A day for contacts and messages.... I share...

I got a really good start yesterday, up early, and on the routine, then stopped after breakfast to call my mother in North Carolina. Sharing a bit of Christmas joy away from each other, she is having her white Christmas and we will be praying for melting of the roadways so she can get to my sister's for their traditional pizza dinner and playing with presents all day. I also made an appointment with the service department to get my wife's car serviced. Off to work, dropping off the last bill of the month, near the bikini barista stand, two lively very young ladies there this morning. I walk to the dock and nap on the ferry, I have started to read Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia, cause Tam has.

On the way into the prison a teacher, that has used our library, stopped me and asked about his parents wanting to donate money or books - I answered and he will get back with me after the holidays. I get a telephone call on the Librarian's office phone, behind a locked door, I pick up in the workroom and it is the Program Manager with the news - which I can't discuss with other Washington State employees until it is released to the general public by the folks that have made the decisions. She is the only one I know that reads this periodically, so I think I am clear. Good conversation, but I felt sorry for her, they give her the knife to make the sacrifices and the blood starts flowing and something very beautiful and nice is now slowly pumping its reason onto the floor, and she has nurtured the Institutional Library program for too long not to care, and no matter how curt her emails and fast and strictly professional her work habits, if I had ever drunk alcohol with her I would know she cared about us, lonely Library Keepers. I knew it anyway, even sober I am not totally out of touch with people's emotional state.

Back to work, I receive an email from my supervisor:

Subject: Are you there?

Just wondering what's going on.
I got the call this morning....my last day in my current position is Feb. 12. I guess it's ok to tell you.....

ILS Principal Librarian
Washington Corrections Center Library, et al.

the blood continues to pump out on the floor... back to work, the inmate patrons come in and talk about the changes coming, most of them will be going to other prisons, Connell's Coyote Ridge Corrections Center or Twin Rivers Unit in Monroe, depending on their programming needs. I get told I can't win the Lotto and leave and that I have a place here forever, they do like certainty in their lives, as long as the library stays open, I do mention that we don't do libraries at camps, which I have been saying for days since Department of Corrections posted their plan, kind of for everyone to know. The Corrections Officers are already moving on to other jobs or planning to and talk about the changes daily in front of the inmates and other staff. Good intentions gone bad, rumors and wonder that the Governor couldn't handle the budget of this state, and wondering if she just wants a tax hike. After the afternoon open hours there is Recall and the inmates return to their housing for count, it is busted and they do a Recount, lots of temporary holiday staff fumbling?

I get time to reflect and receive a call from a staff borrower about keeping her book a night overdue, no problem, we don't fine anyone and she did call. I then sit down and write an answer to the email above:

Subject: RE: Are you there?

I have been thinking, in between all the other stuff, and it isn't a reflection on being cast off - told that one isn't needed any longer --- the group that hired me... there were three people that sat on the panel that interviewed me, only one remains working with WSL today, many I have worked along side of are retired, gone on to better situations for them or on to adventures we get only a postcard of, haven't they heard of FaceBook yet? I had twenty-seven years in the Army, faces etched in my mind where I refuse to remember the name, and I still get emails (one on FaceBook actually) from some one that remembers me for what I was when in his life. Even in the short time I have been in the Corrections I have people contacting me that worked with me, or knew me from when I was in that other profession, or people I have never met that want to help donate books - one of the teachers here asked for his parents, which would be better money or books as a donation. I told him books, but everything could go to the Washington State Library Institutional Library Services and it would get used well.

So Elizabeth, and all those that have the uncertain future hovering over them, we all make a difference and we all count and if the patrons could vote for our jobs and salary increases they would. I saw it every time the budget axe came out at Tacoma Public Library, the people we serve know what we do and they would rather have us than not. This could be the spark that starts the fire and gets one to write a best seller, paint a masterpiece, to find a better job at higher wages, to go where no man has gone before. America really started with people that weren't doing well where they came from, and they made it better when they arrived if they didn't die of starvation or disease, they did have to work at it, but they made America because they left where they had no great future.

I will have to admit, it doesn't seem like a normal day on email here at work at all. Then it isn't a normal day is it? And Hope was the last spirit to fly out of Pandora's box, the one she wasn't to open.

I send it out and get an email response from another Library Keeper that wants to know if I got The Call. The answer doesn't please him, since it is evasive and I should trust him, and he tells me that he didn't get the call - and I tell him that his telephone is monitored and they know he is thinking of retirement, I also tell him if I had received the call they wouldn't want me discussing it with anyone. And he just got my chits for working at the Women's Correction Center made. A nice evening shift, with one of my inmate clerks returning from a day long visit and one of my clerks wanting to go sing carols in the Chapel for doughnuts - someone is remembering the season. They, someone foolish, complained about Christmas decorations in one of the units and all were taken down - I have a ceramic lighted tree on my reference desk counter, it isn't coming down until after the New Year.

Ah, the interesting part of the day, go home to tell the wife the news, and discuss a bit about the options. She does decide to stick with me, although I have always told her that banker would have made her more comfortable. I eat dinner, look over the mail, read the new American Rifleman, and CheaperThanDirt catalog, all to the WWE and RAW with divas and dancing big men, and little guys, too - they showed part of the trip WWE did going to visit the troops in Iraq, and I commented to my wife how young they all looked - the troops. I check in and harvest and plant and help out on FarmVille and then post an email to all those that might know of a place I could fit better and that might just have sympathy, but that really know, like I do, that the economic problems of the country aren't even close to over, and if you thought the big bailout was bad - wait till you see what the fools are going to do in the name of climate control and health care - because they so deeply care (but haven't a clue).

I really don't need sympathy, actually I have all I need and will get on with it but the response from my sibling is immediate and I share:

I am so sorry for you and for your patrons. Literacy and libraries are necessary to help heal this world (faith and family first, but the 2 L's are high up there, too). I'll keep you and your patrons in my prayers.

one sister

Sorry to hear this. I don't suppose almost 2 months is long enough for the people's rebellion to accomplish something before it's too late?

Meanwhile, I have my application in for some health insurance - $5000 deductible & its still $313/month. Maintenance dr visits are covered, everything else falls under the deductible, including prescriptions. I am going on the basis that I am basically healthy, put the $ saved through the high deductible away & maybe down the road I will have the ability for greater coverage, but 5 more years & medicare comes into the picture anyway.

Someone is coming to look at the truck tonight - I may yet get it sold! (would be nice - just in time for Christmas!) We are still waiting for word on the house we are attempting to buy. I say we, but it's really Paula & Dan, but with a little help from me for my room & board. I have looked at some small, decently priced homes, but don't want maintenance & upkeep & don't know the area & people (meaning having friends) well enough to be comfortable on my own.

Hang in there. I found a job in spite of 16-17% unemployment in this county. Someone greater than I is watching over us.

the other sister

Aurora is closing 4 of their 7 libraries. That starts to look pretty thin for 300,000 people. At least they gave you nearly two months notice. (Not that that will be enough time to have a job waiting when you're done.) A few of my friends have been laid off and haven't found new work yet. The extended unemployment is helping, but that's still half of what they were getting. Keep us informed on what you're doing. Let us know if we can help.

my brother, don't you know I love them all more than I will ever tell them?

Well, the picture I share is what a prison library looks like when the government decides that it isn't necessary any longer.... or the one I took when we took out the rug and laid down the tile, but you get the idea. I really will be fine, God has given me everything I need and I just have to use it well.