Library Notes
June 28, 2003
Okay, people, you should not kill the librarian! Like the king kills the messenger? But that seems to be what is happening since school was out.
Of course, the kids have inundated us, but we have more adults coming in too.
Tuesday, as I've told you before, is our Monday. Last Tuesday was so busy, I don't think I sat at my desk more than five minutes. Everybody was needing help to find a certain kind of book. Or they needed help finding something on the computer.
Then when genealogists come in, they need help finding family, seeing what books we have available or they need the microfilm machine loaded.
Then the telephone rings, right in the middle of your helping four people at one time. I may have to recheck somebody's books or movies or go check on the shelf for a certain book to see if it is here.
To give you some idea of the hectic pace of Tuesdays, especially. One day we checked out 218 items, 102 of that number being videos. Just call us the little 'ole video store.
Another Tuesday, 199 books/videos/books on tape, went out the door under someone's arm.
Another Tuesday, the total number was 195. Then 267 items left the following Tuesday, 94 of them being videos. And on and on……….
Perhaps everyone is sitting at home under the air conditioner, either reading a book or staring at a TV screen. And they only come out to visit the library or the grocery store when they run out -- of books, movies or bread and milk.
So, what if we're running around here with our tongues hanging out. We are mostly keeping up, So, come on down and join the crowd, if you, too, need a book and/or a movie. You must not just sit and stare into space, you know.
And, of course, speaking of books, let's look at Steve Thayer's new book, "Wolf Pass. For those of you who read "Wheat Field, this book again stars Deputy Sheriff Pliny Pennington. Penningtom now returns with another gripping story set in the dark and murderous hills of seemingly bucolic Kickapoo Falls, Wisconsin. The shadows in the woods hid many secrets ---including the ghosts of World War II.
When a railroad engineer is shot dead, and it is determined that the bullet came from a sniper's rifle fired from more than six hundred yards away, all eyes turn on Deputy Pennington as a suspect. Pennington -- the man who solved the Wheat Field murders - is by far the best marksman in Kickapoo Falls, and was an Army Ranger sniper in the war. When the engineer's young and sexy wife is shot dead days later, Pennington realizes that his worse nightmare is about to begin.
The deputy sheriff enlists the aid of a friend in Army intelligence, but when Alex LaChapelle steps off the train, Pennington is surprised that the detective is from Scotland Yard, not the FBI or the CIA. It seems that he and LaChapelle have something in common -- they are both chasing a ghost.
During the war, Nazi SS colonel Christian Wolfgang Stangl--known as "The Wolf"--controlled the narrow mountain railroad pass in the Bavarian Alps through which millions of dollars in gold and war loot were transported. British commandos had been sent on a suicide mission to shut down the pass. Where they failed, Pennington the sniper succeeded - but the Wolf got away.
Now it appears that the Wolf is at his door."