way to get back into the theatre world, which is something that I've missed since my former theatre group came to a close last May, after fourteen years of performances. I also just scored a singing gig with a Jazz/Swing/Funk band and while I was mind-blowingly nervous before I sang, I did enjoy every moment of it.
For the first time ever I had someone explain to me the meaning of NaNoWriMo and I kinda sorta took up the challenge, writing lots and lots of words. Unfortunately the words took the form of about three different stories, all of them fan fiction.
But I had fun, and I challenged myself to complete some things.
I have also received my Christmas gift early this year. I now have a lovely digital video camera to call my very own and have been making little, mildly comedic videos with it. I have in the past been able to create through the art of stories, songs, plays, paintings, crafts and now, HA HA, I have it all! Follow that with the maniacal laughter of the moderately insane and you have the perfect opener to one of the videos that I have been dying to shoot.
I went for a walk last night. It was dark and cold and as I started out I noticed all of the houses that already had lights up for Christmas. I came up with a great idea for a gift for a wonderful lady in my life. Later in the walk I was heading by the solitary laundromat in town. It, the town grocery and a pizza parlor were the only businesses still open at 8:30 pm. I watched clothes tumbling in the dryers as I approached and noticed a man and woman seated at a table inside the laundromat eating dinner.
Immediately I wished I had brought my camera with me, and wished I had a camera man. I could imagine myself dressing up a bit and barging into the laundromat.
"Hello, I'm Diane." I would introduce myself, shake hands then tell them. "Right now you're on camera. That fellow there is recording you. You have the right to decide whether or not this video is used in any formal capacity but before you do, what is your relationship?"
And just launch into this impromptu interview. Ask questions, get a tableau of exactly what was happening in the laundromat before I went in. Then, as an added twist, just to get a reaction say something like.
"Thank you very much for your time. I would like to tell you that as we speak there are men ransacking your home. They are a part of our crew and we were sent as a distraction to keep you all occupied while they did that. You can call 911 if you like, but of course you may regret it should this be a prank."
And leave...
And see what they do.
Breaking the fourth wall, breaking the barrier of believability. And starting with something good (fifteen minutes of fame?) and turning it into something very bad (btw, while you're gabbing excitedly with what may be your fifteen minutes of fame, your house had been broken into!)
This morning I went for breakfast, listened to a pair of elderly ladies tell a passing elderly gentleman all about a mutual friend. "Hey did you hear about, Shirley!? Oh yes, she broke her hip the poor thing. She fell off the treadmill and just broke it like that."
Then I went to Kroger's to waste time while my tires were rotated. Standing in line at the Starbucks, while a Kroger customer insisted on buying her milk and magazines at the Starbucks kiosk along with her Chai Latte, I heard a woman say, "I swear by my right hand to God, I will get those to you!"
I felt like turning towards her, with a camera planted somewhere back in the veggie department.
"Pardon me, Ma'am. I couldn't help but overhear what you said. I was wondering are you swearing by your right hand, or by God? Which is of more value to you? Where did you first hear that phrase and did you really mean it? If you had to lose one or the other which would you rather have, seperation from your right hand or from God?" Maybe part of the point is that I have problems with people who blurt the first quaint phrase they think of whenever they're surprised, and I certainly take umbrage at people swearing to God about trivial things.
But more than anything else, the woman was speaking loudly and I'm sure, was very aware that what she was saying was being broadcasted to all the other people in line. If she's intentionally putting it out there for us to hear, why not draw more attention to it.
After I get her to answer I'll point out that there's a camera back there, just to the right of the tomatoes, and was there anything else she'd like to say to her audience, or swear to...or by.
I got my Mocha and traveled the store, observing people and pondering my idea.
Since I didn't have my camera with me I can blame the missed opportunity on lack of equipment instead of lack of guts. But I can't help but wonder. How many more people are going to start thinking about what they say, or about how visible they are when they think they are alone, if I were to start doing that?
Or would it just amount to me being precocious and annoying.
Dunno.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Due to the ease of access I've decided to start some fiction stories on blogs. That means I can work on them during my down times at the library and while I'm at home.
I've never really gotten the hang of novel writing. If I have any talent at all I think it lies in relating my own life experiences, but...fiction is fun from time to time. And who knows, maybe I can fake it well enough to fool someone into publishing me.
So I have postapocthesaga.blogspot.com started up. I'm fairly certain that the title is mispelled on the blog. But if you have time to waste feel free to check it out.
Cheers
Wyatt
I've never really gotten the hang of novel writing. If I have any talent at all I think it lies in relating my own life experiences, but...fiction is fun from time to time. And who knows, maybe I can fake it well enough to fool someone into publishing me.
So I have postapocthesaga.blogspot.com started up. I'm fairly certain that the title is mispelled on the blog. But if you have time to waste feel free to check it out.
Cheers
Wyatt
Monday, June 11, 2012
Another Snippet - Never Forgotten
(I've decided I'll try it again. Another snippet.)
Leaves crunched under my feet, along with the occasional snapping twig. The swish, swish of cloth against twigs and branches and dead briers easily announced my course of travel. Filtered by towering trunks of trees I could see the sunset coloring the sky before me. Light purple, lilac, a tiny hint of blue then fuchsia and pink closer to the horizon.
I stepped over a fallen log carefully. The thick skirts I wore, even without the hoop, proved challenging when trying to evade some obstacles and I was keeping my eye on the sloshing liquid in the tin cup I carried. It was hot and I had already burned myself once that day. Beyond the log I stepped around the remainder of a stump and looked up to the only other figure standing in the wood with me. My older brother was stone still, his dark hair slicked back under the stained, gray forage cap. His butternut colored jean wool frock coat and trousers turned a muddy brown by the red of the sun. He was looking at something, his own cup of coffee almost forgotten in his hand.
I stepped up quietly beside him, pulled my tin cup to my lips and let the steaming vapors wash over my frozen cheeks. It was only September but it was already cold, and the night promised to be colder. I didn't mind. I loved this time of year. When the heat of the summer began to shift, a bite visited the wind like a long unseen cousin.
I watched the sun for a moment then shifted my gaze to my brother's whiskered, but no longer whimsical face. Beneath his gaze lay the remainder of an artillery piece. It was small, the sort that could be used by men only, moved and aimed by muscle alone. There were no horse bones nearby, nor any hasty graves indicating that they had been buried. Only the piece remained.
What had once been gleaming black was now starting to fade and green with time. One wheel was flush against the ground and nearly grown over by vines and wild strawberries. It was fall but I could still see the drying tendrils. The rocky ground tilted the barrel so that it leaned heavily and I could see that it teetered dangerously, held in place only by the joists still connecting it to the other wheel that had been wedged between a rock and a hard place, forced at a slant, frozen in time, attentive but wounded.
In a way my brother was precisely that as well. He had been wounded in the war of course, many times. And each wound brought him more sorrows, more pains, and strangely, in the way of all wars, more responsibility.
When the war ended he had returned to our home. Mother had expected that he would marry, perhaps the red headed girl that he had been writing to when he first left for the fighting, but he had refused to see anyone. He worked in the wood shop or in the fields, he built himself a small shack on a parcel of land that he bought from father.
I visited him there often, whether or not I was invited, so close in age were he and I. When a year had passed and he received a letter from some of his fellow soldiers describing what remained of the old battlefields he determined that he had to return. It took some convincing to assure him that I was going as well.
There was concern for his safety and for mine. A soldier of the former confederacy might not be welcome near the place where Union died, even if as many or more Rebels died in precisely the same spot.
In this moment however our concern seemed fruitless. My brother remembered the hillside for its strategic value. He remembered fighting desperately to gain and then hold the position near where this dilapidated gun had fallen. He remembered hundreds of thousands of men crossing this ground over and over from both sides. And yet a year later it was deserted. Silent.
"Out there..." He said quietly, then lifted his arm to point beyond where the thick tree line ended. There was a small cabin nestled against large boulders, a wisp of smoke rising from it's mud and wood chimney. "That cabin wasn't here then. It was a pasture for sheep there. But the rancher must have moved them long before we arrived."
A vague look that might have been amusement crossed his features, ending with a barely perceptible wince. "The men kept slipping on the dung."
I smiled slightly, knowing a blush had colored my cheeks, sipping cautiously from my cup to cover my reaction.
My brother took a deep breath and swallowed...and the dampness about his eyes could have only been the cold, or something else. He finally seemed to notice the brew in his hand and he sipped from his cup before he pointed to his left. What I had taken for logs or stones suddenly sprang into being as other dead carcasses of weapons. Only bits and pieces but enough for me to envision what might have once been a battery, lined up, defending its fellow troops.
"All along that line," He said. "Shelling one right after the other...keeping the field clear for the boys. It was bad enough getting the guns to this spot...we knew the enemy couldn't get them up there."
Far off, near where the sun was sliding out of sight were the beginnings of foothills. I could not imagine the distance, nor that the gun before me could possibly reach it. Or that there were enough men in the world to fill that field. The noise, the crush of so many boys...men desperately fighting for their lives...or their country...to defend themselves or their families.
Tears sprang to my own eyes as I stared at this empty place, hating it now. It seemed to have forgotten. The rocks and the dirt and the sun seemed not to care at all about the sacrifices made under their vigil.
I knew the questions that so many had asked as the war continued on. Was it worth it? Was it all just a waste? Could we truly win our independence? Was it about the slaves the way the northerners said? Would they be free when the Confederacy became a nation? Where the fighting men, black and white, throwing their lives away for nothing?
And when the papers came and we saw the pictures of all the generals in their shiny uniforms, and saw that the war we had waged had been lost...how many more of those questions came? We saw the pictures of cities burning, left wasted in the path of Sherman and his armies. Heard the rumors of other atrocities acted on civilians, or on our men in prison camps.
But nothing in a paper or in the quivering voice of a mother or wife affected me as much as this vast, empty, cold place.
"I'm glad it's here." I said, my voice shaking with anger, sadness and something else. Something determined. "It should always be here. Protected. So that no one will forget. So that no one sees this place as just another...parcel of land to be bought or sold with money."
Tears ran down my cheeks, burning hot channels through the cold numbness.
"Because it was once purchased with blood and it belongs to those men that paid for it with their lives. That should never be forgotten."
Leaves crunched under my feet, along with the occasional snapping twig. The swish, swish of cloth against twigs and branches and dead briers easily announced my course of travel. Filtered by towering trunks of trees I could see the sunset coloring the sky before me. Light purple, lilac, a tiny hint of blue then fuchsia and pink closer to the horizon.
I stepped over a fallen log carefully. The thick skirts I wore, even without the hoop, proved challenging when trying to evade some obstacles and I was keeping my eye on the sloshing liquid in the tin cup I carried. It was hot and I had already burned myself once that day. Beyond the log I stepped around the remainder of a stump and looked up to the only other figure standing in the wood with me. My older brother was stone still, his dark hair slicked back under the stained, gray forage cap. His butternut colored jean wool frock coat and trousers turned a muddy brown by the red of the sun. He was looking at something, his own cup of coffee almost forgotten in his hand.
I stepped up quietly beside him, pulled my tin cup to my lips and let the steaming vapors wash over my frozen cheeks. It was only September but it was already cold, and the night promised to be colder. I didn't mind. I loved this time of year. When the heat of the summer began to shift, a bite visited the wind like a long unseen cousin.
I watched the sun for a moment then shifted my gaze to my brother's whiskered, but no longer whimsical face. Beneath his gaze lay the remainder of an artillery piece. It was small, the sort that could be used by men only, moved and aimed by muscle alone. There were no horse bones nearby, nor any hasty graves indicating that they had been buried. Only the piece remained.
What had once been gleaming black was now starting to fade and green with time. One wheel was flush against the ground and nearly grown over by vines and wild strawberries. It was fall but I could still see the drying tendrils. The rocky ground tilted the barrel so that it leaned heavily and I could see that it teetered dangerously, held in place only by the joists still connecting it to the other wheel that had been wedged between a rock and a hard place, forced at a slant, frozen in time, attentive but wounded.
In a way my brother was precisely that as well. He had been wounded in the war of course, many times. And each wound brought him more sorrows, more pains, and strangely, in the way of all wars, more responsibility.
When the war ended he had returned to our home. Mother had expected that he would marry, perhaps the red headed girl that he had been writing to when he first left for the fighting, but he had refused to see anyone. He worked in the wood shop or in the fields, he built himself a small shack on a parcel of land that he bought from father.
I visited him there often, whether or not I was invited, so close in age were he and I. When a year had passed and he received a letter from some of his fellow soldiers describing what remained of the old battlefields he determined that he had to return. It took some convincing to assure him that I was going as well.
There was concern for his safety and for mine. A soldier of the former confederacy might not be welcome near the place where Union died, even if as many or more Rebels died in precisely the same spot.
In this moment however our concern seemed fruitless. My brother remembered the hillside for its strategic value. He remembered fighting desperately to gain and then hold the position near where this dilapidated gun had fallen. He remembered hundreds of thousands of men crossing this ground over and over from both sides. And yet a year later it was deserted. Silent.
"Out there..." He said quietly, then lifted his arm to point beyond where the thick tree line ended. There was a small cabin nestled against large boulders, a wisp of smoke rising from it's mud and wood chimney. "That cabin wasn't here then. It was a pasture for sheep there. But the rancher must have moved them long before we arrived."
A vague look that might have been amusement crossed his features, ending with a barely perceptible wince. "The men kept slipping on the dung."
I smiled slightly, knowing a blush had colored my cheeks, sipping cautiously from my cup to cover my reaction.
My brother took a deep breath and swallowed...and the dampness about his eyes could have only been the cold, or something else. He finally seemed to notice the brew in his hand and he sipped from his cup before he pointed to his left. What I had taken for logs or stones suddenly sprang into being as other dead carcasses of weapons. Only bits and pieces but enough for me to envision what might have once been a battery, lined up, defending its fellow troops.
"All along that line," He said. "Shelling one right after the other...keeping the field clear for the boys. It was bad enough getting the guns to this spot...we knew the enemy couldn't get them up there."
Far off, near where the sun was sliding out of sight were the beginnings of foothills. I could not imagine the distance, nor that the gun before me could possibly reach it. Or that there were enough men in the world to fill that field. The noise, the crush of so many boys...men desperately fighting for their lives...or their country...to defend themselves or their families.
Tears sprang to my own eyes as I stared at this empty place, hating it now. It seemed to have forgotten. The rocks and the dirt and the sun seemed not to care at all about the sacrifices made under their vigil.
I knew the questions that so many had asked as the war continued on. Was it worth it? Was it all just a waste? Could we truly win our independence? Was it about the slaves the way the northerners said? Would they be free when the Confederacy became a nation? Where the fighting men, black and white, throwing their lives away for nothing?
And when the papers came and we saw the pictures of all the generals in their shiny uniforms, and saw that the war we had waged had been lost...how many more of those questions came? We saw the pictures of cities burning, left wasted in the path of Sherman and his armies. Heard the rumors of other atrocities acted on civilians, or on our men in prison camps.
But nothing in a paper or in the quivering voice of a mother or wife affected me as much as this vast, empty, cold place.
"I'm glad it's here." I said, my voice shaking with anger, sadness and something else. Something determined. "It should always be here. Protected. So that no one will forget. So that no one sees this place as just another...parcel of land to be bought or sold with money."
Tears ran down my cheeks, burning hot channels through the cold numbness.
"Because it was once purchased with blood and it belongs to those men that paid for it with their lives. That should never be forgotten."
Sunday, June 10, 2012
A Snippet - The Boat
(The walls of my room are covered with stuff. Most of it is fairly stationary but over my bed I have tacked, taped and stapled pictures from magazines, my own works of art and a handful of important photos. When I'm having a rough day I go to my room, stretch out on my bed and stare at these photos, most of which involve some form of water.
Tonight I felt the need to write something and noticed a painting right above my head. I decided to write based on what I saw, felt and heard, when looking at that painting. Below is the snippet that resulted.)
(Apologies to the artist. The magazine was old and I never thought to keep the blurb that explained who painted what.)
Tonight I felt the need to write something and noticed a painting right above my head. I decided to write based on what I saw, felt and heard, when looking at that painting. Below is the snippet that resulted.)
The sounds of the waves were gentle, hesitant as they
brushed occasionally against the rocky shore. The sky was gray and overcast and
there was the slightest of breezes. There was tension in the air but it was
subdued. As if something terrible had happened and the world needed to be
still, needed to wait for a bit before it was sure it could recover. The thick
nylon line leading from the small boat wasn’t really necessary to keep the
craft at the shore. The flat, smooth stones didn’t shift the way sand would.
Without a hearty push the wooden row boat wasn’t going to go anywhere. The
surface of the water was still enough to offer an almost perfect reflection of
the boat. It barely rocked or moved. It was still, as if the panorama was only
a painting. Beside the larger row boat, there was a smaller boat. A toy, tied
to the brackets that should have been holding oars, floating peacefully beside
it’s much larger brother, gamely lifting it’s little white sail toward the sky.
A child had tied it there. A small boy with golden yellow
hair, bare footed in his overalls and warm flannel shirt. When he had come out
to the water’s edge to play it had probably been sunny, warm enough for him not
to notice the chill of the stones against his bare skin. Warm enough that he
could ignore the small bit of water collecting in the bottom of the boat, that
had quickly soaked the bottom part of his pants. It was too much fun to watch his
little skow cut through the water, to crash it into the side of the bigger
craft and imagine an entirely different world from the one he was forced to
live in.
Maybe if Mom and Dad hadn’t been in the middle of another
fight they would have noticed that their son had not only gone out to play as he
had been told, but he had escaped the sand box he usually occupied and made a dash
for the lake. Perhaps if Dad hadn’t lost control of his temper, yet again, and
thrown the vase at Mom, she might have noticed how long her boy had been gone
and run from the house to find him.
If Dad hadn’t stormed out of the house. If Mom hadn’t bent
to pick up the shards of glass, her makeup running with her tears, and sliced
her hand badly. If she hadn’t called Grandmother on the phone. If Grandmother
hadn’t already been on her way.
When the coroner arrived on the scene he couldn’t
immediately tell whether it was the cold that caused the boy to drown, or if he’d
hit his head on the rocky bottom when he tumbled out of the beached rowboat.
There was no blood to speak of but little boy’s heads are made of far softer
things than adult's. Even the slightest bump could cause problems with a child.
And Mom had been screaming that the boy couldn’t swim from the moment she found
the still toddler.
There were words flying around. Neglect, murder, tragedy,
fault, blame. Words that meant nothing whatsoever to the little boy. The crime
scene people quickly determined that the toy boat wasn’t paramount to the
investigation and Mom was clutching it as she knelt before the blanket wrapped
figure on the gurney. There was a helicopter overhead that she ignored. The
backyard of the country cottage ended at the lake, preventing most of the press
from finding a way past the police line, but it wouldn’t take long before they
rented or stole boats to get close enough for a photograph.
Grandmother stood away from it all cold and immovable. She
did not comfort her daughter, nor did she kneel to mourn the loss of her
grandchild. She’d seen it all coming. She’d known that one day or other this
would be the result. She had no reason to regret, or to blame, only to agree
with the still silent natural world around her that the world needed to take a
breath. To pull back and examine with unnatural stillness, what had occurred.
And perhaps…maybe…it would never happen again.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
A Librarian Moment
I had intended that this blog be reserved for pure CW reenacting tales but at the moment I haven't really got any. In the mean time I've run into an surprisingly potent irritation at work. You see...some of the ladies that work in the processing/finance/inner bowels part of the library decided to have a few impromptu words with me the other morning and I've been put off by it since. Here's what my imaginary therapeutic session has done for me.
Bear in mind that I work at the main branch of a small county library.
The stage is set. I'm head librarian for a day and my crew is most of the girls that work in the basement. Most of the time they can be found sitting at their fun little desks, taking one or two ice cream breaks, five or ten smoke breaks, one or three lunch breaks. But...these beeches is mine today.
I walk into the arena and inform them that at least one of them is page for the day so she should immediately go out and start properly shelving and organizing four to five carts of books. At first she looks smug thinking, 'Alphabetizing...ha! I can do this in my sleep. And I know the Dewey decimal system better than my husband’s backside!’
I grin ever so slightly then flatly continue. “And after you finish those five carts you have all those to do…” I point back behind the circulation desk to the shelves that are loaded with books. Not only is every shelf filled end to end, but in some places the books have been shoved to the back of the shelf and a second row has been added. “…tonight.” I finish.
The poor dear has more than enough to do but I tell her she has other duties. Like giving children’s floor a break at seven, locking up the basement at eight and being ready to clean up the various areas on the main floor at eight thirty.
She marches off sullen and resigned to a lonely, mind numbing task and I point to the others around me. “As soon as she brings back a cart someone should be back there checking in and loading up another cart. In the interim there needs to be at least two people behind the circulation desk at all times. You need to put away the Audio/Visual items whenever you can and you will all be asked to put away at least one cart tonight because slave-ah…I mean Librarian…T-trainee #1 will need all the help she can get.”
Never mind that you may or may not be familiar with the computer system, or the main floor itself.
Just wait for the first homeless person to come in. And you must respond to their needs. If they decide to lean over the counter and breathe into your face while they tell you interesting facts about the new wonder-nut they just heard about on their portable radio, you are not allowed to make faces, or comments.
When the woman with three screaming children insists on keeping her kids on the main floor while she uses a library laptop to check her Facebook status, you are not allowed to shout at her that she should take her kids up stairs, or corral the little brats into the bathroom and lock them there. You must treat her like the freedom loving American that she is and do your best to placate the other annoyed patrons.
Suppose someone comes in, having had the world’s worst day and they ask for an item that they claim is being reserved for them and it’s not there. And they throw a fit. Then you have to inform them that not only is their item not their but they are not there. As in…in the system.
“Well I have things I’m going to be checking out. And I’ve been waiting for the 54th season of Snoggles United for fifteen !@#$% weeks!”
You try to say, “Sir, I’m fairly certain that Snoggles United doesn’t actually exist and that’s why your Inter-Library Loan request was not only ignored but I also see someone wrote ‘LoL – You’ve got to be fu-‘”
But Mr. I’ve-Had-A-Bad-Day-and-Can’t-Think-Past-It isn’t going to stand by. Not only has the library failed him in his time of dire need, but now they are mocking his intelligence. So he fumes and snarls and says horrible things then stomps out leaving you bewildered and on the point of tears. But right behind him are fifteen other patrons, twelve of whom insist on conversing at the top of their lungs and standing in the way of the people that are clearly in a major hurry.
And you have to be polite, patient and calm….with all of them…right now.
Then there’s a lull. And in that lull you have to hurriedly check, scan in and lock, organize and put away every item that has collected in the drops or on the counter top before the next rush comes through. If you miss an item, or don’t scan it in, or don’t lock it, or put it on the wrong shelf in the back it will come back to haunt you.
The lull ends…far too soon. Another group comes in, you’re shaking because you haven’t eaten anything since you left home and it’s been three hours of flow and ebb and no time for food. You’re still emotionally spent from the reaming you didn’t deserve by Mr. Nasty-pants and just as you go to help the first in a line of aged patrons you can barely hear, the computer terminal freezes. And it’s the kind of freeze that can only be fixed by shutting the whole thing down and turning the whole thing back on.
And since these computers were brand new about when mobile phones started to become popular it’s going to take a few minutes. Now there’s only one computer at the front of the desk, one in the middle at a separate kiosk with no locking magnet and OH BY THE WAY…the computer in the back is on the fritz…again…so now everyone back there making carts, sorting stuff, etc. has to use the computers at the front to do it.
Another lull. Then she comes in. Tall, gangly, walking with a rolling limp, her hair in tufts sticking out every side and she’s never known a quiet day in her life. It’s not her fault really, she’s probably autistic. She always wants to get on a ‘compooter’. She always wants help. Your skin crawls and you try to look busy every time you hear her shout, “Scuuuse me…Kin you haalp me.”
She always comes in to search the net for a stay at home job that doesn’t require her to send in money first. You don’t know how many times you’ve told this woman that it’s not going to happen but she doesn’t care. It’s what she wants, and she comes to the library because she doesn’t have a car and can’t walk all the way across town to get to the business set up precisely for the sake of helping people like her.
So she sits down, finds some websites, starts loud conversations on her phone flourishing with profanity.
And of course, ten to one, you'll be the librarian that has to go over and help because every other co-worker has had the same exact reaction as you.
But the patron saint of librarians will bless you ten fold if can help her with loving kindness in your heart.
Meanwhile you’ve got another impatient customer who doesn’t appreciate the joke you tried to tell because you’re losing your sanity and right now a slightly bent sense of humor is the only thing keeping you together, but she’s in a dang hurry so she can get home and enjoy the final season of Dexter that she tried to borrow from the library but couldn’t watch because it’s scratched.
“And why is it you can’t just clean it now. The machine is right there. What’s the reason? Oh…no poli-cool? Really…why don’t you order some?”
“Not my department,” say you. And it’s not, but that doesn’t make sense to Mrs. Everyone-around-me-is-inept-just-like-my-husband-says.
Then….then!!!! Someone comes in and says, “I need a library card.”
What you would love to be allowed to say is, “I need to see a background check, credit check and if you wouldn’t mind stepping through this metal detector here….Or would you rather submit to a pat down?”
But what you actually say, with some manner of hopeful trust in mankind, is, “Sure thing, I’ll need to see a driver’s license with current address please.”
“Oh well I don’t have it with me, but, can I show you my Kroger card instead?” She asks.
“No, Miss. I really need to see a state ID.”
“Well..it’s out in my car and I just wanted to get a library card…” She says, showing you with her soulful eyes just how painful it will be to trot out to her car.
How many ways can person politely say the same thing before it becomes rude?
So instead, you cleverly lean in and wince right along with her. Feeling her pain. “I know it’s a little inconvenient but it really is necessary for us to have your information on file.”
She sees the wince, gets the idea that your conspiratorial inward cant means that you’re letting her get away with something and happily trots out to get her ID.
When she comes back she mentions that it’s not her current address on the ID, and no she doesn’t have any mail on her. No bills indicating her current address.
“You can check out today but we’ll mail you your card, and you will have to bring it in next time.”
For all she cares you could be telling her you need to hold her first born as collateral…so long as she can check out that movie she’s hoping you have. Or those shiny new video games there on the wall kiosk.
(Oh yes. The video games...that do next to nothing when it comes to educating the populace, but some brainiac figured they would be uber popular and are definitely reason enough to spend several thousand dollars purchasing...not to mention the time it takes to enter them into the system, and the money you spent on the special carousels that hold the discs. Carousels that are placed at the very back of the room adding another fifteen-to-twenty seconds to the amount of time it takes to check a single patron out. )
She fills out the paper work and you get into the computer system and look her up and you are, gosh….not at all shocked to see her name there in the system.
Brightly you say, “Well looks like you used to have a card with us.” And you know full well there is likely to be a massive fine attached with it. But boy doesn’t she look hopeful, and completely innocent. And you can see the ‘liar liar’ gears starting to churn in her brain, prepared to deny deny deny.
You open up her status and lo and behold there’s several dozen books missing, and all the replacement fees have been sitting on her dormant account since she moved away. She’s got several hundred dollars that she’s got to pay.
First she’s shocked, then she’s outraged, and even after you print off a copy of her account (which costs money, which she isn’t going to pay for) she can’t believe that she is still expected to pay those fees. And surely that book can’t possibly cost fifty bucks. And I never checked these items out.
And her grandmother died, her dog was accidently burned at the puppy sa-lon, and she lost three nails just the other day and can’t you just cut her some god-forsaken slack!?
Bravely, firmly, you say, “No.” Because you are aware, if no one else in the town is, that the library does not in fact have its own money tree growing out back.
She pulls out her credit card and hands it to you while looking away…hardly believing that she must stoop so low as to be charged for using the FREE public library.
“We don’t accept credit cards, I’m sorry, Miss.”
More shock, more indignation.
So you do the lean again…and you tell her the deal. “If you just bring those items back, or replace them (which you can do pretty cheap on Amazon), we’ll let the fines slide.”
Because really once the item is replaced, what does $1.90 in fines per book do for the library? Especially when it no longer needs to shell out several hundred to have the things replaced. (Which in this case they probably weren't going to replace anyway..)
Well she thinks you’ve just saved her life, or at least saved her dog’s life, and maybe she can replace a few nails with the money she’s saving.
Out she trots, happy as a pearly clam.
She’s happy, you’re happy, the library hasn’t fallen down, and one less person has yelled at you today for things that were out of your hands from the beginning.
Now is when I pull my librarian intern to the side with a friendly hand on her shoulder. And I say to her,
“Imagine you get to have lunch now…and you go down into the lunch room hoping that it’s empty so you can have a small part of your day be void of human noise. But…no no. All the people that work downstairs are there, leisurely reclined about the table enjoying lunch…hot lunches. That they’ve obviously had time to warm. So you sit, with your cold PB and J and glass of ice water, and you listen to the chatter and are fairly ignored up until one of them notices you…and starts talking about how you all keep waiving fines. And the more they talk the more they indicate that everything you do up stairs is in-ept and is essentially the reason the library is bleeding money.”
Then I pat her on the back as I pull away and head for the counter, back into the fray. Let her sort it all out on her own the way I did.
I would LOVE to hand a copy of this out to all the ladies I shared lunch with. Not looking for a win here...just a little understanding.
Sincerely,
The Librarian
Bear in mind that I work at the main branch of a small county library.
The stage is set. I'm head librarian for a day and my crew is most of the girls that work in the basement. Most of the time they can be found sitting at their fun little desks, taking one or two ice cream breaks, five or ten smoke breaks, one or three lunch breaks. But...these beeches is mine today.
I walk into the arena and inform them that at least one of them is page for the day so she should immediately go out and start properly shelving and organizing four to five carts of books. At first she looks smug thinking, 'Alphabetizing...ha! I can do this in my sleep. And I know the Dewey decimal system better than my husband’s backside!’
I grin ever so slightly then flatly continue. “And after you finish those five carts you have all those to do…” I point back behind the circulation desk to the shelves that are loaded with books. Not only is every shelf filled end to end, but in some places the books have been shoved to the back of the shelf and a second row has been added. “…tonight.” I finish.
The poor dear has more than enough to do but I tell her she has other duties. Like giving children’s floor a break at seven, locking up the basement at eight and being ready to clean up the various areas on the main floor at eight thirty.
She marches off sullen and resigned to a lonely, mind numbing task and I point to the others around me. “As soon as she brings back a cart someone should be back there checking in and loading up another cart. In the interim there needs to be at least two people behind the circulation desk at all times. You need to put away the Audio/Visual items whenever you can and you will all be asked to put away at least one cart tonight because slave-ah…I mean Librarian…T-trainee #1 will need all the help she can get.”
Never mind that you may or may not be familiar with the computer system, or the main floor itself.
Just wait for the first homeless person to come in. And you must respond to their needs. If they decide to lean over the counter and breathe into your face while they tell you interesting facts about the new wonder-nut they just heard about on their portable radio, you are not allowed to make faces, or comments.
When the woman with three screaming children insists on keeping her kids on the main floor while she uses a library laptop to check her Facebook status, you are not allowed to shout at her that she should take her kids up stairs, or corral the little brats into the bathroom and lock them there. You must treat her like the freedom loving American that she is and do your best to placate the other annoyed patrons.
Suppose someone comes in, having had the world’s worst day and they ask for an item that they claim is being reserved for them and it’s not there. And they throw a fit. Then you have to inform them that not only is their item not their but they are not there. As in…in the system.
“Well I have things I’m going to be checking out. And I’ve been waiting for the 54th season of Snoggles United for fifteen !@#$% weeks!”
You try to say, “Sir, I’m fairly certain that Snoggles United doesn’t actually exist and that’s why your Inter-Library Loan request was not only ignored but I also see someone wrote ‘LoL – You’ve got to be fu-‘”
But Mr. I’ve-Had-A-Bad-Day-and-Can’t-Think-Past-It isn’t going to stand by. Not only has the library failed him in his time of dire need, but now they are mocking his intelligence. So he fumes and snarls and says horrible things then stomps out leaving you bewildered and on the point of tears. But right behind him are fifteen other patrons, twelve of whom insist on conversing at the top of their lungs and standing in the way of the people that are clearly in a major hurry.
And you have to be polite, patient and calm….with all of them…right now.
Then there’s a lull. And in that lull you have to hurriedly check, scan in and lock, organize and put away every item that has collected in the drops or on the counter top before the next rush comes through. If you miss an item, or don’t scan it in, or don’t lock it, or put it on the wrong shelf in the back it will come back to haunt you.
The lull ends…far too soon. Another group comes in, you’re shaking because you haven’t eaten anything since you left home and it’s been three hours of flow and ebb and no time for food. You’re still emotionally spent from the reaming you didn’t deserve by Mr. Nasty-pants and just as you go to help the first in a line of aged patrons you can barely hear, the computer terminal freezes. And it’s the kind of freeze that can only be fixed by shutting the whole thing down and turning the whole thing back on.
And since these computers were brand new about when mobile phones started to become popular it’s going to take a few minutes. Now there’s only one computer at the front of the desk, one in the middle at a separate kiosk with no locking magnet and OH BY THE WAY…the computer in the back is on the fritz…again…so now everyone back there making carts, sorting stuff, etc. has to use the computers at the front to do it.
Another lull. Then she comes in. Tall, gangly, walking with a rolling limp, her hair in tufts sticking out every side and she’s never known a quiet day in her life. It’s not her fault really, she’s probably autistic. She always wants to get on a ‘compooter’. She always wants help. Your skin crawls and you try to look busy every time you hear her shout, “Scuuuse me…Kin you haalp me.”
She always comes in to search the net for a stay at home job that doesn’t require her to send in money first. You don’t know how many times you’ve told this woman that it’s not going to happen but she doesn’t care. It’s what she wants, and she comes to the library because she doesn’t have a car and can’t walk all the way across town to get to the business set up precisely for the sake of helping people like her.
So she sits down, finds some websites, starts loud conversations on her phone flourishing with profanity.
And of course, ten to one, you'll be the librarian that has to go over and help because every other co-worker has had the same exact reaction as you.
But the patron saint of librarians will bless you ten fold if can help her with loving kindness in your heart.
Meanwhile you’ve got another impatient customer who doesn’t appreciate the joke you tried to tell because you’re losing your sanity and right now a slightly bent sense of humor is the only thing keeping you together, but she’s in a dang hurry so she can get home and enjoy the final season of Dexter that she tried to borrow from the library but couldn’t watch because it’s scratched.
“And why is it you can’t just clean it now. The machine is right there. What’s the reason? Oh…no poli-cool? Really…why don’t you order some?”
“Not my department,” say you. And it’s not, but that doesn’t make sense to Mrs. Everyone-around-me-is-inept-just-like-my-husband-says.
Then….then!!!! Someone comes in and says, “I need a library card.”
What you would love to be allowed to say is, “I need to see a background check, credit check and if you wouldn’t mind stepping through this metal detector here….Or would you rather submit to a pat down?”
But what you actually say, with some manner of hopeful trust in mankind, is, “Sure thing, I’ll need to see a driver’s license with current address please.”
“Oh well I don’t have it with me, but, can I show you my Kroger card instead?” She asks.
“No, Miss. I really need to see a state ID.”
“Well..it’s out in my car and I just wanted to get a library card…” She says, showing you with her soulful eyes just how painful it will be to trot out to her car.
How many ways can person politely say the same thing before it becomes rude?
So instead, you cleverly lean in and wince right along with her. Feeling her pain. “I know it’s a little inconvenient but it really is necessary for us to have your information on file.”
She sees the wince, gets the idea that your conspiratorial inward cant means that you’re letting her get away with something and happily trots out to get her ID.
When she comes back she mentions that it’s not her current address on the ID, and no she doesn’t have any mail on her. No bills indicating her current address.
“You can check out today but we’ll mail you your card, and you will have to bring it in next time.”
For all she cares you could be telling her you need to hold her first born as collateral…so long as she can check out that movie she’s hoping you have. Or those shiny new video games there on the wall kiosk.
She fills out the paper work and you get into the computer system and look her up and you are, gosh….not at all shocked to see her name there in the system.
Brightly you say, “Well looks like you used to have a card with us.” And you know full well there is likely to be a massive fine attached with it. But boy doesn’t she look hopeful, and completely innocent. And you can see the ‘liar liar’ gears starting to churn in her brain, prepared to deny deny deny.
You open up her status and lo and behold there’s several dozen books missing, and all the replacement fees have been sitting on her dormant account since she moved away. She’s got several hundred dollars that she’s got to pay.
First she’s shocked, then she’s outraged, and even after you print off a copy of her account (which costs money, which she isn’t going to pay for) she can’t believe that she is still expected to pay those fees. And surely that book can’t possibly cost fifty bucks. And I never checked these items out.
And her grandmother died, her dog was accidently burned at the puppy sa-lon, and she lost three nails just the other day and can’t you just cut her some god-forsaken slack!?
Bravely, firmly, you say, “No.” Because you are aware, if no one else in the town is, that the library does not in fact have its own money tree growing out back.
She pulls out her credit card and hands it to you while looking away…hardly believing that she must stoop so low as to be charged for using the FREE public library.
“We don’t accept credit cards, I’m sorry, Miss.”
More shock, more indignation.
So you do the lean again…and you tell her the deal. “If you just bring those items back, or replace them (which you can do pretty cheap on Amazon), we’ll let the fines slide.”
Because really once the item is replaced, what does $1.90 in fines per book do for the library? Especially when it no longer needs to shell out several hundred to have the things replaced. (Which in this case they probably weren't going to replace anyway..)
Well she thinks you’ve just saved her life, or at least saved her dog’s life, and maybe she can replace a few nails with the money she’s saving.
Out she trots, happy as a pearly clam.
She’s happy, you’re happy, the library hasn’t fallen down, and one less person has yelled at you today for things that were out of your hands from the beginning.
Now is when I pull my librarian intern to the side with a friendly hand on her shoulder. And I say to her,
“Imagine you get to have lunch now…and you go down into the lunch room hoping that it’s empty so you can have a small part of your day be void of human noise. But…no no. All the people that work downstairs are there, leisurely reclined about the table enjoying lunch…hot lunches. That they’ve obviously had time to warm. So you sit, with your cold PB and J and glass of ice water, and you listen to the chatter and are fairly ignored up until one of them notices you…and starts talking about how you all keep waiving fines. And the more they talk the more they indicate that everything you do up stairs is in-ept and is essentially the reason the library is bleeding money.”
Then I pat her on the back as I pull away and head for the counter, back into the fray. Let her sort it all out on her own the way I did.
I would LOVE to hand a copy of this out to all the ladies I shared lunch with. Not looking for a win here...just a little understanding.
Sincerely,
The Librarian
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