The only card in my wallet I treasure is my library card. If I were mugged by a renegade English major in Birkenstocks wearing a gender neutral biodegradable mask and brandishing a sharpened Bic pen, I would give up my 29.9% APR Visa, my plastic drivers license with a picture that makes me look a drug addled detox resident, and even my Blockbuster Video card that I haven’t used since VHS went out of style, but not my library card. Nope. No way.
“Look,” I’d say, “I’ll give you all the money I have on me, which might be just enough to buy a Barbara Cartland paperback with the cover torn off, but you ain’t gettin my liberry card, pal. So fergit it.” At which point the mugger would burst into tears and flee. You have to talk tough to muggers who wear Birkenstocks.
Yeah, well, I’m serious about my library privileges, which I will protect even to the point of hurting the feelings of a literate mugger. I even pay my overdue fines without quibbling with the library staff; those Dewey-decimal guardians of the written word, those soft-spoken saints of the stacks, those quiet and wise guides who lead the confused, the impatient and the lost though the shelved thickets of Aa through De and beyond.
During my wild impetuous youth I considered becoming a librarian as a career, but only two schools in California offered library science degrees, UCLA and San Jose State, both geographically and financially beyond my reach, so I settled for being an English major at a state college close to home.
I costumed myself in English major couture. I bought a shabby corduroy jacket and faded Levis at a thrift shop. I also developed an English major’s taste for three-dollar-a-gallon Chianti in screw top bottles and, on special occasions, sangria made with Chianti in screw top bottles. I even dated girls majoring in English for awhile, but soon learned that most of them were terminally complicated and ten times smarter than I was. They intuitively knew that my references to the alliterative genius of Gerard Manley Hopkins was just another ploy to get into their knickers. Worse yet, they enjoyed listening to Joan Baez records, whose fingernails on the blackboard voice made my fillings hurt.
This was during the rebellious days of the late 1960s, although my own rebellion was not against the Establishment. It was against the collegiate mainstream of the day by having short hair, two jobs, and by being a military vet several years older than the bead wearing, bath avoiding, draft dodging, herpes carrying and patchouli reeking majority of my nominal peers.
But I was momentarily nudged toward the unwashed Left by none other than Ronald Reagan. In person. The then governor came to our small and politically apathetic college during finals week in 1970. For those of us who preferred to labor over our blue books instead of hearing the governor speak, the school administration had strung outdoor speakers all over the campus so none of us would miss a word. Also, the governor's visit was preceded by 200 cops in full riot gear, including one overhead in a helicopter with a rifle visibly pointing at the assembled rabble below.
That did not sit well with the assembled rabble. Neither did the gist of the governor’s speech: he intended to raise tuition at the University of California and hike fees in the state college system. You could hear pages being torn from blue books in every classroom. Our teacher dismissed the class at that point, saying scholarship was impossible under these conditions, that she already knew what our final grades would be, and we were free to go.
I went to the library balcony, the building being on a hill overlooking the open area where the governor was speaking and where the helicopter was hovering, and where I would be out of the way if the cops decided to beat the snot out of us dirty hippie commie pinko students and spray us with Mace as we collapsed in hairy heaps. Media images of the Chicago police riot during the 1968 Democratic convention were still etched in our glassy-eyed gourds. A few of us had even been there.
So, like Quasimodo in the bell tower of Notre Dame, I sought sanctuary in a high place. All I needed was a bad back and an unconscious lady to hold aloft. But I had neither, and anyway, the governor’s speech was about over and the cops were preparing to leave.
I drifted into the library itself, feeling instantly at ease among tomes of Aa through De and beyond, where even the young student librarians had a look of middle-aged rectitude and calm, far removed from the world of club wielding cops and showboating governors with Brylcreemed hair.
Hell, I’m still there.
______________________
Responses & Reprisals:
You missed the opportunity of seeing a master up close. Reagan was doing what he did best, standing up and BSing a crowd. Oh, and my library fantasies involve a cute female librarian back in the stacks. -- Wht
Join the club. MB
Mike, I also love libraries. I was so strange as a child that one of my biggest summer thrills was reading enough books to get my name up on the bulletin board at the branch library. That was the Ross Branch Library in Denver. Any kid who wanted one got a little notebook thingy to record the books he/she read over the summer. When the magic number was reached (I think it was usually ten), the librarian put your name on the bulletin board, usually written on a paper cut-out balloon or leaf or whatever. I still remember the layout of that library and where each type of book was located. I was born in 1942, and in those days I was allowed to walk the eight or ten blocks to the library alone whenever I wanted. Magical! Blessings -- Carmen
I studied Lib Sci one semester and fell in love with the organization and the touch of the card catalog drawers. And I still love it, even with self-checkout. Talk about trust! And I love to hear the prim older librarians talk about the Privacy Act. They will walk proudly to the noose before revealing my obsession with English detective fiction. There cannot be a nobler profession.
You might look into joining Garrison Keillor in the Professional Organization of English Majors, or POEM. Yours in letters -- Canny
I’ve already signed up and even have a Lake Wobegon t-shirt. MB
Ssshhhhhhh...quiet please. Enjoyed it much! -- Dana
Love it... wish I'd written it. You know, I still marvel, when I drift into my local branch, that a place still exists that is founded and based upon pure trust, and couldn't, in it's current form, without it. Nobody's out to screw anybody... everybody respects the little treasures they're allowed to borrow, and if someone messes up and forgets to return one on time, the consequence is respectful as well... a mere tap instead of a sledgehammer as a reminder. Keep 'em coming, Mike... we all luddju, and your little blog too. -- Sum
Toto and I thank you. MB
Nice recollections! I enjoyed. -- Gambatay
I loooove my libraries. They are more important than they ever were.
I can't beleeeeve you said that about Joan Baez. Or about being a Reagan supporter. -- Lady W
I never supported Reagan, but I did wind up working for him several years after the incident I wrote about. Long strange story, but not as strange as Joan Baez’s agonized screech of a vibrato voice. MB
Muggers who wear Birkenstocks have feelings, too!. I read about it in a library. Thank-you for taking me back there. -- Pirate
Well that explains a lot of things. -- Lynda
Oh Mike, thanks for taking me back to happiest childhood summer memories spent at the library. This was back when I could walk to the neighborhood library alone, and not worry about being abducted. The library was, and still is, a magical place for me. It was air conditioned, unlike my house. I remember thinking what a grand idea to allow ME to be able to take out books, read them, and return them to get even more books. What a great idea! Of course none of my siblings saw it this way. For me the library was an escape and through books I could go anywhere, and for a brief time be someone else. The children's librarian was like 60 something with a mole on her face with a protruding hair growing out of it. She watched me like a hawk, making sure I did not wander from the children's section into the adult section. I could not wait to trade in my "J" library card for a "YA" card so I could get more sophisticated books, then onto the converted "A" card. AHHH yes the "A" card. THE card to have, that would allow you to take out any book of your liking without the cruel stare of the mole woman. I managed to pass my love of books and libraries onto my children and I curse the make of these new ebooks. They can never take the place of the neighborhood library! Thanks for taking me back there Mike! -- Mel
