Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

Saturday was an eventful day. After cleaning the bejeezus out of the house on Friday, and setting up all morning Saturday, we were ready to host company. Over 30 people came to the pool party: roomie M's coworkers, her family, my family, and a few assorted friends. Too much good food (which means no groccery shopping this week), good music on the radio, and great company made for a really nice afternoon. The weather cooperated for the most part earlier in the day, providing sun for swimming, though it hid behind trees later in the day and the water was a little cooler. I especially enjoyed the pool since I learned that morning how to clean it. Skimming and vacuuming, a most exciting task for the first 15 minutes, until my muscles began to ache from all the pulling, dipping, and scooping, that 2 hours later produced a leaf and grass free pool. (The pool is inground and we had just cut the grass that morning). I was so pleased with the pool that I suddenly became aquatic girl and spe...

For those of you who may remember me writing about Dead Celebrities Lady , some months back, well, she called again today. She is the woman who calls the library occasionally to get information on when famous people have died. I imagine her sitting at home checking the names of dead people off a list, maybe crotchetting their names onto doilies, or possibily just thinking up ways to bring these dead celebrities up in conversation. "Did you hear that it is going to rain today?" "No, but did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt died in 1962 of 'aplastic anemia, tuberculosis, and heart failure .?'" Today Dead Celebrity lady wanted to know the years that Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt died ( Eleanor in 1962, FDR in 1945). While I was typing this she called to let me know that she was looking through her uncle's records, and wondered when Cab Calloway died (1994). Had to smile in spite of myself. I realized how much I had missed talking to Dead Celebrities L...

All I know of the Detroit 1967 Riot is what I have read in history books and he ard in interviews, so this won't be a reflection like the Woodward piece. In writing this I hope to do little more than remind people of the sad events that took place 40 years ago, this past week. The Detroit Riot, which took place July 23, 1967, began after white police tried to break up a party of Black Detroiters celebrating the homecoming of two Vietnam veterans. With dozens of people taken into custody, other left behind felt that they could no longer handle the inequalities of these meausres. Thus began the looting and rioting. Many attribute social inequalities, poverty, and racial tensions as the cause for the riot. "By all accounts, Detroit was NOT a blighted city in 1967. However, the city was dealing with issues of white flight, job loss due to automation, and corresponding tax revenue loss, as well as the social ills of the period. Some key factors are often cited as contributing fact...

Two anniversaries happened within the past couple of weeks that I would briefly like to note. Deemed at one point US 10 by the US Govt., then later M-1, Woodward Avenue was developed as a road that would go from Detroit (starting at Jefferson Ave., near the Detroit River, where you can see across to Canada) to Pontiac (where sections of Woodward are still known as "The Loop.") Woodward Avenue stretchs across 22 miles of an old road "where Indian moccasins padded and cattle trod the Saginaw trail, giving way to horse-drawn carriages and then automobile tires speeding up the world's first interurban 'superhighway.'"~ Susan Whitall But was is really important aren't the dates or size of Woodward, but rather the influence that the road has had, and maybe more importantly the people who have walked or driven over this road. It was a foot and horse beaten path forged by many native peoples of this land long before the white men came. It was a road trod upo...

It is that time of year again. While those of us that took Spring/Summer semester classes are frantically finishing, newbies-new students for the Fall semester-are surfacing on campus to clog the Student Center and food court and generally get in the way of those of us that are trying to get to class or work, in their attempt to get "Oriented" to the campus. I love the fact that I am not one of them, and walk past with an air of knowing where I need to be, as they scuttle along-like freshwater crabs crawled out of the Detroit River-behind Orientation leaders wearing T-shirts in our obnoxious school colors of gold and hunter green. Watching them reminds me of the adventure I began just last fall as I began classes here. It is with almost a year under my belt that I consider Wayne State as familiar as home, and I am glad that I am far past those first few unsure weeks. This morning, not long after I had settled in at my desk, a man and woman approached the desk, asking about th...

Some tips on Library etiquette that apply most everywhere else too, just replace Reference Desk with wherever you work, i.e., the counter at Burger King or Hooters, or your desk in a crowded office, in a high rise somewhere. Do not eat a deli sandwich, or other food items that contain strong onions and then decide to sit close to the Reference Desk and pour out the story of your paper's life. Do not smoke multiple cigarettes and then decide to sit close to the Reference Desk and pour out the story of your paper's life. Do not ask someone questions and then cut the person off before they can answer them. Do not leave your phone in a purse, set next to the Reference desk, leaving it, only to have it go off-with the ringer on the loudest setting-set to music that sounds Cyndi Lauper worthy. (I wish I could have seen what I know was a confused and frantic look on my face as I tried to figure out how the Smurfs had set out a lyrical warning-swear to God it was the most fruity ring ...

Interesting... Ode to the Midwest by Kevin Young I want to be doused in cheese & fried. I want to wander the aisles, my heart's supermarket stocked high as cholesterol. I want to die wearing a sweatsuit— I want to live forever in a Christmas sweater, a teddy bear nursing off the front. I want to write a check in the express lane. I want to scrape my driveway clean myself, early, before anyone's awake— that'll put em to shame— I want to see what the sun sees before it tells the snow to go. I want to be the only black person I know. I want to throw out my back & not complain about it. I wanta drive two blocks. Why walk— I want love, n stuff— I want to cut my sutures myself. I want to jog down to the river & make it my bed— I want to walk its muddy banks & make me a withdrawal. I tried jumping in, found it frozen— I'll go home, I guess, to my rooms where the moon changes & shines like television.