An unveiling of artifacts

The Tale of the Librarian's Fifth Wife is collection of moments, an assemblage of events, a bread basket of words, a swap meet of scraps left behind from a beautiful romance that will help clue you in to the real deal, to the life of two star crossed lovers that has already been lived and left behind. For the moment, anyway.


Our lives lie scattered over several states and a half a case worth of decades. It's not so much a want as a need to do this, to gather together the splinters and the shards of our times and share them here with you. Those bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsam found below in this winsome log are the bits and pieces of our times, a smattering of the trinkets of the love that Jane and I gathered up over the course of five long hard years. How they come to you now is in a story of sorts, a type of autobiographical fiction, with images cadged from places other than our satchel. Give it time, photos, sepia, wrinkled, pocket worn, are yet to come.


So, what else is there to do but get out that cobbled together blanket of dreams from the back of the car, spread it out under the branches of our favorite green and noble Oregon Maple tree that we both loved and share these words and tales of those long ago times with you. It was a wonderful time. Sit a spell, grab your spectacles and come ride along with us for awhile.

Love, Jane, the Professora and Roger, the Wild Half Mexican Boy



Thursday, November 20, 2008

"You two are too sparky" PT Branch, July '06

On this very wet and rainy Thursday afternoon I can safely say that I am pretty much happy, well balanced, and feel that I am looking forward to a somewhat safe and sane afterlife someday. Some may differ. Estimations of my character may very.

Just reading this series of posts must have you squirming at times. "Oooh, Ma, he's such a bad, bad man!" Yup, something like that. Malo hombre, that's me. Fathers, you better lock up your daughters, hide away the wine casks and stow away your livestock, the Minute Man is coming to town!

Gosh.

That's the way I was meant to feel that day, I suppose. Big, bad influence. Leading that lil' gal down the highway of regret and ill repute. That's me, big old Ill Reputer. Man, what were they thinking that day? Peeking around corners to watch us talk. Setting us both up to fall hard by assigning assignments in the same area of the stacks. What sorts of nefarious types of behaviour were we indulging in, you might ask? Shelving, talking, being somewhat excited about sharing a sunny day together. Laughing. On the boss' watch apparently that was forbidden.

No wonder most of us felt fearful about being called into the office.

So there we were. Like two school kids. Hard, rigid seats. Glaring boss. Sniggering staffers outside the door. I can still hear them singing.."Jane and Roger sitting in the stacks...s-h-e-l v-i-n-g!" Something like that. What kind of moral boundries did we cross that day? Well, folks, just know that we were "sparking". We were being sparky and well, that just pissed alot of people off. Made spectacles of ourselves. We were happy that day and didn't we know that happiness on the job is forbidden? Get that straight! What would people think about two married folks who weren't married to each other talking to each other, with their clothes on, in the middle of the day, as friends? Man, talk about two people ready for the iron maiden or the rack.

Instead we were chastised. Told not to do it again. The Morals Police issued us a citation and that was that. "You are being watched".

So, after work we headed to the drive in, instead. We missed each other that evening, which is too bad. Our kids would have seen us sparking, I am sure. The rest of the drive in crowd as well. I'm sure they would have sent ushers down. "Can you tell those two to stop sparking? We can't see the picture show!"

Somehow maybe I should be thankful for those folks shutting us down that day. Could have cost me a job. Those books are mighty flammable, you know!

Your WHMB

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