The Library

 In the summer of 1983,  I officially fell in love with the Public Library.   We had moved into a small house off off the alley behind a strip mall that had a liquor store, a drug store, and my barber.  Also adjacent to the corner of my yard (where my buddy Jon and I practiced head first slides) was a doorway that led to a downstairs establishment that sold accessories for train sets.  That place must have been the bomb for those into that hobby, as it was stacked.   Across the street from that alley and our house was another strip mall that was anchored by a Sentry grocery store. Next door to that was my home away from home. 

The Washington Branch of the Kenosha Public Library opened in November of 1977.  It would be six years before I discovered it.  

And practically moved in. 

It was here that I discovered that there was something called the Encyclopedia of Rock.  That a novel was written that picked up the storyline after Star Wars called Han Solo at Galaxy's End.   An aside here, one time I was early to pick my kid up from his job, which was fairly adjacent to a Half Price Books.  Having to use the restroom, I braved an intense thunderstorm to run inside and get some relief. On the way out of the lavatory, I glanced to my immediate right, and there sticking out of the clearance section was a copy of Han Solo at Galaxy's End, twinkling at me with a God's power lens flare.  What a find.

The Library was where I found Michael Medved's Golden Turkey Awards, which gave me a different way of looking at films, even some I had been fond of. Where I checked out the Urban Cowboy soundtrack so I could listen to "All Night Long" by Joe Walsh, The Clash's Combat Rock, and Steve Martin's Let's Get Small.  Speaking of Mr. Martin, Washington was where I checked out his oddball collection of musings, Cruel Shoes, and couldn't decide whether it was hilarious or disturbing.  This was where I purchased used books removed from the library's shelves, as that helped bolster my own collection. 

There was a large, high quality television there, where you could select from a monthly list of films to watch (with headphones on, of course) and I must have watched Jaws there 5 times. The librarians were strict about the rules, so if you started a film, you needed to finish it.   At one point, my sister had to come and get me in the middle of Steven Spielberg's masterpiece because there was a family event that was unbeknownst to me.  I lost my movie privileges for a month thanks to that shit.  The librarians were NOT happy.

They were never happy, or perhaps I would remember them as individuals, which sadly I do not.  That's unfortunate, because it would have added significantly to this piece. 

A pretty awesome periodicals section existed there, which proved awesome for school research. It also happened to have the only magazine I know of that had my childhood hero, Green Bay Packer's quarterback Lynn Dickey, on the cover. It was the fall of 1983's edition of Football Digest.  I often gave thought to sneaking out the door with that, but I knew it was wrong, and that kind of behavior didn't fit into the code I lived by.  

It was a place I snuck to on more than one occasion to duck bullies.  For some reason, my neighborhood was like the fucking Fire Swamp from The Princess Bride, but instead of Rodents of Unusual Size, it had, well.... Rodents of Unusual Size.  They may not have been large individuals, but they congregated in groups of congealed asshole that travelled in pre-pubescent attitude and odor.  On several separate occasions I had dashed into Washington Library to avoid abuse at the hands of the cults of Charlie, Franco, Scott, and Tim whatever the fuck his name was.  

These future Ted Cruz robots who thought they were David Lee Roth, seemed to enjoy being up in my shit for the horrendous acts of, oh say, bumping into them when the bus lurched, bumping into them at the bowling alley, bumping into them in the hall at school, or merely existing in their line of sight. For further on this, check out my piece, Bullies and the Revenge Fantasy right here on this blog-type thing.  Suburban America shouldn't be the kind of place you need to have your head on a swivel, but I guess Kenosha will be Kenosha.  As it ever was, and still is.  A combination of fear and Cheng Chao-an pacifism (until the medallion is torn off) made me not react more often than not, and that was smart, as I was always outnumbered.

I wonder how those guys are doing today.  Is the barren, empty void that was behind their eyes as they issued threats for no plausible reason of worth, called me names, regurgitated offenses I never committed, shoving me after sticking their noses in my face, still there today?  I often wonder.

Actually, no, I don't.  Not even a little.  Fuck them.

One of my personal favorite characters of television, Seth Bullock, once said in a particularly heated exchange with George Hearst on Deadwood: "Can't shut up!  Every bully I ever met can't shut his fuckin' mouth... except when he's afraid."   

I only experimented once to test the validity of that statement, but the end result is of a dark and scary place that I don't want to revisit. Sometimes victory is a spoilage, not a spoil for the victor.

Despite all that, the library WAS basically a truly happy place, a place of mostly calm, education, knowledge, entertainment, music, film, humor, protection from the storm, and in combination with life legends cited here, I'm grateful to it's gifts and inspirations.  

Many of my pieces end with expressions of gratefulness.  Just letting you know that I'm aware of that.  As I reminisce, I'm often reminded; reminded of reasons I'm still here, as imperfect as I may be.