Slightly Off the Mark

 When I was a teen I didn't exactly have the happiest home life. As a result, and being an insatiable reader, I spent as much time as I could at the Noble County Library. It was only about a four block walk from our house, and from the library's front windows was a great view of the Noble County Courthouse. It was very much my home away from home for several years.

It's gone now.

Well, the building is gone. The library moved in 1995, to a place that's a lot easier to navigate for both patrons and employees. About 35 years ago a member of the Library Board took me to the basement of the oldest part of the old library, and showed me cracks spreading through the concrete. He told me the original library was designed to have shelves around the exterior walls, with a central circulation desk. Now, with shelves all across the rooms, it held more weight then it was designed for.

Not to mention it was too small, and laid out in three different levels. When the library moved, the Noble County Prosecutor's Office took up the space, but to me it will always be a library. Well, would. Now I have a brick.

I spent hours going through old books and microfilms there, researching our book Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So With the Albion Fire Department. Then I returned the favor, putting the library itself into Images of America: Albion and Noble County. Between them, I fed both my reading habit and my writing ambitions with volume after volume from the place.

In the photo above you can see the original structure in back, and the 1968 addition in front. The original, built in 1917, was thanks to a $10,000 Carnegie Foundation grant--Andrew Carnegie's money built a lot of early libraries.

In the photo below, which I got from the Old Jail Museum--on the same block--is the Carnegie Library before the addition went up.

In elementary school my favorite part of the week was when the bookmobile showed up and we would file through, picking out something to read. The bookmobile also came from the Noble County Public Library, which had a garage built on the back to house it.

Just for the heck of it here's one of the bookmobiles, in a photo given to me by Ellen McBride. This one, I assume, was before my time--I recall the one we went to being more like a large van.

 Anyway, the Noble County Library is still operating with three branches, and going strong. The original is being replaced by a Noble County Government building. I can't deny the practicality of most government offices being centralized into two buildings, with the resulting savings in utilities, upkeep, and communications. I might even end up working there myself, if my writing career doesn't allow me to retire by then.

But I'm gonna miss what was there.

 

I scheduled a book signing for November 16^th under the theory that by then Election Day madness would be all over but the shouting. What didn’t occur to me was that promoting the appearance might be drown out by that very same election hoopla. In all the fuss, and with so many of the smart people who read books avoiding social media (told you they were smart), will anyone even know about it? The author appearance, not the election.

It could be a very lonely four hours (at the library in Albion, 3-7 p.m.). But I persevere, because surely people want to give books as gifts—they’re so much more entertainment than “Don’t blame me, I voted for neither of them” bumper stickers. 

Ah, but I promised to tell you who’s going to win the election. Easy: Once the cemetery votes are in, Hillary Clinton will handily win the Electoral College in what will be termed a blowout. She’ll squeak by in the popular vote in what will be termed a mandate, with a few states being too close to call but most of those going to her in the end. Most networks will call it by around 10 p.m. Florida will be called by around December. 

This is not a political opinion, by the way: Just a prediction. While I have a great personal dislike for Clinton, I also have a great personal dislike for Trump, so at the moment (it’s late Sunday as I write this), I’m mostly just numb. Those of you who like her politics, be comforted by this: Some of our better political leaders were unsavory people, in one way or another. 

And we now live in a country where anyone, of any race or gender, could be elected president, so there’s that. Race or gender is a poor reason to vote for someone, but it’s also a poor reason to vote against someone.