Another Monday At The Public Library

Coming in the door as I unlocked it this morning, a man told me that there were yellow jackets near the entrance there on the second floor.  I told him I would pass it along, and returned to the desk for the opening rush of calls and walk-ups.  I tried calling T., who is normally in charge of getting some men to come and deal with something, but she was not there.  I tried a couple of other people in administration.  No answer.  The week before Labor Day, it seemed a lot of people were off.  I thought I would just see these yellow jackets for myself, and went outside.  There is a large planter there on the landing, and the plants in it had bloomed with little white flowers.  Bees were collecting nectar from the flowers.  Not a yellow jacket in sight.  I was glad I had not reported it.

A lot of requests for Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias by Jane Velez-Mitchell, about a woman whose trial for a shocking murder has been heavily covered on television.

Speaking of which, J., a regular caller, retired native of the Bronx, ("but don't tell anyone!"), and dedicated watcher of "court TV", phoned to find out the opening day for the new Tallahassee location of Whole Foods Market.  I would not have heard of Jodi Arias had not J. filled me in.  J. makes the rounds of natural foods stores, and often calls for more information on new construction in Tallahassee.  There are a lot of new chain restaurants being built here now.

A woman came in from Americorps, directed here by the Tallahassee Democrat.  She was looking for an employment ad they had run in August 2010 in the classifieds.  Unfortunately, our ProQuest archive of the Democrat does not include advertisements.  I set her up with the microfilm viewer.  After lunch she came back and said she had looked at August and July 2010, with no luck.  She had hoped to use the ad as a model for a new one, and was not sure what she wanted to do now.

Mr. L., the church and school supplies dealer, wanted a contact for the Tallahassee chapter of Woodmen of the World.  He had read that they were donating a U.S. flag and pole for the opening of a new city facility, and thought he might sell them a flag and pole.

Blind Man Who Cooks called, wanting a simple recipe for rice pudding, which I supplied from The Joy of Cooking.  I could hear his Braille machine clacking as I read it to him.  The basic recipe didn't include eggs, which he thought he remembered, so I gave him the "Swedish" variant, which did include eggs.

And so it goes, world without end, amen.

The Mental Traveler

In 1981 I bought a drum in Santa Fe at the crafts market.  It was a ceramic, doumbek drum with a goatskin head, made by hippies from Bisbee, Arizona.  I kept the drum for years, eventually selling it to a young woman who saw my notice on the community board at our food coop.

I wondered about those drummers from Bisbee.  What sort of place was Bisbee, that they would call it home?

I never heard of Bisbee again until I discovered Betsy Thornton's Chloe Newcombe mysteries.  They caught my attention because the second book in the series, High Lonesome Road, is about the murder of a bookmobile driver, and has a wonderful dust jacket illustration.  They are set in the fictional town of "Dudley", but it's obvious that it's really Bisbee.  Chloe Newcombe is a Victim Advocate for the Cochise County Attorney's Office, a position held in real life by the author.

In A Song For You, Thornton goes much deeper into the life of Bisbee than before:  its recent past as a haven for hippies and artists, and its makeover as an arty tourist destination.  You finish the book feeling you've lived there yourself for a little while.

I spent some time "Google Street-Viewing" around Bisbee, as I often do with books.  I found several murals near the Circle-K on Tombstone Canyon Road.  You can find better pictures of them by searching "Bisbee murals", but here are my Street-View snaps.

The Prisoner

My co-worker MK got a question on Ask-a-Librarian, our state-wide virtual reference service, about some photographs from the Florida Memory archive.  They were of a political rally in the black, Frenchtown section of Tallahassee in 1971, in support of Bill Johnson

"Free Bill Johnson, Political Prisoner" read the bumper stickers being handed out and displayed in some of the pictures, which were taken on July 31, 1971.  "Who was Bill Johnson?", MK's querent wanted to know.

MK asked me if it rang any bells  No, I had not come up to Tallahassee until 1974, and though I was somewhat politically active here then, I'd never heard of Bill Johnson.  But I had a feeling, which proved to be correct, that these photos might have been from the John Buckley Collection.

I can't say that John was a friend, but I knew him as I knew some other local leftists from the civil rights/anti-war days.  I remember listening to him hold forth at The Alley, a downtown watering hole.  I liked him because he thirsted for justice, but did not hew to any party line.

MK looked at our microfilm of the Tallahassee Democrat around the date, and I did too, but there was no coverage.  It is possible that the FSU student paper, The Florida Flambeau, covered the rally, but we don't have microfilm for it.

The Reverend C. K. Steele, who played a large part in the Tallahassee Bus Boycott, spoke.

The band, "Daddy Twofoot", performed.  

That looks like the old Red Bird Cafe on the left.  Not a great success, apparently.  But John Buckley was there.  And whatever happened to Bill Johnson?

New Circulation Desk

The Circulation Department is getting a new service desk.  Here is the old one, cleared off and ready for removal.

The counter-top at this check-out station has been worn through by years of use.

A temporary service desk has been set up over to the side during construction.  This is where the original desk was when the library opened in 1991.  It was replaced by the current desk a few years later.  I had left Circulation by then to run the bookmobile.

Here I am at that original desk, circa 1991-2, stamping due dates in books.  Note the Wyse text-mode terminals!  No Web, no GUI, no point & click.

Country Comforts

One of the things I enjoy about Google Earth and Google Maps is when I discover photographers who systematically catalog sets of geographical features in an area.

I found "Leaflet" in West Texas, where he has photographed grain elevators, silos, and other farm structures.  "Pylodet" specializes in Nebraska churches.

I found the above photograph, by "wmr36104", while grazing the photos in Google Maps on the highway, from Dothan Alabama to Birmingham, looking for a restored pioneer village I remembered seeing years ago.  (I am pretty sure it was the Pioneer Museum of Alabama near Troy.)

I love this sign!.  Only in The South...these are my people.  Anyway, wmr36104 has put up a fine collection of photos of little Alabama churches, country stores, barns, courthouses and other structures.  They remind me of William Christenberry.

Summer At The Lake Bib

From Summerport Beach

Summer at the lake.  This is Lake Butler in west Orange County, where my family lived after I left high school for college in 1971.

Last year I read Stewart O'Nan's Wish You Were Here, about a final family gathering at a summer lake cottage that the family matriarch and grandmother, now widowed, wants to sell.  I am surprised that the reviews at Amazon are so mixed.  The book stayed with me, and became the seed of this bibliography for a display I am putting up next week.

A family, a couple, some friends, come together for a summer vacation on the water, and go through changes.  That's what the books at the heart of this list are about.  I added a little list of hurricane stories for spice.

I have to laugh at myself.  "Beach Reads" are not typically stories about summer vacations.  How many people will want to read about a summer vacation on their summer vacation?

Allio, Kirstin.  Garner.  2005

Amick, Steve.  The Lake, The River & The Other Lake.  2005

Baggott, Julianna. The Miss America Family.  2002

Binchy, Maeve.  Tara Road.  1998

Blake, Sarah.  Grange House.  2000

Chamberlin, Holly.  The Family Beach House.   2010

Chamberlin, Holly.  Summer Friends.   2011

Craig, Amanda.  Love In Idleness.   2003

Cronin, Justin.  The Summer Guest.  2004

D'Alessandro,  Jacquie.  Summer at Seaside Cove.   2011 (PB)

Donohue, Meg.  All The Summer Girls.  2013 (new)

Everson, Eva Marie.  Chasing Sunsets : a Cedar Key novel.  2011

Everson, Eva Marie.  Waiting For Sunrise : a Cedar Key novel.  2012

Foster, Lori, et al.  Bad Boys Of Summer.  2006

Gamble, Terry.  Good Family.  2005

Gamble, Terry.  The Water Dancers.  2003

Goodman, Allegra.  Kaaterskill Falls.  1998

Greeley, Andrew M.  Summer At The Lake.  1997

Greenwood, Kerry.  Dead Man's Chest.  2010

Grimes, Martha.  Belle Ruin.  2005

Grimes, Martha.  Cold Flat Junction.  2001

Grimes, Martha.  Hotel Paradise.  1996

Gunn, Robin Jones.  Canary Island Song.  2011

Gutcheon, Beth Richardson.  Good-bye And Amen.  2008

Gutcheon, Beth Richardson.  Leeway Cottage.  2005

Gutcheon, Beth Richardson.  More Than You Know.  2000

Hart, Carolyn G.  Dead, White, and Blue.  2013 (new)

Hilderbrand, Elin.  The Beach Club.   2000

Hilderbrand, Elin.  Summer people.  2004 (PB)

Jackson, Lisa, et al.  Beach Season.  2012

Jewett, Sarah Orne.  The Country Of The Pointed Firs.  2005

Jio, Sarah.  The Bungalow.  2012

Kallentoft, Mons.  Summer Death.  2013 (new)

Keillor, Garrison.  Lake Wobegon Summer.  2001

Laymon, Richard.  The Lake.  2004

Leon, Donna.  A Question Of Belief.  2010

Miller, Linda Lael, et al.  Beach Blanket Bad Boys.  2005

Monroe, Mary Alice.  Beach House Memories.  2012 (new)

Nagy, Gloria. A House In The Hamptons.   1990

Nissen, Thisbe.  Osprey Island.   2004

Noble, Kate.  The Summer Of You.  2011 (PB)

O'Nan, Stewart.  Wish You Were Here.  2002

Perkins-Valdez, Dolen.  Wench.  2010

Rice, Luanne.  Last Kiss.  2009

Rifkin, Sherri.  LoveHampton.  2008

Roberts, Gillian.  How I Spent My Summer Vacation.  1994

Rockcastle, Mary François.  Rainy Lake.  1994

Siddons, Anne Rivers.  Burnt Mountain.  2011

Sims, Janice.  That Summer at American Beach.  2006  (Kimani  PB)

Smith, Ali.  The Accidental.  2006

Smith, Haywood.  Ladies Of The Lake.  2009

Stone, Juliana.  The Summer He Came Home.  2013 (PB)

Sullivan, J. Courtney.  Maine.  2011

Thayer, Nancy.  Summer Breeze.  2012

Wiggs, Susan.  Lakeside Cottage.  2005 (PB)

Wiggs, Susan.  Summer At Willow Lake.  2006 (PB)

Wiggs, Susan.  Summer By The Sea.  2004 (PB)

Wilson, Susan.  Summer Harbor.  2003

Woolf, Virginia.  To The Lighthouse.  1981

Hurricanes - Fiction

Alam, Glynn Marsh.  High Water Hellion.  2006

Andrews, Donna.  Murder With Puffins.  2000

Copeland, Lori.  Stranded In Paradise.  2002

Hiaasen, Carl.  Stormy Weather.  2001

Hildreth, Denise.  Hurricanes In Paradise.  2010

Kincaid, Nanci.  As Hot As It Was You Ought To Thank Me.  2005

King, Jonathon.  Acts Of Nature.  2007

Manuel, David.  A Matter Of Time.  2002

Maron, Margaret.  Storm Track.  2000

McDonald, Craig.  Toros & Torsos.  2008

Mountford, B J.  Sea-born Women.  2002

Riordan, Rick.  Rebel Island . 2007

Shepard, Lucius.  Valentine.  2002

Tripp, Dawn Clifton.  Moon tide.  2003

De-Acquisition

A couple of months ago RK, who retired from Adult Services shortly before I arrived there in 2000, approached me at the reference desk.  He was weeding his book collection in anticipation of moving to an apartment in a retirement community.  He had a few items for me that he thought the library could use.  In the weeks following, I saw books in the donation bin that I knew had belonged to him:  books about the theater, opera, great composers, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman.

I am not moving, but I feel a need to rid myself of useless baggage:  books that no longer speak to me, files I haven't touched in years, fencing equipment, guns that I will never take to the range, my long-unfinished plywood skiff, the two old computers I keep for the games on them but which I have not actually powered up in a couple of years, my banjo.  It is like confession, admitting what I no longer care about.

My parents left it until too late, and I and my sisters had to deal with their stuff, filling up a boxcar-length dumpster.

Stanley Fish writes about letting go of his books and whether to retire on the NYT Opinionator Blog in Moving On.

In the hours and days following the exodus of the books I monitored myself for a post-mortem (please excuse the hyperbole) reaction. Would I feel regret? Nostalgia? Panic? Relief? I felt nothing. What should have been a momentous event barely registered as I moved on to what seemed the more important task of choosing a new carpet. I was reminded of what a colleague who had left a university after 23 years replied when I asked him if it was difficult to do. He said, “It was like checking out of a motel.”

 Many of the comments are worth reading, at least the NYT Picks.

Thoughtful Gatsby Piece

Thanks to Andrew Clarke, at the Anthony Powell Discussion List, for mentioning Douglas Murray's article in The Spectator, The not-so-great-Gatsby.  The novel, says Murray, "is one of those works which has been subsumed and overtaken by its own myth."  He draws a parallel with Brideshead Revisited, which has also been filmed a couple of times.

But just as most people now seem to remember Brideshead Revisited not as a novel about religion and alcoholic disintegration, but one of idyllic summers and teddy bears, so Gatsby is remembered as something it is not. Rather than a description of futility and envy, it tends to be recalled for its aspiration and glamour.

 Anthony Powell thought highly of The Great Gatsby, reading it again and again.  I read it for the first time a couple of years ago.  It seemed a pretty bleak tale to me.  Powell, clearly more perceptive than me, described it as:

...a sad serious book about people who are on the whole not themselves serious [that] treats of romantic love in purple passages that somehow never become absurd, while in the many funny scenes Fitzgerald is unrivaled for wit and irony. Tender is the Night is a pretty good novel, the Last Tycoon if completed, might have been pretty good too, some of the short stories are accomplished, but The Great Gatsby is in a class by itself

I doubt that I would prefer Leonardo di Caprio's Gatsby to Robert Redford's.  I did go to see the 2008 film of Brideshead Revisited, but it fell far short of the 1981 television serial.  I wouldn't even watch the 2002 television remake of Doctor Zhivago. 

Retrieving Lost Recipes, and Memories

Memorial Day is approaching, and people must be planning picnics.  I helped two women today who wanted to find recipes they had made many years ago, and who no longer had the cookbooks they had appeared in.

The first woman was a walk-up.  Did the library have The Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook?  No, we had other BH&G cookbooks, but not that one.  Our copies of the BH&G New Cookbook, which appeared to have been a revised edition of that original book, were all lost or withdrawn.  She asked to see The BH&G All-Time Favorites Cookbook, and then looked through the index.

I asked her again what she was looking for.  She wanted a recipe for tuna casserole that had been in that BH&G cookbook.  Her copy of the book had been destroyed.  I thought I might be able to find it online.  We returned to the reference desk, and I was able to find it, thanks to Retro-Food.Com, where it was copied from The Better Homes and Gardens Casserole Cook Book, (1961).  I turned the monitor so she could see it.  She said that it was the recipe, because it had the pimientos in it.  I printed it out and gave it to her.  She had a big smile as she read through it and thanked me.

Tuna-Noodle Casserole

6 ounces (about 3 cups) medium noodles
1 6 to 9 oz can tuna, drained
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sliced celery
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup diced green pepper
1/4 cup chopped pimiento
1/2 teaspoon salt
…
1 can cream of celery soup
1/2 cup milk
1 cup (1/4 pound) shredded sharp process cheese
…
1/2 cup slivered blanched almonds, toasted (optional)
Cook noodles in boiling salted water till tender; drain. Combine noodles, tuna, mayonnaise, vegetables, and salt.
Blend together soup and milk; heat through. Add cheese; heat and stir until cheese melts. Add to noodle mixture.
Turn into ungreased 2-qt casserole. Sprinkle with toasted almonds. Bake uncovered in hot oven (425) about 20 minutes or till bubbly. Makes 6 servings.

The second woman called by telephone.  SM was someone I've helped many times before.  She wanted a recipe for chicken salad that she thought had appeared in The Springtime Tallahassee Cookbook back in the seventies.  Springtime Tallahassee is Tallahassee's Spring festival and parade.  It was just getting started in the seventies, and the cookbook had likely been part of a fundraising effort.

The thing she remembered about this recipe was that it included "chow-chow", a pickled relish that she said Publix Super Market told her they had.  We didn't have The Springtime Tallahassee Cookbook.  I was doubtful, but a search for "springtime tallahassee chicken salad", amazingly, yielded a recipe for Tallahassee Chicken Salad, chow-chow and all, from The Florida Cookbook, by Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart, at RecipeSource.Com.

               TALLAHASSEE CHICKEN SALAD

Recipe By     :

Serving Size  : 4    Preparation Time :0:00

Categories    : Poultry                          Salads

  Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method

--------  ------------  --------------------------------

   2       c            Poached Chicken thighs and-

                        -breasts, poached. See note

   1       c            Celery, diced.

                        Half a 93/8-ounce jar chow-

                        -chow

                        Dash hot pepper sauce

     1/3   c            Mayonnaise, or as needed to-

                        -moisten

                        Garden or Boston lettuce

In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine the chicken, celery, chowchow, and pepper sauce.  Mix lightly; add the mayonnaise and mix again.  Add more mayonnaise if needed to moisten well.  Chill 1 to 2 hours before serving.  Line a bowl or platter with greens and spoon the salad onto the greens.

NOTE:  To poach chicken: Combine 1 pound each of skinned chicken thighs and breast pieces in a large skillet with a carrot, peeled and sliced; a rib of celery, cut in chunks; a small onion, cut in halves but not peeled; pepper, a sprig or two of parsley, and a lemon half.  Cover, and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, until juices run clear or golden when the chicken is pierced with a fork.  Cool the chicken in the broth.  Cut meat off the bone and chop it coarsely.  Refrigerate until ready to make the salad.  If desired, the broth should be saved for soups or other uses.

If you want an easy way to feel like a hero, find a recipe for an old woman.  Her warm thanks made my day.

Looks Like Texas

A nice collection of images from West Texas, around San Angelo, by "tomlandry7".  If you've lived in Texas, and miss it, you might like them