After getting a sunburn on the Sunny beaches of Florida, Sunday afternoon, my wife says I am as red as a radish. But I was preparing to ride the Trusty Triumph to work and it was a bit chilly outside, not frosty yet but certainly stirred me to cut a couple of minutes off my jog because I wanted to go faster and stay warm as my breath clouded when I exhaled. Yeah, leather St. Johns Bay jacket, white, knitted by wife, scarf around my neck (flashbacks to WWI flying outfits), pulled on the almost winterized thick gauntlets and allow the motorcycle to warm up a little longer as I adjust the helmet. Florida was nice wasn't it? I waved good-bye and rolled off into the ride, and I don't have to share, go get your own ride, worth every penny and all the unexpected shocks along the way.
A walk to the dock, finally thinking about what I need to accomplish in the library, nap on ferry, and walk into the prison, okay it is a Corrections Center, but that is so many extra key strokes. I am on the outgoing mail, the incoming mail, and find a Library for the Blind bag, knowing immediately who that should have gone to - I know his name, been here too long? Check the four days of email, and answer some that have already been taken care of by others. But one has to look, sometimes they don't skip you and they wait. Find a message from my supervisor that says I have to get the branch manual updated before she returns, and I was so sure I had it updated before I left - put that on the procrastination pile. Finally I have a full crew the last one tells me that his unit was locked down - since movement is already thirty minutes late I could believe it. And we work and help the customers, I find small problems only I can fix, others they should have already and guide them back to doing it better for the library and customers. Sending patrons to me is only when they have done all they can, I get interrupted many times, and that sometimes makes me forget my place and I start over. Can't say there is any boring stuff in my library, everyone wants something from me - the hustle is constant.
Another patron comes to my door and I almost start to snarl, I am such a bad guy, but then I ask what I can do for him, he wants to know what to read -- seems he has a lot of time on his hands and wants to get that stuff he missed in school. He wants the classics and stuff the college types all know, kind of. So I hit Google and print out about three recommended reading lists - glancing at them most of them aren't on my reading list but the education and media elite think they are worthy. Sigh. So I go out and we start to talk more about what he wants from the reading, self education opportunities in the library (all libraries everywhere), and why he didn't do it all the first time years ago. I want to give him Ender's Game but it isn't on the shelf but recommend it (he looks like he need teenage male romance -- which is always competitive adventure not sex, folks). Yes, I did show him the Great Books collection briefly - but I won't start anyone on Dante or Plato, I talk and discuss some more and head for Heinlein - grab Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, tell him not to think about any movie about any book - books are always better. He is still oriented a bit towards the classics, been talking to others, and wants to look at Moby Dick and a Dickens or two. So I show him a Classic condensation with illustrations of Moby Dick and walk him over to Dickens and grab the Christmas Carol - since Nicholas Nickleby is way too thick for starting out. I then talk a bit more, another inmate slides a book about reading for self education towards him (now where did that book come from?) and recommends it -- there are no private conversations in prison, every thing is monitored. But that is one of the great things about real readers - they are always willing to share their books just like Oprah (yes, I mentioned her book club - he thinks he might like to join one in the prison). I do go back to the Great Books shelf and find Melville and Moby Dick, or The Great White Whale. So he thanks me and hopes he can talk to me again later and my day is done, it won't get any better than that, all twenty minutes of nudging him into reading and hoping I have picked books that will make him come back for more. I stop at my internet computer and add a couple of self study books for purchase, and the ones that were recommended by Bob to add to the next book cart.
By the end of the day, as I work to clear the paper shredder jamming (when you don't buy it you don't care for it lovingly) and wish my request for labels and removable tape had been filled and decide I will have to purchase them with my own money, since it seems the Governor lost all of hers, where do the dollars go? by the end of the day, I mention to one of the old library workers (a fine large hunk of a man - okay, potential thug or gentle giant) that I had a great fifteen minutes today - out of the eight and a half hours, and he understood. Yeah, I will have to remember that because they aren't often enough, but they are golden.
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