It was true. Dewey loved the Christmas tree. He loved the smell of it. The feel of it. The taste of it. Once I had it assembled and set up next to the circulation desk, he loved to sit under it. Mine now, he said as he rounded the base a few times. Just leave us be, thanks.
“Sorry, Dewey. Still work to do. We don’t even have it decorated yet.”
Out came the ornaments, the new tinsel in this year’s color, the pictures and special embellishments for this year’s theme. Angels on strings. Santa Clauses. Shiny balls with glitter all over them. Ribbons, ornaments, cards, and dolls. Dewey rushed up to each box, but he had little interest in cloth and metal, hooks and lights. He was distracted by our wreath, which I had made out of worn-out pieces of the library’s previous Christmas tree, but old plastic was no match for the new, shiny stuff. Soon it was back to his spot under the tree.
We started hanging ornaments. One minute Dewey was in the boxes, finding out which ornaments came next. The next minute he was at our feet, playing with our shoelaces. Then he was stretching into the tree for another whiff of plastic. A few seconds later he was gone.
“What’s that rustling sound?”
Suddenly Dewey came tearing by us with his head through the strap of one of the plastic grocery bags we used for storage. He ran all the way to the far side of the library, then came careening back toward us.
“Catch him!”
Dewey dodged and kept running. Soon he was on his way back again. Cynthia blocked the area near the front door. I took the circulation desk. Dewey sprinted right between us. I could see from the look in his eyes he was in a frenzy. He had no idea how to get the plastic bag from around his neck. His only thought was, Keep running. Maybe I can lose this monster.
Soon there were four or five of us chasing him, but he wouldn’t stop dodging and sprinting away. It didn’t help that we were all laughing at him.
“Sorry, Dewey, but you’ve got to admit this is funny.”
I finally cornered him and, despite his terrified squirming, managed to free him from the bag. Dewey immediately went over to his new best friend, the Christmas tree, and lay down under the branches for a nice, comforting tongue bath, complete with his customary fist in the ears. There would be a hair ball, no doubt, either later today or tomorrow morning. But at least one lesson had been learned. From then on, Dewey hated plastic bags.
That first day with the library Christmas tree was one of our best. The staff spent the entire day laughing, and Dewey spent the entire day—plastic bag run excluded, of course—in a state of gooey, romantic bliss. His love for the Christmas tree never diminished. Every year when the box came off the shelf, he pranced.
The librarians usually received a few gifts from grateful patrons, but that year our small trove of chocolates and cookies was dwarfed by Dewey’s enormous stack of balls, treats, and toy mice. It seemed that everyone in town wanted Dewey—and us—to know just how much he meant to them. There were some fancy toys in that stash, even some nice homemade items, but Dewey’s favorite toy from that holiday season wasn’t a gift at all; it was a skein of red yarn he found in a decorating box. That yarn skein was Dewey’s constant companion, not just for the holiday season but for years to come. He batted it around the library until a few feet of yarn stuck out, which he then pounced on, wrestled, and, very soon, got wrapped around his body. More than once, I was almost run down by an orange cat streaking across the staff area, red yarn in mouth, dragging the bundle behind him. An hour later he’d be sacked out under the Christmas tree, all four feet clutching his red buddy.
The library was closed for a few days at Christmas, so Dewey came home with me. He spent much of his time alone, though, because Christmas in Hartley was a Jipson family tradition. Everyone came to Mom and Dad’s house for Christmas; you might be disowned if you didn’t. You weren’t allowed to miss any of the holiday activities, and there were a lot of them: extravagant meals; decorating parties; games for children; holiday carols; desserts and cookies; games for adults; relatives dropping by with a plate of cookies or nothing much, just a little something I saw in Sioux City and thought you’d love; a year’s worth of stories, told and retold. There was always a story to tell around the family tree. The presents weren’t extravagant, but every Jipson got to spend a week in the arms of a large extended family, and that’s the best gift of all.
Eventually someone always said, “Let’s play ‘Johnny M’Go.’”
Mom and Dad collected antiques, and a few years earlier we’d used them to form the Jipson family band. I played bass, which was a washtub with a broom handle attached to the top and a string running between them. My sister played the washboard. Dad and Jodi banged out a rhythm with a couple of spoons. Mike blew on a comb covered with wax paper. Doug blew across the mouth of a moonshine jar. It was an antique jar, of course, never used for its intended purpose. Mom turned an old pioneer-era wooden butter churn upside down and played it like a drum. Our song was “Johnny B. Goode” When she was little, Jodi always said, “Play ‘Johnny M’Go’!” The name stuck. Every year we played “Johnny M’Go” and other old rock-and-roll songs deep into the night on our homemade instruments, a homage to a country tradition that probably never existed in this part of Iowa, laughing with one another the whole time.
After Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, Jodi and I headed home to Dewey, who as always was eager to see us. We spent Christmas morning together in Spencer, just the three of us. I hadn’t even gotten Dewey a present. What would be the point? He already had more stuff than he needed. And after a year together, our relationship had gone well beyond token gifts and forced attention. We didn’t have anything to prove. All Dewey wanted or expected from me was a few hours a day of my time. I felt the same way. That afternoon I dropped Jodi at Mom and Dad’s house and slipped home to spend time with Dewey on the couch, doing nothing, saying nothing, just two friends lounging around like a couple of old socks waiting for a shoe.
Chapter 13
A Great Library
A great library doesn’t have to be big or beautiful. It doesn’t have to have the best facilities or the most efficient staff or the most users. A great library provides. It is enmeshed in the life of a community in a way that makes it indispensable. A great library is one nobody notices because it is always there, and it always has what people need.
The Spencer Public Library was founded in 1883 in Mrs. H. C. Crary’s parlor. In 1890, the library moved to a small frame building on Grand Avenue. In 1902, Andrew Carnegie granted the town $10,000 for a new library. Carnegie was a product of the industrial revolution that had turned a nation of farmers into factory workers, oilmen, and iron smelters. He was a ruthless corporate capitalist who built his United States Steel into the nation’s most successful business. He was also a Baptist, and by 1902 he was deep into the pursuit of giving away his money to worthwhile causes. One cause was providing grants to small towns for libraries. For a town like Spencer, a Carnegie library was a sign you had made it not exactly to the top, but farther than Hartley and Everly.
The Spencer Public Library opened on March 6, 1905, on East Third Street, half a block off Grand Avenue. It was typical of Carnegie libraries, since Carnegie had mandated a classical style and symmetry of design. There were three stained-glass windows in the entrance hall, two with flowers and one with the word library. The librarian perched behind a large central desk, surrounded by drawers of cards. The side rooms were small and cloistered, with bookshelves to the ceiling. In an era when public buildings were segregated by sex, men and women were free to enter any room. Carnegie libraries were also among the first to let patrons choose books off the shelves instead of making requests to the librarian.