Mario Milosevic » working in paradise

Overheard at the Local Public Library

mm — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:32:00 +0000

An adult patron walks into the library looking like she just got sent to the principal’s office.
Patron: I am so sorry this is so late. (Puts library book in return bin.)
Me: How late is it?
Patron: Two days.
Me: Two days? Don’t worry about it. That’s nothing. You shouldn’t lose sleep over past due library books.
Patron: (Suddenly looking much relieved.) Uh, thanks. How much is the fine?
Me: We don’t charge overdue fines.
Patron: (Looking shocked, as if I had just told her the county prosecutor had recently made it a policy to stop prosecuting murder cases because it was just such a big hassle and all.) You don’t charge overdue fines?
Me: Libraries that charge fines don’t get their books back any quicker than libraries that do. Besides, by not charging fines we gain a lot of good PR. We only bother about such things if someone loses or damages a book.
Patron: What do you do if someone damages a book?
Me: We release the hounds.

Sasquatch

mm — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:08:00 +0000

Washington’s Skamania county, where I live, is mostly sparsely populated wilderness, home to Mount St. Helens, and also the world’s only Bigfoot refuge. Back in the sixties (long before I moved here) there were a lot of reports of possible Sasquatch sightings here. Many people found what they took to be Bigfoot tracks in snow and mud. A lot of visitors came looking, many of them carrying firearms hoping to bag themselves a Bigfoot trophy. The county commissioners responded by declaring Bigfoot a protected species. I love telling people we have an actual law which says that if you kill a Bigfoot within the county boundaries you will be subject to a hefty fine and/or a lengthy jail term. What could be cooler than living in a place that protects a possibly imaginary species?

Not that you’d have any trouble finding people around here who will tell you in no uncertain terms that Bigfoot is far from imaginary. I was once acquainted with a man who met Sasquatch twice. His name was Datus. I got to know him just a couple of years before he died. He came to the library often and liked to talk about his encounters in the woods. I always listened to his stories. He was a wild man with a wild soul, and despite his frail health he had the sort of presence that always filled up a room. After he died I missed seeing him and hearing his stories. I wrote a poem, Bigfoot, as a tribute to his spirit.

Borges Was Right

mm — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:53:00 +0000

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

—Jorge Luis Borges

I work at a small town library in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a good job. I get to be around books, which I love, and I feel like I’m helping people everyday. Patrons come in looking for automotive manuals to help them fix their cars, or they need information on an illness they have just been diagnosed with, or they want a good mystery and figure since I’ve read all the books in the library I can find one for them, or they want to know the origin of the name of Beacon Rock, a volcanic structure near here. (It was named by Lewis and Clark on their expedition.) We do our best to get them what they want and most people are very appreciative of our efforts.

The point is that such places as the library are like bits of paradise in this world. Libraries are one of the best things that civilization has given us and I would not want to live in a world without them.