I would like to be librarian again for another year

I’ve written about that complete works of Shakespeare in this blog before. It’s one of my most treasured possessions.

As I’ve started looking for and posting older bits of writing, I came across a piece I’d nearly forgotten existed. I worked as writer in residence for the Parkland Regional Library System in central Alberta twice over a four-year period. Near the end of my second tenure, the director commissioned me to write a piece for their annual conference. He asked me to write something pertinent to the history of the library, so I was given access to the PRL archives. That was big fun.

In my diggings through old newspaper articles and correspondence, I came across a letter Beulah had written to the Central Alberta Regional Library Board in 1956. It was a wonderful find. I could find no decision from the board regarding her request, but I suspect it may have been granted, albeit grudgingly.

In my efforts to snub my nose at the partiarchal manoeuvring here, I hope I made Beulah a real person. The Library staff seemed to enjoy my reading, and that’s the important thing. Hopefully, you will too.

(This piece first appeared in the Parkland Regional Library’s print newsletter, and I’ve gently edited it.)

~~~

I Would Like To Be Librarian Again for Another Year

early July, 1956

the Central Alberta Regional Library board receives a letter

from Beulah, the librarian at Bentley

she has this to say:

Over 12,000 books were loaned out during the 10 months and books will be available at my home

during July and on request. I have worked hard during the 6 years I have been librarian

to sell the library and I really believe that it has paid off.

 But I find I cannot work another year at 50 cents an hour and would like to be paid a regular monthly wage instead of the hours I put in during the school hours.

 I would like you as a board to make an offer of what you will pay, as I wish a increase in salary this next year. After 6 years I think I deserve one now really, don’t you?

I think you do, Beulah, but I don’t know if you ever did

meetings were set, doodles were doodled

on the edges of thin typewriter paper

numbers added up in the heavy lead of the man in charge of the money

no fewer than four letters went back and forth throwing out this

or that possible meeting time to discuss the issue

Beulah, do you mean to say

that when the library was not running regular hours

you would store books at your home and invite people in to browse

at their convenience? for 50 cents an hour?

I doubt you received any payment at all for this extraordinary service

you were at home anyway, I suppose the board reasoned,

and what unmarried woman doesn’t like a bit of company and a pot of tea of an evening?

never mind the untold hours of lifting boxes

and boxes of books during summer months

the massive headaches of keeping track of who took what book

out of your living room or parlour

taking stock of damage and liqour rings on irreplaceable books

I hope like anything you got your raise, Beulah

whatever the outcome

your refusal to accept the status quo must have had the board

a bit nervous, clutching at their neckties

trying to reason you out of it

 ~~~~

 a stain is burned into the cover of my great grandmother Sadie’s copy of

The Complete Works of Shakespeare

the book is now mine, having come to me through my grandmother

and my mother who believes in giving her children the things

intended for us while she’s still alive to watch us enjoy them

the book will go to my sister when I am gone, and from there

I don’t know

what I do know is that the book will outlive me

it will outlive everyone who touches it after me as it has outlived

all who’ve touched it before me

the book is my most valuable possession

and it is worthless

I have repaired it over and over with book tape, gaffer tape, and glue

in a haphazard manner that would make a master book-fixer

clutch her spine repair tape in her glue-stained fingers

and weep with despair

I wouldn’t get five dollars for it at an antiquairan bookstore

and partly because of that stain

Sadie loved her cool, iced gin

and could easily consume a fifth a day

I like to think she loved this book

but perhaps it was nothing more than a coaster

a high brow, literary Gin Fizz holder

she must have left a drink there one warm evening and forgotten about it

the condensation seeped down the glass and permeated the cover

I trace the ring with my finger to this day

of the six complete Shakespeare collections I own

this is the one I return to most frequently

the Hamlet pages torn and threadbare from thirty years of reading

perhaps I should have paid more attention

to the book fixer’s instructions on how to mend tears properly

but I will never mend them

these rips and smudges and pencil doodles are the marks

of my love for this book        to repair them

would be to remove my presence from it

I’d like some part of me

to remain with it wherever it should land

even the dump holds memories

now my niece and I read the play together over the phone

I turn these pages carefully, helping her understand

what Hamlet is mumbling about

 ~~~~

 if my great grandmother had been a librarian, she would have been

Beulah, defiant in the face of male authority

hauling boxes around like a work-horse

telling school children to keep their jam-stained fingers

off the Shakespeare

unfazed by the tapping pencils of long-ago library boards

their purse strings tighter than great grandma after a few stiff gins

Beulah writes:

So please let me know by the middle of August if it is possible to give me an increase in salary.

If not you had better look for another librarian

I fairly shout with glee when I read this sentence

from now on, I plan to accompany every request

for more money in my own life

with “If not, you had better look for another…”

 ~~~

 my great grandmother’s given name was Sarah

though she was Sadie to one and all

inside her Shakespeare collection

is a photograph of ‘Madame’ Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet in 1899

she stands in furs and leotards, her long blonde hair curled under

an acknowledgement that though she was playing a man

her femininity was primary

her arms are crossed and she looks at the camera

with suspicion and haughtiness as if to say, “don’t mess with me”

the book outlives us all

Sarah Bernhardt has been dead for nearly a century

my great grandmother Sarah has been gone nearly sixty years

I stop at this photograph each of the hundreds of times

I have read Hamlet from this book

each time I see it, I am struck by her attitude

her lack of concern for the way she flouted traditional ideas

of who should be allowed to play what in Shakespeare

 ~~~

 Beulah, defiant to the end, closes her letter to the board thus:

I would like to be librarian again for another year if you can pay more.

I wish I knew how this ended

if only the old and yellowed paper had survived

on which the decision was certainly typed

what remains are a board member’s notes no doubt jotted

during Beulah’s defense of her request for a raise

I hope tea was made

I hope it was served in porcelain cups

I hope Beulah had a stiff gin that night no matter the outcome

her precious summer books piled to the ceilings in her home

awaiting her gentle handling and shelving