Spring Cowman Goes Ahead and Makes My Day

It was an unceremonious day at the Forest Lawn Library, the building seemingly locked into the late Spring frigidity. Absent from the day was the usual mid-afternoon melee, and the delightful clatter of pre-adolescence. Gone was the hateful murmur of a pre-teen in full headlock, the red-faced humiliation of a bullied gamer at the computer, or the high-pitched antagonism of young girls cutting each other low hovering slightly above the allowable decibel level of a library voice. It was as if there was some miracle occurring outside which drew the teenagers to its bright light, and away from their TDC you-tubing, and nexopia.

As you can imagine, staff were in a gleeful, if not yearning mood, as the fresh snow melting in the bright sun signaled the oncoming season of renewal. A rather cowboy-looking customer approached me at the info desk with a question that began:” I’m not sure what you call it up here, but in Texas we call it a (in this space a blank).” The term that the man was asking about was for an officer, the title which I did not know at the time, and cannot now recall, who is the district court’s supervisor of domestic affairs. He told me the name of the kind of office he was enquiring about, and after some difficulty, I was able to locate telephone numbers for the man in Texas, that he could get in touch with. It had something to do with courts, and officers, and even lawyers, but it was beyond me.

“Thanks for all your work. You’ve been mighty helpful. I always knew that the public library was the place to go to get the information you needed.”
“You bet it is, “ I responded, feeling a sense of accomplishment – the kind of accomplishment one would feel, I presume sitting at the infodesk, who charges through burning houses to rescue sleeping children – not out of a deep-seeded need for recognition, not for the moniker ‘hero’, but out of the prosaic fulfillment of a specialized duty – one you were born to do.
“Thanks again,” said the cowboy, “Now I’ll be able to start the process of suing my wife for everything she’s got.”
“Not at all,” I offered, as the cowboy ventured out to his horse he had hitched to the bicycle rack. “All in the line of duty,” I whispered to myself.