Wondering about the end of Summer?

the first work week in April is done and I can see June is almost over and only half a year to go... for those folks in the frozen and wet north and east, there is a chance that Winter will wind down and go far away... to bother the other hemisphere or somewhere else. The rains seemed to let up and by Wednesday I was ready to ride out on my motorcycle, I have been spotting soaring and dropping Bald Eagles and their power and freedom make me envious. Can't fly outside my dreams but I can ride that Triumph. So on Wednesday and Thursday I rode to work and froze my fingertips and fogged my face shield, still I was swooping and soaring and making my heart beat faster, or beat happily. On the afternoon trips home the Sun was breaking out and the
'only good weather' riders were joining the frollic on the roadways, flashing that inverted V with their clutch hand - I will never know what it means, just that I am not alone in my fun. That works for me. Friday, a sixty percent chance of rain, the morning temperature was above fifty and no rain. I figure that God loves me, I rode the motorcycle and walked to the dock without rain, and on the trip home the heavy black rolling clouds must have had orders not to do it on my parade - for they didn't and my roadway was dry and I was cranking out some power and pushing my envelope to minor rapture... Home in time to see my wife and smile and talk with her before she goes off to a church group meeting. She will be back.

At the Library we started the week with the last day of the previous month, which means reports and data to compile. I lose an inmate clerk on Monday because he took out his anger on another inmate in the Unit, a chapel porter, and rumor has it he got the first punch in, but after the table turned over and they got on the floor without room to move around the porter cleaned up on him. Prison humor, sorry. They both ended up in F unit Seg, and by Wednesday I had picked some thick Historic novels for his reading, twenty-three hours alone is twenty-two too much for one's mind. I can't start the hiring process until his hearing and the judgement is given. His chances of staying in Minimum Custody and on McNeil Island are very slim. I did the inmate clerk payroll on Tuesday and turned it in, everyone will get something for their best efforts last month, less than forty-five dollars and more than thirty.

Three inmate clerks mean that we barely kept ahead of the patrons, and seem to have lost control of at least four items, don't know if they were improperly checked out, but they aren't where they should be. I suspect I have a frazzled circulation clerk that isn't looking at the computer screen because he has too much going on and there are more big ugly guys waiting for his attention. It is important to check that screen, we are about to receive sixty-one CDs and they will be hot items. The first CD we had was gone in about thirty minutes and no one let on that it had arrived. Our audit by the Corrections Oversight team was published and I made sure that my supervisors had a copy to feel very good about, I printed a copy for my historical record. I am identified as Earl Dungey Librarian (which I am not, but Library Keeper is too special for publication).

On Thursday my supervisor visited and was distracted by the amount of Reference material behind the circulation counter, so she weeded, and I ordered up to date replacements, withdrew old and ugly stuff, and discussed future purchases. I have less that six hundred dollars to spend and three hundred of it is in the current book cart with Baker and Taylor. She also approved my last book cart and it will go through Acquisitions. I was thinking as I wandered the library looking at books, that our Westerns are worn and weak, they just don't write enough of them any longer - well, the traditional ones - cowboy or gunslinger rides horse saves ladies in distress and then rides off.. we seem to have too many of the "urgently romantic" men without honor on the shelves now. What I would love to see is somebody donating Leatherbound Louis Lamour and Zane Grey to our shelves. I am sure someone out there bought them and has out lived them. I do live in a fantasy world, don't I?