When I
retired from a forty-three year broadcasting career back in 2010 I had a vision
of what post-work life would be like. Sleeping in until say seven-thirty or
eight. Sitting on the couch with my feet up, reading or clicking through the
cable channels. Playing golf every other day or so.
“Not so fast, Buster!”
Although my wife never actually said these words, their aura hung in the air
from the day I hung up the headphones and filed for Social
Security.
It turns out that I’m kind
of a pain in the patoot to have hanging out around the house all day. Go figure.
Plus, penciling out the budget, it turns out I couldn’t afford to play golf
three or four times a week without sacrificing some other luxury from our
budget. Like, say, food, gasoline, new socks and dog
toys.
Fair enough. I’d pursue a
part-time job. After all I was qualified to…to… Well, what exactly what was I
qualified to do?
I spent forty-three years
talking into various and sundry microphones in cities in the western half of the
United
States. I also spun, what were quaintly known
as “records:” discs made out of vinyl that emitted obnoxious rock and roll music
when spun under a needle that followed the grooves along a counter-clockwise
path. I’m not sure, to this day, how that worked. A form of magic, I
think.
Once I discovered people
would pay me to talk, I left college to pursue the life of a gypsy disc-jockey.
In the early nineties I drifted into what one of my listeners called “argument
radio,” where I spent my time bloviating and being bloviated to. I logged
sixteen years at KEX radio in Portland to finish things up, mostly enjoying
myself until Clear Channel Broadcasting, otherwise known as “The Evil Empire,”
sucked all the fun out of the business.
For two years after pulling
the pin on radio, I tutored and mentored high school kids in the AVID program,
which works to give young people with college aspirations and potential, but
life obstacles, a leg-up to reach their goals of higher education. I figured I
was well qualified to talk to kids about college, since I’d spent 5 years at
Southern Oregon College and left with 180 credits and only a passing grade in
Econ 201 between me and status as a full-fledged
Junior.
Which brings us to the
library. I’ve always loved libraries. I got my first library card when I was
six. A lifelong bookworm, I’ve spent many enjoyable hours cruising up and down
the shelves of small town and big city libraries looking for reading matter and
even, occasionally, searching the card catalogue for material for something I
was researching.
Remember card catalogues?
See, there was this filing cabinet that…I can hear you saying to yourself: Could
this dork be any more of a dinosaur? Vinyl records. Card catalogues. What’s
next? Buggy whips? Corsets?
Anyway, I figured this
would be the perfect part time job for me. How hard could it be? I’d check out
books, guide people to the relevant section to fulfill their needs and
occasionally shush a patron using his or her outside voice. Piece of
cake.
“Not so fast, Buster.”
Turns out there’s more to this librarian thing these days than meets the
eye.
Upon interviewing for and
being awarded a position with the Battle Ground Community library, I soon found
myself (as they say in the South), “Up to my pooter in
alligators.”
In the past two months,
I’ve learned about bins, boxes, weeds, holds, transits, interlibrary loans and,
yes, The Dewey Decimal System. I’ve sorted and shelved fiction, non-fiction,
graphic novels, easy readers, large print, DVD’s and audio books. I’ve gaped at
enough lurid covers of the bodice-ripper romance paperbacks to give me cold
sweats and palpitations. Julie and Harriet introduced me to the Yacolt library,
unique in its use of the honor system and the jail cells in the
lobby.
Thanks to the patience,
kindness and guidance of my bosses Kim and Julianne and my generous co-workers,
I can now help a “tweenie” girl find “The Babysitter’s Club” books without
having a panic attack and screaming “Help! Stat!” at the top of my lungs. I can
guide an anxious young mother and her twitching two-year old to the shelf where
“I’m a Potty Pirate” awaits their perusal.
In a way, my instincts were
right. My job at the Battle Ground Library is a good fit. I love books. I like
being around people who love books. I enjoy helping people find the material
they need to enrich their lives and accomplish their
goals.
A handful of impressions
from my almost two months in Battle Ground. The shy and wide-eyed high school
sophomore girl, shuffling her feet back and forth as she submits her entry in a
writing contest sponsored by the library. The grateful smile and thank you from
the young mother I’d guided to the shelves that held the do-it-yourself home
design books. She and her husband had saved the money to buy land—and were
dreaming of building their own first home. The older woman, an avid mystery fan
who allowed as how she’d try a couple of the authors I recommended, but would
have “harsh words” for me if she didn’t like them. Said with a wry smile, the
threat didn’t trouble me much. The eight-year old who got her first library card
and beamed with pride when she checked out an armload of books and thanked me on
her way out with her mother.
Two memories will stay with
me for a long time. A ten-year old boy with glasses drooping down his nose,
wandering the aisles of the juvenile section, toting as many books as his chubby
little arms would hold. I had no doubt he would read them all. He triggered a
flashback that catapulted me back in time more than half a century. He was me at
about nine or ten, struggling up the hill to my house with an armload of magic
from my small town library. Seven books, the limit per visit, to be devoured
over the next week or two. I watched the boy stagger out to the parking lot with
his books and couldn’t wipe the grin off my face for the next hour or
so.
Finally, there was the
little girl, maybe five or six, who found me shelving books in the kid’s section
one day. With big-eyed solemnity she handed me a Video Play-away and said,
almost apologetically: “I decided I didn’t want to watch
this.”
“Thank you,” I told her.
“I’ll make sure it gets back where it belongs.”
She beamed back at me and
gestured with a tiny hand. “C’mon.” She said. “I’ll show you where it
goes.”
Lots of people have “shown
me where it goes.” And with a lot more hard work and just “doing” it, I have
hopes of becoming a competent Public Service Assistant 2 at the Battle Ground
library. For a writer and semi-professional people watcher like me, it’s the
perfect part-time retirement job.
Meanwhile, in my free time,
I think I’ll flop on the couch and read or channel surf. My wife comes down the
hall, takes one look at me and the thought bubble appears over her
head.
“Not so fast,
Buster!”
If you'd like to learn more about our terrific libraries in Clark County and the environs, go to www.fvrl.org
