for the love of libraries

yesterday ched commented a recommendation that I ought to post pictures of the inside and outside of cleveland's main public library. I think this is a terrific idea.

however, why limit myself to the main library or even to cleveland. I love libraries and when I have my camera (which yes, is most of the time) I sometimes snap a picture of some image that strikes my fancy while visiting a library.

recently I was in metro dc. while I was down there I visited the main regional library for fairfax virginia. for the last several years I've been trying to locate a high school friend named jenny. we lost touch with each other in the mid 1980s, during the time my family of creation moved from new haven to hartford and jenny moved from new york to somewhere else (in retrospect, I remember she was going to return to virginia and stay with her folks until she found a new job - I remember she left new york for a myriad of reasons, the least being she didn't really enjoy her job) - any how long story short, I never had a new address for her nor did she have mine. and life happens.

all previous attempts to find jenny via googling her name produced nada. I couldn't remember her father or mother's first names and their last name is incredibly common.... think smith or jones. one has the added problem with women changing their name when then get married.

this time when I was visiting my folks, I realized that if I could find her parents (or even a sibling - whose names I also couldn't remember) I could probably find jenny. I figured the best way to do that was to go back to the 1973 phone directory (the year we graduated from h.s. and the year I was certain that her parents lived in the house I knew). I remembered the name of the street she lived on. first task was to find out if her folks were still alive. not only are her folks still alive, they were still living in the same house! I would have saved myself a lot of time had I just gone from the 1973 phone directory to the 2007/8 phone directory - but some how I had it in my head that they moved (in retrospect I realize that I mixed up the story of jenny's parents with the story of another high school friend's parents - karen's folks did move).

I called the number, spoke to jenny's dad. he didn't remember me but her mother did - but only from our days in high school and nothing of my life afterwards - so I expect jenny's mom didn't really have fond memories of me - in high school, I admit I was a bit of a wild child; some would say still am. jenny did marry and she did change her name. she is living about thirty minutes from where we used to live in northern virginia. her new a community is a bit further out from washington d.c., but still in the metro d.c. area.

I have jenny's number and now I all I have to do is call. people can change a great deal in twenty-some years but then again, we also are what we always have been..... I feel good now that I have jenny's phone number. one of these days when I have some time, I might just give her a ring and see what she's been up to these last twenty-two years!

photos: interior shot of the city of fairfax regional library. 1973 phone directory