Leaving the Library Comfort Zone

Outreach Takes Many Unexpected Forms (Day 81)

I have to be let in through a front door that looks more like a bank vault than a machine shop, and I’m immediately greeted by a yelping, cock-eyed bull dog. He’s back behind a gated work area full of steel cabinets overflowing with what appears to be metal do-dads, screws, bolts, pieces of steel, chains.

“Don’t mind him,” John says. “He’s won’t hurt you.”

He very much appears to be a dog that would be interested in hurting me. But he is a guard dog and this is his territory.

John leads me upstairs to his office. There are motorcycle parts everywhere, most of which I wouldn’t even be able to identify. In what appears to be a lounge or perhaps his living room, there’s a whole chassis of a chopper, up on maybe tire rims? I’m not sure.

We are in a part of the city that I had never been to, and had no idea in fact that this shop would be found here. John manufactures and sell motorcycles parts here. He lives next door. He has DVDs I want for my library.

“Well, this is it,” he says. “They used to be my dad’s, you know, but now I just needed to do somethin’ with ‘em.”

A Facebook marketplace post had advertised 250 DVDs for sale at a very low price. And sure enough, there were four packed boxes waiting for me.

All this came about as a way to save money. We had run out of out empty DVD cases. Those plastic cases are fragile and crack easily, so we replace a couple dozen a year. But replacing them would cost us about 2 bucks a case.

My solution? Buy John’s 250 DVDs and get the cases for about 20 cents apiece and have extras for years. And with so many, we’d get the extra bonus of adding some to our collection as DVDs are still very popular.

It’s snowing outside as I load up my car. John’s front yard is loaded with political signs and stickers. There’s a huge tire-less flatbed sporting a giant billboard. There are bars in his windows. He brings out the final box. I pay him and say thanks.

“Say,” he says, “what you going to do with all these anyway?”

I explain what the library intends on using them for.

“So, like, people will be able to rent these DVDs?”

“They will,” I say. “And some of them will go toward our annual book sale. Either way, you’re going to be helping the library very much.”

He stands there for a few seconds as snow gathers on his beard.

“So, uh, could anybody be a member, like I could be a member?”

“Of the library? Anyone can. You live outside Auburn so there’s a small fee, but of course.”

“I just.. I just didn’t think anybody did that anymore.”

“We’re very busy. DVDs are very popular.”

He nods and we part ways. John locks the huge door to his shop and heads back to his house.

“Say,” I yell out to his back, “anytime you’re up in Auburn, stop by the library.”

He doesn’t turn, but lifts his arm to me before disappearing behind a tall fence.

A convert? Unlikely. By maybe, just maybe, a bridge.