Just a short tale about truth or perceptions...

I was once important, and because I had a position and voice I was expected to spout the Party Line, and could have if I didn't worry about Right and wrong. But when questioned I would tell the truth, and that bothers the cowards and the fools. I couldn't believe Oliver North wouldn't talk to Congress, he was a Marine and able to charge enemy machine guns, why would he be afraid of Congress? Lucky me, I only had to charge machine guns and write letters to Presidents and Congressmen and Senators, but since I never counted they weren't bothered.

One day in my attempting to wright a wrong, by beating it until it straightened out, I was found to be in error - seems I had written a letter to a General way up the Chain of Command (in an Army of OPEN DOOR policies at every level - like whistle blowing) and he didn't understand, and asked the fellows between us what the problem was (with me, of course, not with the Command). What was wrong, as I saw it, did not get reviewed nor changed, because it was only my perception of a problem. But now I was exposed and marked for destruction, and the gloves were off. Destroying me isn't easy, can be done but isn't easy. Since I really didn't self-destruct and take the honorable way out of wenches, wine, weed and AWOL: they waited and talked to me and poured it on a bit more waiting to hear me complain again. And I did complain again, I am trained to attack into ambushes and burst through them, don't stand around in the killing zone that is only dead meat there.

After a few more pointed counsellings and some written instructions on my future conduct it became clear there wasn't much of a future for me. I put in my retirement papers and cooperated with the Command structure quietly to smooth my transition out of the Army that wasn't ever going to fight a war again - the last remaining Superpower didn't really need warriors, just more yes men and business majors. Now, and back then, there are a lot of fine soldiers and officers - but they aren't always in charge nor around when one needs them - they are usually at work making war and building a better world, not doing powerpoint and gathering statistics and talking to the media. Rock on! Anyway, all my required by regulation paperwork for my retirement had been submitted and since I had over twenty-seven years of service, much of it overseas (that depends on what you call home, folks) and sometimes in combat central of some American Political opportunity, they were going to allow me to retire - I just had to provide them with a letter describing the reasons I was choosing to retire before my current overseas tour was over.

Ah, I then made a mistake, I looked at my reasons and decided I could do a "The Top Ten Reasons to Retire" and I did. Reason Number Ten: and all the way to Reason Number One: and it was in proper military letter format, with my unit, date, my signature block on it and addressed to the Headquarters that had insisted I write it. I handed it to the clerk for faxing and he glowed with promised potential - he not only sent it to that headquarters, but all his clerk buddies to laugh over, all over Europe. Or that is my story, for sure I was called up on the carpet again, to be told what a terrible fellow I was because of my attitude and what I had written. I would only get a lower level service medal because I wasn't one of the good guys. Ah, yes, the feeling of failure was supposed to descend upon me - but I felt freedom, take my family and flee - they never loved me anyway. Expendable, replaceble parts, worn out.

11B becomes an 11C, change is good...

Suspect sometimes sings to me, I went from well trained 11B to 13B because the Army needed me there and this week they are teaching me new tricks. Not the Army, the Washington State Library wants me to cover the absent vacationing Library Keeper at the Western State Hospital.
So from Tuesday through Friday I am working in a 1940's style library, where the largest circulation is in CD and DVD and VHS. There are books but not used so much and they have been weeded well and I am in awe of the space remaining on their shelves - can't get that much room in McNeil Islands library shelving.
The library software is different and linked into the Statelibrary and I have used it before and adjust easily. I haven't figured out the ILL codes so I can work on OCLC but will try to find that information today. The security set up is different going through the DSHS instead of the DOC and I can't do some searches and such on the work stations, but can from the public access terminals (different security set ups).
The other major change is in the patrons, I get patients and staff and they are certainly not like the guys at MICC. I get to be a charming old fellow and don't have to put on my "Tougher Than Thou" persona. So you aren't getting the real me because most of the patrons are very nice, will wait for their turn, actually say 'hello' and mean it when they ask how you are and what is your name. They will remember my name and I promptly forget theirs - bad habit from years of everyone with a rank and name tape. One lost college student, returned to the proper direction to find the local college library with the proper staff and much material. One staff preparing a training conference looking for citations for support in current treatments, sent away with less than she needed since I had lack of skills in online data base search, or she didn't know the real titles of the publications. I also have to talk to women MUCH more than normal - I will recover next week from that shock. I had better, or they might decide I need to work at WCCW and I have avoided that so well over ten years.
So I get to stretch and learn some new skills, solve puzzles and work around barriers, meet and talk to new folks that would like to have their normal librarian back (we aren't really librarians, lacking the MLS). I assure them that she will be back Monday but I will try to help now, a nice harmless ol' fellow.

My State of the Union, at our kitchen table

My wife wouldn't talk to me, because I wasn't properly responsive over our nephew's impending divorce (which I am very unhappy about) but I don't want to know the details - and she wants to share (dumping all the dirt she got from her sister). Ah, women. Then I find out this morning that President Bush has been giving the State of The Union speech last night - and he was at our kitchen table (where I found out about the divorce) and he heard we were discussing the economy. Ah, he has a hearing problem, we are old long lived working folks (middle-classless) and we will get another job, cut back spending and pray harder. We won't be waiting on the government to make us feel better. We will talk at the kitchen table about people we love and care about, about strangers going through tough times and what we can do to help, and what the weather is like outside and can we safely go to work. Doesn't match the agenda of Presidents and those other guys and gals in Washington, DC. does it? Nope!

Okay, want to talk politics? Don't think the Republicans are conservative enough, there isn't a lot of freedom for adults in America and growing less all the time. Don't think the Democrats are about the little people any longer - only about the rich money lenders with guilty feelings for being so rich (and wanting to get richer). That is about enough, I am sure the NRA will tell me where gun owners should vote (they don't get to my kitchen table where I clean my guns either). I will vote, but only for the people that I think will do less harm and sometimes it is hard to know about that. And in Washington State if the proper Governor (Governess?) isn't elected on the first count they keep recounting dead and disenfanchised voters until they get the results that King County wanted. We actually had several counties that had the exact same number of ballots and same results in all three counts - but not in King County. Enough politics, may the best candidates win (that should be a prayer phrase, shouldn't it?) and I will do the best I can to be a good citizen and an independent freedom loving American. So should y'all. There is a War on Terror on, and our military needs our attention.

Global Warming, anyone?

So sure the Sunshine was going to dry the roads I got on the motorcycle to ride to church yesterday, and my praying in Thanks started when I hit that long patch of ice with melt on top of it, front tire went right, rear tire went left, I leaned against the pull -- I wished for better (LESS!) gravity and much better traction and then it was all over -- I found traction and my heart didn't stop and I could breath again. Praise the Lord! I slowly covered the remainder of the distance, very carefully. By the time the service was over I had better roads to ride and went straight home and up the still ice covered driveway. Life is good and then one dies. Today, I wake to more Winter Weather, all capital letters. I will drive the minivan, and remember the Polar Bears. Driving in Washington with those that never suffered more than rain is exciting.

Getting up to think, getting up to think...

It isn't really fair, once I was young, gallant and could sleep anywhere, anytime and in perfect comfort, now I have to think and that calls me from the land of Nod. Oh, I can still sleep on floors (heated better than not), or ferry boat rides, or while driving down the long highway (watchout!!) but eight hours in my bed doesn't seem possible. I take four for the body and reptilian- animal brain and then the higher levels of mental activity go from just dreaming to demanding logical functions with permanent solutions... the dreams are better entertainment, and I don't dwell on them except to laugh, the real thinking I will be stoking the fires and fueling the waking in the middle of the night tomorrow. Do I wake more in thought because I am driven to complete my quest? and I am running out of time and feel it? If I became more hormone imbalanced would the dancing girls come back and the frightening logic kindly step aside?

Ah, the picture? young paratrooper preparing for the Yom Kippur War

"What? ME worry?" not when I was young and foolish, what were those hormones?

Blood pressure is lower today...

I check it daily, every morning and today it was good (or too low as my wife says) 103/64 and 97/67 - heart rate of 41 and 38 bpm. It was the wine last night? the medication? the motorcycle ride in the Sun? well, no prize if you guess my choice but it wouldn't be the first two. I seem to have lots on my plate, all undone and I keep piling more on to see how tall the pile of procrastination gets before it topples. Today on a conference call I volunteered to work with two other library keepers on a blog for our Institutional Library Services - which would be easy, except in the end it must be very professional and politically an asset, never a liability (bland?). I sometimes think politicians are completely surprised when they find they aren't perfect, nor perceived as perfect. I also mentioned in a local Homeowners meeting that the library has books on how to incorportate in Washington, so I got the assignment of getting the books we need to do that (the others don't go to libraries?). At the same time I picked up two new things to do, nothing dropped from what I need to get done - stress adaptation - keep piling it on. So by the end of the day I am farther behind in work flow. Today I lost one library clerk to getting a haircut, tomorrow I lose one to a visit, and no one came to get the job opening today although there were five names told to show up, only one did. And Friday is my day (only in my mind) to clean up and finish all that the week brought with it, will he make it?

Well, my plan is to do what I can and concentrate on the important stuff. Being really old so much that passes for things to worry about, I won't. Universal health care, I was in the military, my family and I had total health care - we never needed plastic surgery, brain surgery, nor (lucky me) did anything traumatic come along. But I had to participate, taking all shots when scheduled, eating the food provided when in operations, and physical fitness training five or more days a week (those candidates never talk about what to eat and how much exercise you will have to do under their guidance, and look out on smoking and drinking and UA's?). And scheduling appointments was interesting, since there were never the number of health care professionals to support the needs of the populations served (the purpose of the military is to break things and kill people when so directed by Congress and the President - healing is only an economy measure - for morale and cutting training costs for replacements). This is one of my not to worry abouts, Medicare is coming to save me - and why do I have to pay for something I am taxed for already? Don't worry about it, they know what they are doing.

The IRS thinks I don't have to pay taxes (or file them) for 2007, since they haven't sent my booklet and materials. I won't worry about that either unless I think they owe me - since they think they got over they are waiting for me to figure it out. With all their computers and staff and everyone reporting to them - they could do my taxes for me and send me something to check against. I will file, and keep the records and be happy about it - proves I still have just a bit of intelligence left to be able to do my own taxes, they don't make it easy because it would empower more independence in the citizen. April 15th is weeks away.

One thing I always noticed when I wandered in foreign countries - I never had to worry about the laws. They existed in the local language, and if I behaved, like my parents taught me, good manners got me through just fine. But there are people in all the different governments making new laws to cover whatever they hadn't thought about before. I can't worry about that, I don't have enough time to read them, obey nor break them, or be punished for them. Not going to lose sleep on that either.

I think I will ponder the Clintons as repeating Presidents... when is the daughter going to be thirty-five? Or should I look at the interesting French fellow with his fine lady, and think that an American wench from Orange County country could be President and publicly fool around better than the French (not in 2008, give us a few more years to get it right). Well, nothing even got my blood pressure to spike, so I will go read about the Boer War.

Nice Cold Clear Day - Mount Rainier stands out

I want to ride my Triumph, because I am excited at so much Sun and all this free time, the cold doesn't even affect me - I see others in leathers on their motorcycles and they are having more fun than I in my minivan on my way to visit a public library. Why not me?

I think I should have my sunglasses on, I think about the interview, I think about friends, I park and visit the library and set their alarm off twice as I go in and out and then about - checking the new books on their shelves; Westerns, Mysteries, and Sci-fi. I meet my friend and we talk and that makes the day worthy, offered to put a good word in for me - but enough remember me from before I will go with the interview alone. I am early, I am invited in and addressed as "William" which I correct to "Earl" - these ladies don't know me, and I have never met them. Maybe I have changed too much as I aged, one of the pages I worked with before didn't remember me when I said 'Hi' either, it has been almost ten years since I worked for that library.

I am introduced and we touch common grounds before the questioning begins, the rules established, the language appropriate. Information Services is hiring one Library Associate, first question is what do I do now that would be helpful in their library and that position. I recite all that I remember that I do - and it is a long list, when their last question outlines the duties I would have in their library I realize that I won't be doing as much as I do now, and being only one of many I will be under appreciated. Still I answer the questions honestly, relaxed and with a little humor. My wife's advice was to not talk too much - since they are trying to write it all down I do think and then respond appropriately. Thirty minutes later the interview is over, they told me what the maximum pay was (if I worked there a long, long time) per hour. I shook their hands, for some reason the woman with gloves on the entire time upset my harmony, and I didn't like shaking the gloved hand, it was cold in that large room but two of us didn't have gloves on.

I drove home, counting two more motorcyclists going in my direction and one coming against the traffic. I considered that I probably won't get called - over qualified and too independent - hard to supervise, but would remain on their list for a year and maybe more interviews as new holes appear in their staff. My inside informants have said the budget talk has been very quiet, the personnel problems haven't changed much. I decide that the motorcycle needs a run in the cold clear air... time to breath, time to roar. I get home and take off the tie and interview gear, put on sweats, extra layers, mask, turtleneck sweat shirt and boots. Get the good warm gauntlets down and the full face helmet. Open the door, roll the bike out, turn the fuel valve, open choke, turn key, press starter - such lovely improvements over the kick starter of my first motorcycle (I don't have to prove I am a man any longer?). Close garage doors, put on helmet, adjust gauntlets, get on motorcycle, turn off choke, roll throttle, release, disengage clutch, tap into first gear - roll down drive and onto the street and adventures.

Others are going home and I am going against the traffic, and I fly (both wheels on the ground) and I fly. Stop at the Harley-Davidson dealer to see what is there, and nothing calls to me, I am too particular about my ideal motorcycle and too content with the Triumph in silver and graphite, even with its wounds, honorably earned the hardway, battle scars and scares, things to talk to my son and friends about over a beer (okay, a coffee). Time to go home and I want to miss all the congestion of the commute - not easy, but I have more flexibility on the motorcycle and I use it - seventy-five in a sixty zone? How did I get that fast, must be an error in the guage, this is the commute and nothing is protecting me, slow down a shade and read the traffic and the road. Very round about route ridden, but I finally get past the herd of migrating motorvehicles of suburbia and scoot home to find my wife dressing for church. Day is gone and it was great.

Holes, how do you fill the holes, and who makes them

I blame budgets, Library budget reality - not enough money and something has to give. Often it is the staffing of the library, and then the hours and the days. So I was hired to work here at McNeil Island in 1998 and there were three Full Time Employees (FTE) one librarian and two paraprofessionals, open over sixty hours a week providing service the the inmates and staff. Then the Governor decided that the Washington State Library must die - to save some dollars or the internet had arrived and the State Library was no longer needed. So he cut the library out of his budget and snarled at the State Librarian who hissed back and arched her back. Okay, maybe not that simple but I was in the trenches not under the center of the State Capital.

The ensuing political fight made the WSL a part of the Office of the Secretary of State (of Washington) and still under limited budget because the Governor still hated us (for whatever reason). The Secretary of State and his henchmen came to visit the Library and see what kind of creature they had adopted, they looked and questioned and were briefed and looked and questioned and were briefed. Then they made some tough, hard decisions - because there wasn't any money in the Library, it had too many employees, books, services and couldn't be folded up and carried around lightly --- so being from timber cutting country they took a chainsaw to it and pruned wildly but with purpose. For political reality shakeup they cut all services to government employees, added services (at the Library) for all citizens of the State, weeded all the frivolous books from the collections, and all the staff books and serials from the branch collections (hoping to get the other Agencies to cough up money for services they once had for free). Although the branch libraries at the mental hospitals and prisons had excellent hours and circulation and were important - they aren't very visible and so they chain saw hit there deeply, first cut one staff, then on another swing cut it all down to one staff per branch. Not Michael Angelo's David but still looks like a bear, and functions like a State Library under constraint. Where I was, the branch was open about twenty hours a week with one full time staff and I was out of a job - after taking a half-time position under the first cut.

I survived, was given a full time position at the State Library down the highway and daily commute, the branches adjusted, the State Library built up a stronger alliance with people that love libraries and use them. By hanging around and long enough the position at McNeil Island opened again and I was allowed to take it, get more training and personally things were good, the State Library is still limping along - still feels under attack - PTSD anyone? Ten years after I was originally hired, there is still a branch library at McNeil Island and providing services to the inmates but not the staff.

Today I took a day off, to go and interview for a position at a public library - where I know they have struggles with budgets, with unions, with management, with City fathers on budget matters - and they still provide a wonderful service to the public, and my inmate patrons through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Tomorrow I will walk to the dock, take the ferry ride to the island, open my branch and get back to important and not very visible library work with a underserved population - certainly not politically powerful, felons can't vote. If I took work at another library someone would eventually fill the hole, but not soon enough. There isn't an immediate replacement system for workers, only for executives... but I sleep well at night knowing I am needed. A square peg in a round hole is better than nothing in the hole to tie onto.

A Hal Day, or turning of the slug

Not wanting to be a total slug and get moldy in the moist Northwest I decide to jog and shoot today, there is a Homeowner Officers meeting in my house this afternoon and my wife is focused on finger food and cleaning for it. But me, I am a slug and I take off - jogging joyfully down the road, picking my feet up and laying them down. I am passed early in the jog by a young woman that says hello and tears off, there was a day I didn't think that fast was fast, but speed is relative or was it time? She was going so fast she missed the shiny quarter on the shoulder, I didn't and I stopped to pick it up. We put a thousand dollars in a Credit Union account on rolled up change, most from pockets and purses but considerable from roadkill. I suspect that young women and their boyfriends throw the coins out at intersections wishing for love and infertility, thinking something mystical might happen. Nothing so mystical, some old guy picks the coins up or they get ground into the dirt for the archeologists of the future. I get the normal dogs barking at me, I respond with a hello, and then a woman in a car stops to ask if I have seen a German Shepard pup, but I haven't. I always think one should walk in ever larger circles when looking for a lost pet, driving doesn't help the dog at all, scent and sound being shut inside. There are some heart walkers out, but the cold and the misty rain keep most inside today. I find a dime and then a penny. I only need to find a nickel to make it a perfect Hal day - finding one of each coin. The nickels are the hardest to find, they don't have the utility and circulation of the others when getting change for a dollar. I finally come back home, sweating a bit, puffing a bit and happy a lot - not bad for a slug, one hour seven minutes and thirty-three seconds, do deep breathing exercises on the walk to cool down. Quick, change into jeans and GorTex camo and drive down the road to Range 16. Shooting twenty-two and forty-five pistols, won't bore you with the target, I did take the final one's picture but as long as I am happy - no need to disturb you. I wonder why, since Global Terror is something our Presidential leadership fears why they haven't decreed shooting at a range at least monthly for all good citizens, and jogging down the roads daily? Wouldn't that make me a wonderful guy, instead of just a slug? They like us better as a slugs?

Shhss!!! Library at work...

Yesterday the Chain came in, new inmates from other institutions, rotating because of... custody level, security or preference -- they get to move. Shackled in chains, on a bus that rattles with its own ills as well as those chains, with tiny windows that you can't pop out in an emergency nor look out as you are locked in until you arrive somewhere new and less confined. Rumor among the inmates is that there are two of the vehicles, the regular one to your next facility and the special that never unloads -- the really bad guys get on it and it only stops for refueling along the way and to load another guy somewhere else (no one ever gets off and they are never heard from again!).

When the Chain comes in and unlocks and unloads the institution is at peril, periods of transition are always the best time for attack, escape or insurrection and so security must be higher. After processing and the departure of the Chain bus things will go back to normal, well, a prison normal. In the library suddenly five to ten extra men will show up outside of the movement period and from the wrong units, their explanation: I wanted to get something to read.

Male voices are loud, deep and carry well - some of the inmates have trouble making anyone believe them unless the volume is overwhelming. So inmates from the chain are quickly establishing their rights, priviliges and collecting debts or establishing threat levels they can survive with (pecking order). Old buddies from county lockup two years ago, old buddies from criminal enterprises, old school buddies and of course the old drinking buddies.... re-establishing the connections, telling the stories and asking the questions. The noise level builds as the TRUTH is always LOUDER than fiction... unfortunately, I have good inmate library clerks, which along with their other duties show off their positive customer service skills by getting just as loud or better and shouting across the library to get information to that table in the corner. Lovely and lively here, sigh.

I am a guy, I understand and I listen for the mellow in the bass booming broadly by... situtation normal, no threats nor fears funded here, the Library is at work and the beeps of the computers scanning barcodes count the time. Still the noisiest Library in the planet, have to be first at something.

what the library and its services mean to you...

The Library is a little piece of sanity in the chaos and stress of prison life. I'm nearing the end of my fifth year with another eleven to go. Instead of looking ahead to all those years still behind bars I simply look ahead to my next library day.

With the help of a great librarian and the Interlibrary loan program each week I explore historic battles, humorous stories of growing up and experience exciting and interesting lives in the distant past or far future. ...

.... My only complaint is that it isn't open enough. I was in general population in WCC between 2004 & 2006. We had library 3 nights a week from 1st movement after dinner until recall. Having library only 1 night a week for only 45 mins and only for the first 40 inmates makes it difficult to get everything you want to done. ...

.... There are only 3 things I look forward to in prison - visits, my job in correctional industries and library day. Thank you!

Need something to desire but never really achieve?

I like to look, I like to think I am more than I really am and that brings desires like this one, way more than I need (own two .45's now) but doesn't that picture just set my heart to thumping, 46 bpm instead of the normal 45... yep, and a nice name.

HUNTER

What more could a gentle old library guy want to play with? that his wife would approve of?

If I am gone...

My mother writes instructions for when she is gone, I explain to the patrons that I need some good writing about how important libraries are in the institutions to help recruit staff, everyone in some little way is preparing for when they are gone but the need is still there. One of the men says to let the inmates run the libraries, they can do it. And they do it at the camps, whatever library is there is a combination of inmate interest and activity and some staff person that has a key to the room where the library is. It is much better than nothing, but the Washington State Library doesn't give up its collection to the inmates nor Department of Corrections, they try to recruit new staff and run the library well with supervisors opening the doors and shifting staff from other institutions to maintain some service. Still, the library is really closed, there isn't any depth when the institutions were reduced to one FTE per library. As the inmate said "Closed Libraries suck!" with all the anger you don't want to be the focus of...

Experts say...

As television became the stranger invited into our homes, often trusted and paid attention to beyond good sense the "experts" crept into being. Now if you can't quote an expert on whatever subject to prove one's point - the point isn't valid, or you might have to take a poll to make me convinced. I have known a couple of experts: a Junior High teacher who trained the Junior High Rifle Club and coached the high school rifle team, my machine gun instructor in Fort Lewis during the Vietnam War, and that was about it. I don't think I ever became an expert on any subject, I was selected to perform training, coaching and other duties at different times but I am sure that someone else was selected when I had departed for other ventures - the need doesn't make experts, filling the need can help establish one's expertice? I have become convinced that writing a book, coaching or teaching a certain subject seems to be the qualifier now, even when the book and its theories are wrong, experts remain. Ever wonder why we don't have expert ditch diggers? Professional only means that one receives compensation for performance, expert means one is the most ........ yep, fill in the blank.

Sun's Day, soak it up now for tomorrow rains... return

I am up early and off to the church, Men's Breakfast, riding my motorcycle in the dark, no rain, no water, clear sky with stars - now that is different. Clean up after breakfast and hop on motorcycle to return for a checkbook, run out of fuel put it on reserve and carry on. Stop for fill up on the way back to church, write checks, practice anthems, robe up and more coffee before the service. It felt good to ride in the Sun - but the church is only two miles away from home, hardly enough to make a careful determination about the motorcycle, the day or my pleasures. After five hours in the church I have received the benediction and a couple of cookies and a lasting cup of coffee time to roll. Zach is walking by with his mother, I ask if he brought his helmet because he could ride with me if he had. Since Zach is only going on two he didn't bring his helmet, but he watches me carefully as I start up and pull out to ride, waving. I am off, only two miles from home and my wife said she won't be there this afternoon having a dinner engagement... so I am off to my girl friend's. Well, not really, just giving myself a reason for riding fast down the highway, around the Sound and ever onward. I do know where the local twisting roads, the straight fast lanes, the places where no motorcycle man has gone before... okay, I was there before and I enjoyed it and am back for more. I am finishing off as I ride by the Harley-Davidson dealer on my Triumph America, in silver and graphite. Lots of heavy V-Twins outside, lots of heavy riders - sometimes the price of the machine, the size of the engine and the size of the riders are in sync. Sometimes not, I ride on the country roads until I am back home, where I find my wife washing her car - her dinner canceled and football games waiting for me. Another great day wasted so well.

Shooting again? where's the football?

I know there is a game today, and the Seahawks are playing the Packers, and I am supposed to want to support the local team, but my dream is the Packers going all the way this year and then Bret retiring at the height of his career. I didn't so I expect I know something of the sad state of not walking off with the laurel around one's crown. So I dropped my wife off to attend a function and I went off to shoot and vent the paper targets. Had lots of fun, wasn't as good as I should be but it is the start of the new shooting year and I will progress. I had to laugh, about the bite on the web of my shooting hand, haven't had that in awhile. Well the game calls, I will clean up two pistols and iron my shirts while I watch and eat lunch. It should be a great game, they practice more than I do and are certainly professional and entirely too serious about today.

Institutional Library Services - what dat mean?

I need to expound on ILS, Institutional Library Services, to entice you to join in this happy fray. It won't make you younger, sexier, richer, nor more loved or celebrated than Brad Pitt and Angela, as I look at it now - it isn't going to do anything for you. Unless you are in an institution or care about someone that is... (did I get her name wrong? I did didn't I? oops!). When the current President Bush decided to attack Iraq and what ever he thought he could accomplish for History I looked up on the internet the Iraqi libraries, where they were, what they had, and such -- not very exciting, but I knew that some of them would be damaged or destroyed in President Bush the youngster's war. I haven't been back to check, I do know that with American troops come lots of reading material from supply, exchanges and family support, and we will leave much of it for the locals to read in English. I picked up lots of British publications during my trip to Saudi Arabia for the elder Bush's war. Anyway, back to institutional library services.

You have a population of people separated from America's culture and commerce, for healing and treatment or programming. This population needs access to the outside and a library can provide entertainment and education without subjecting the outside population, you, to the stress of contact with the separated persons. That could be what is going on, I am not sure, but some one has decided that a library can assist in the return of this special population to normal society. Is there empirical proof that a library can make an incorrigible into a better human being? I like to point to Red and Malcom X, but then you would have to know I chopped that story into its smallest pieces, and expect that you know not everyone goes to nor uses the library for its maximum potential. That is a disjointed effort in explaining institutional libraries, sorry.

I work in the Institutional Library Services to help provide that help in finding one's way out of the present and into a past and a better future. I know that I am called on daily to bring a change in knowledge, attitude and satisfy one's question without an answer. Do I make a difference? only in that I open the door and allow some one in, they get to open the books. That may be all the difference needed. More library keepers are needed far from the flag pole and all the glory in the Capital, the Washington State Library serves less than twenty institutions, serving over fifteen thousand or so patrons with no other library service. Of the employees in the State Library much less than a third are engaged in Institutional Library Services directly, much less, remember the guards at the border with the barbarians? Institutional Library Services

Commuting

Just another day, I decide the weather man doesn't know what he is talking about, he has lied to me before, so I take the motorcycle out to ride to work. I have the rain jacket on, and leave off the pants. Ah, a mile from home the skies beat water upon fools, and I am, wet from jacket to toes and heels. Ah, the ride is great, in the dark and the totally wet, large puddles hiding pot holes, and adventure with the four wheeled folks on cell phones or with attitudes. It is never bad enough to stop and go home and more adventure waits just around the next corner, lay it over and roll on the throttle. One wet puppy reports into the depot after parking the bike, well, a damp ol' hound. I will dry out, and I notice the tide is especially high this morning as we load the ferries, I opt for sitting in front of the heater and steaming a bit. Inside the library I call Tacoma Public Library and find I have an interview for a position. I have one inmate with flu and one having interviews for housing in another state, our prison population overflows so we rent services and space. We knock out overdue notices, restrict patrons with over three weeks worth, do ILLs and fix the almost brand new Book Return box. The patrons are noisier than usual, the Sound is cold and wet, ravens pretend they can soar like the eagles and seagulls, but they can't. My boss is watching as she works and tells me a couple of things to correct, we have lunch together and I talk about other things and the Spanish collection and how the Germans do so well in a country we (and our allies) destroyed so well in the War. Finally it is time to go home, the library has been well used. I think, since the rains have almost stopped that I might get home without getting soaked, but then realize it is waiting for me. I get on the ferry and take a seat and plan the return home. Suddenly, after riding these boats for almost nine and a half years, someone spots an Orca in the water (WOW!!!) the normal tourist attraction pods are up North above Seattle and below Vancouver, BC. This is too cool and getting a glimpse of the large fin coming up and cutting back down is great, something to write home about. Then we get cast off and start across the water and the rains start to come down harder, yep. It was waiting for me, I get dressed in rain gear in the depot and ride home, much better prepared for the water and only my boots and socks will be soaked, since I have a hot dinner with a spicy noodle soup waiting my day is perfect. Tomorrow the minivan, the weather man says it will get drier after the Seahawks play Greenbay Saturday, but he has been wrong before.

Half way? or much less to go?

Yesterday I stopped running on the circle in my cage, and looked around. All the complaining on Friday wanting to stay in bed wasn't the reason, the frozen sidewalks and road (no running down the street) weren't the reason. Nope, I stopped because I was now sixty years old. In Asia where they still consider their dead ancestors important they celebrated the elders that reached sixty - hard work in those rice fields and climbing those mountains and toting that bale, not everyone made it to sixty. It is a big day to get all the family and village together and pay honor to the one that made it. I got a chocolate cake for breakfast with two candles (60) and my son called over the computer in live video and we talked, I had email and I got cards and gifts but mostly I spent my day alone and trying to reconcile my financial program ending last year before I start taxes, anyone seen the tax forms for 2007 yet? not I.

But mostly alone I was looking at my life and making it to sixty, and remembering those that didn't, a couple of childhood friends, one killed by a bear, one killed by cancer of the blood, Rim Dungey from California didn't make it out of Vietnam alive, his name is on the Wall, Oliver did what he loved for years and cancer got him twice, the last time for keeps, Wes did what he loved and is remembered well for it, same end - second time on cancer and he didn't win, I heard he said "It takes so little to be happy." Ah, you can't sell that idea, it is too true. So I get to sixty and get to remember them and who they were when I knew them best and I will never be sure why it wasn't me instead of them. The Sun did break through the clouds and the ice and water dried out, I did go jog for an hour two minutes and twenty-two seconds, smiling.

Today in the library I open a new magazine and see "Forty is the new Thirty" and I have to laugh out loud - it wasn't a sixty year old, writing that article, was it? Ah, I am back on the wheel whirling along, still smiling and remembering sometimes those that I don't see around anymore, in the backrooms of my heart.

What to put away and what to keep about...

Christmas is so put away, the Library tree taken down.

At home the ornaments wrapped up to store,
the lights unplugged & coiled so shine no more.
My tree dismembered and packed in its box
joys of the holiday in my memory now locked.

The New Year arrived with noise, bangs and fizzles,
as cold gray winds rolling while blowing down drizzle.
Now Three Kings Day, I my mother's gift was to be
but I was late by one day, procrastination my destiny.

All that is left is more Love to spread about the Sound.

Time is moving, and I am dragged along...

I don't want to wake up, waking up I don't want to get out of bed but the alarm calls my attention. It is gray, wet and windy outside and darkness hasn't been broken for days, Hibernation calls, go back to bed, except I can't, my wife's alarm goes off and she is up, I really don't want to go to work. But I have to, I am the Library Keeper, the man with the keys to open up a world beyond the prison, I will go. The inmates bet on really bad weather days about who will show up, I have been there -- always, for snow doesn't phase me, 6.7 earthquakes only make me laugh (although, they turned me around at the gate), anyway, the inmates believe I will be there until I win the Lotto (and they know those odds, too.) At work all the busy stuff and I continue to weed the collection, did you know my Spanish readers check out their Mathematics books more than anything else except business books? Surprised me, but I have been working on increasing the Spanish collection's circulation - I am not buying more American novels intranslation, they don't circulate. I want more paperback books, cheaper to purchase and don't take up as much space on the shelves, but the publishers like hardcovers first and paperback the following year. I find some information and email the other lonely outposts of information and sanity in the other institutions (corrections and mental health) we are all busy closing up the last year in reports and statistics and starting the new one right... or close to that. Back home I find it tax time and download forms and find statements and empty spots to fill in, I could be that slug and go off and sleep, but the day wears on and Responsibility is dragging me, onward ever onward. Should I do something special this year (YES!) when (NOW!) and then I get dragged by Responsibility away from that fine foolishness... the little world of McNeil Island Library and its patrons has my attention, demands better and is never ending in its grip on my reality. How does one get out of this place, I do want a day off.

Leader of the Free World...

Selecting a President, read about it at the Library!- the media only knows how to attract your interest so they can sell ad time (commercials abound). I have heard that Iowa doesn't represent the United States - but then I say that New York City, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles don't (thankfully) represent the United States either. I will vote in November, for one of the candidates groomed and well presented by the vested interests of their respective parties. And although I told one loud patron at my library not to offend my sense of harmony by using vulgar and obscene language, "when he decided that XXX would be elected", I think the candidates have sterling characteristics and are just the kind of people I would invite home, if I weren't a recluse and paranoid from surviving the Vietnam War and still confused about if I had been doing a good thing or I was the most evil pawn of that ancient nasty government. The term I have had the most problem with is "Leader of the Free World" and then thinking our President should be followed by free thinking people, freedom lovers everywhere and others if they know what is good for them. I don't, and haven't followed a President anywhere - I made a career of going where he pointed out I was needed, but I don't follow Presidents. They often impress me but I could never get away with their lapses of common sense and good judgement, and are then so easily forgiven by people I know would never forgive me, sigh. I sent my last political monetary contribution to a one legged Senator from the midwest when I thought he would be someone I could understand, it wasn't enough and some governor from Arkansas took the party's position, and I couldn't understand him not being brave enough to jog through Washington DC every day. How much he feared real America was all I could think, I didn't know how he would occupy his time stuck inside the Whitehouse all day. Yes, I have jogged in Washington, DC, and helped paratroopers march proudly there, walked the streets and all, but then no one depends on me to push the button on Nuclear Release between bimbos... we can do a better job of selection of a President, but somehow I think the money men will buy our next leader or the ones they can't buy won't get selected. Which maybe why the thirty thousand excellent potential Presidents don't even attempt to compete - they have a great life, and don't think the position of President is that critical, most Americans aren't following, most of us are out there living the best we can. Even my inmate patrons and library clerks are doing the best they can every day, no matter who is President or trying to become the next one.

New Year, never a new start without the old memories...

I wake and forget to take my medicine, but the doctor told me to stop running the first time he saw me since my heart rate was so slow - he is still my doctor and I never stopped running for him, my heart rate is still slow, where are those racy women to turn it up? Nevermind, as I ride to the Resolution Run I think about selling my first motorcycle in 1974 and not buying nor riding again until 2007, I have 8226 miles as I leave the garage this morning, after picking it up at the end of February. Roll on and lay over into the turn, smile bigger and brighter. I had only one car, wife gets that and I started running or biking to work, always about seven to nine miles from my front door. As a drill sergeant I then get to exercise with the troops and make them tougher than their mothers ever imagined possible, and that brings another serious smile and laughter, I loved that job until the generals got in the way. The running stuck, although I confess to only jogging now, the racing and running days are behind me. I change into sweats for the run, packing the leathers away, looking at all the slender runners in nylon and spandex with shoes that cost more than my cotton outfit. The run starts and I start and after a half mile my foot stops worrying about abuse and no longer painfully reminds me of the motorcycle it was pinned under - old wounds, old scar tissue and no flexibility in them, but persevere - always endevor to persevere. It is an out and back course, the five K runners fly back and look good, then the five mile leaders also fly back looking like heroes. I once thought I only did stuff to be a hero of some kind or level, but the truth is easier - I do it to be less of a slug, I am such a slug. I make the two and a half mile turn around and get to count the few people chasing behind me - but I am ahead of them, and according to my watch I am ahead of my worse performance fears, so smile and dig in and pour it on. But my enemy has laid a trap, I see pennies on the road, and I stop to pick them up, all fourteen of them, I leave nothing for the automobiles to grind into dust and relieve the government of its obligations. Then onward to the finish line and a burst of energy as a heavier younger man (who is old by my son's standards) passes me into the end of the race chutes. I have been beaten again, but remember that all those sleeping in and not running nor jogging today at all - I am five miles ahead and you won't catch me. Change again, eat the veggie chili and drink coffee for moisture, and get on the motorcycle and ride home a hero. A little sassy sash-shay wiggling and rolling on the throttle, it will be a great year already better than I deserve, head home to hot shower, broiled ribs and bok choy, and football games.