Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World

Chapter 11

Hide-and-Seek

After graduation I found out it takes more than a college degree to become a psychologist. To make ends meet, I took a job as a secretary for my friend Trudy’s husband, Brian. After a week, I told him, “Don’t waste any more money training me. I’m not going to stay.” I hated filing. I hated typing. After thirty-two years, I was tired of taking orders. For most of my adult life I had tried to be the person my guidance counselor predicted I’d be way back at Hartley High School. I had followed the path set out for me and just about every other woman of my generation. I didn’t want to do that anymore.

My sister, Val, who lived in Spencer, mentioned an opening at the local library. At that moment I had no intention of returning home. Despite my minor in library science, I had never really considered working in a library. But I took the interview, and I loved the people. A week later, I was on my way back to northwest Iowa, the new assistant director of the Spencer Public Library.

I wasn’t expecting to love the job. Like most people, I thought being a librarian meant stamping due dates in the back of books. But it was so much more. Within months, I was neck-deep in marketing campaigns and graphic design. I started a homebound program, which took books to people unable to visit the library, and developed a major initiative to interest teens in reading. I developed programs for nursing homes and schools; I started answering questions on the radio and speaking to social clubs and community organizations. I was a big-picture person, and I was beginning to see the difference a strong library made in a community. Then I got involved in the business side of running a library—the budgeting and long-range planning—and I was hooked. This was a job, I realized, I could love for the rest of my life.

In 1987, my friend and boss, Bonnie Pluemer, was promoted to a regional library management position. I spoke confidentially to several members of the library board and told them I wanted to be the new director. Unlike the rest of the applicants, who interviewed at the library, I interviewed secretly at a board member’s house. After all, a small town can turn quickly from nurturing nest to nettle bush when it looks like you’re getting too big for your britches.

Most of the members of the library board were fond of me but skeptical. They kept asking me, “Are you sure you can handle this job?”

“I’ve been assistant director for five years, so I know the position better than anyone. I know the staff. I know the community. I know the library’s problems. The last three directors have moved on to regional positions. Do you really want another person who views this job as a stepping-stone?”

“No, but do you really want the job?”

“You have no idea how much I want this job.”

Life is a journey. After all I’d been through, it was inconceivable this wasn’t my next step, or that I wasn’t the best person for the job. I was older than past directors. I had a daughter. I wasn’t going to take an opportunity lightly.

“This is my place,” I told the board. “There’s nowhere else I want be.”

The next day they offered me the position.

I wasn’t qualified. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. I was smart, experienced, and hardworking, but the job required a master’s degree in library science and I didn’t have one. The board was willing to overlook this fact as long as I started a master’s program within two years. That seemed more than fair, so I accepted the offer.

Then I found out the nearest American Library Association–accredited master’s program was five hours away in Iowa City. I was a single mother. I had a full-time job. That wasn’t going to work.

Today you can earn an accredited master’s degree in library science on the Internet. But in 1987 I couldn’t even find a long-distance learning program. And believe me, I looked. Finally, at the urging of my regional administrator, John Houlahan, Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, took the plunge. The first American Library Association-–accredited long-distance master’s program in the nation met in Sioux City, Iowa, in the fall of 1988. And I was the first student in the door.

I loved the classes. This wasn’t cataloging and checking out books. This was demographics; psychology; budgeting and business analysis; the methodology of information processing. We learned community relations. We spent twelve grueling weeks on community analysis, which is the art of figuring out what patrons want. On the surface, community analysis is easy. In Spencer, for instance, we didn’t carry books on snow skiing, but we always had the latest information on fishing and boating because the lakes were only twenty minutes away.

A good librarian, though, digs deeper. What does your community value? Where has it been? How and why has it changed? And most important, where is it going? A good librarian develops a filter in the back of her brain to catch and process information. Farm crisis in full swing? Don’t just stock up on résumé builders and career manuals; purchase books on engine repair and other cost-saving measures. Hospital hiring nurses? Update the medical manuals and partner with the local community college to help them utilize your resources. More women working outside the home? Start a second Story Hour in the evening and concentrate on day-care centers during the day.

The material was complex, the homework brutal. All the students were working librarians, and there were several other single mothers. This program wasn’t a casual decision; it was a last chance, and we were willing to work for it. In addition to attending class from five thirty on Friday to noon on Sunday—after a two-hour drive to Sioux City, no less—we were researching and writing two papers a week, sometimes more. I didn’t have a typewriter at home, much less a computer, so I would leave work at five, cook dinner for myself and Jodi, then head back to the library and work until midnight or later.

At the same time I threw myself into the library remodeling. I wanted to complete it by the summer of 1989, and I had months of work to do before we could even begin. I learned space planning, section organization, disability compliance. I chose colors, mapped furniture arrangements, and decided whether there was enough money for new tables and chairs (there wasn’t, so we refurbished the old ones). Jean Hollis Clark and I made exact scale models of the old library and the new library to display on the circulation desk. It wasn’t enough to plan a great remodel; the public had to be enthusiastic and informed. Dewey helped out by sleeping every day inside one of the models.

Once a design was determined, I moved on to the next step: planning how to move more than 30,000 objects out of the building, then put them all back into their correct places. I found warehouse space. I found moving equipment. I organized and scheduled volunteers. And every plan, every penny, had to be tallied and earmarked and justified to the library board.

The hours at work and in class were wearing me down, physically and mentally, and the school fees were straining my budget. So I could hardly believe it when the city council started an employee education fund. If city employees went back to school to enhance their job performance, the town would pay for it. Donna Fisher, the city clerk, received a well-deserved degree. When I mentioned my master’s program at a city council meeting, the reception wasn’t as accommodating.

Cleber Meyer, our new mayor, was sitting opposite me at the end of the table. Cleber was the epitome of a Sister’s Café power broker, a blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth type. He had only an eighth-grade education, but he had a loud voice, broad shoulders, and his finger on the pulse of Spencer. Cleber owned and operated a gas station, Meyer Service Station, but you could tell from his huge rough hands that he grew up on the farms. In fact, he grew up outside Moneta; he and Dad had known each other all their lives. And yes, Cleber was his real name. His brother’s name, if you can believe it, was Cletus.

For all his bluster, Cleber Meyer was the finest man you will ever meet. He would lend you the shirt off his back (gas stains included), and I don’t believe he had it in him to hurt anyone. He meant well, and he always had the best interest of Spencer at heart. But he was a good ole boy, he was opinionated, and let’s just say he could be gruff. When I mentioned my master’s program, Cleber slammed his fist on the table and thundered, “Who do you think you are? A city employee?”

David Scott, a local attorney and council member, cornered me a few days later and said he’d go to bat for my expenses. After all, I was a city employee.

“Don’t bother,” I told him. “It will only hurt the library.” I had no intention of undoing all the goodwill Dewey had begun to foster.

Instead, I worked harder. More hours on schoolwork: writing, researching, studying. More work on the remodeling project: planning, researching, budgeting. More work running the day-to-day operations of the library. All of which meant, unfortunately, less time with my daughter. One Sunday Val’s phone call caught me just as I was leaving Sioux City.

“Hi, Vicki. I hate to tell you this, but last night . . .”

“What happened? Where’s Jodi?”

“Jodi’s fine. But your house . . .”

“Yes?”

“Look, Vicki, Jodi had a party for a few friends and, well, it got a little out of control.” She paused. “Just imagine the worst for the next two hours, and you’ll be happy with what you find.”

The house was a wreck. Jodi and her friends had spent the morning cleaning, but there were still stains on the carpet . . . and ceiling. The vanity door in the bathroom was ripped off its hinges. The kids threw all my records against the wall and broke them. Someone put beer cans down the heating vents. My pills were gone. A depressed kid had locked himself in the bathroom and tried to overdose—on estrogen. I found out later the police were called twice, but since the football team was at the party and since it was a winning season, they looked the other way. The mess didn’t bother me, not really, but it reminded me once again that Jodi was growing up without me. The only thing I couldn’t whip with more work, I realized, was my relationship with my daughter.

Ironically it was Cleber Meyer who put it all in perspective. He was pumping gas for me at his station one day—yes, he was the mayor, but it was a part-time position—when the subject of Jodi came up. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “When they turn fifteen, you become the dumbest person in the world. But when they turn twenty-two, you get smart again.”

Work, school, home life, petty local politics, I did what I always did in times of stress: I took a deep breath, dug inside, and forced myself to stand up taller than ever before. I had been picking myself up by my bootstraps all my life. There wasn’t anything about this situation, I told myself, that I couldn’t handle. It was only late at night in the library, alone with my thoughts and staring at that blank computer screen, that I began to feel the pressure. It was only then, in my first quiet moment of the day, that I felt my foundation begin to shake.

A library after closing is a lonely place. It is heart-poundingly silent, and the rows of shelves create an almost unfathomable number of dark and creepy corners. Most of the librarians I know won’t stay alone in a library after closing, especially after dark, but I was never nervous or scared. I was strong. I was stubborn. And most of all, I was never alone. I had Dewey. Every night, he sat on top of the computer screen as I worked, lazily swiping his tail back and forth. When I hit a wall, either from writer’s block, fatigue, or stress, he jumped down into my lap or onto the keyboard. No more, he told me. Let’s play. Dewey had an amazing sense of timing.

“All right, Dewey,” I told him. “You go first.”

Dewey’s game was hide-and-seek, so as soon as I gave the word he would take off around the corner into the main part of the library. Half the time I immediately spotted the back half of a long-haired orange cat. For Dewey, hiding meant sticking your head in a bookshelf; he seemed to forget he had a tail.

“I wonder where Dewey is,” I said out loud as I snuck up on him. “Boo!” I yelled when I got within a few feet, sending Dewey running.

Other times he was better hidden. I would sneak around a few shelves with no luck, then turn the corner to see him prancing toward me with that big Dewey smile.

You couldn’t find me! You couldn’t find me!

“That’s not fair, Dewey. You only gave me twenty seconds.”

Occasionally he curled up in a tight spot and stayed put. I’d look for five minutes, then start calling his name. “Dewey! Dewey!” A dark library can feel empty when you’re bending over between the stacks and looking through rows of books, but I always imagined Dewey somewhere, just a few feet away, laughing at me.

“All right, Dewey, that’s enough. You win!” Nothing. Where could that cat be? I’d turn around and there he was, standing in the middle of the aisle, staring at me.

“Oh, Dewey, you clever boy. Now it’s my turn.”

I’d run and hide behind a bookshelf, and invariably one of two things happened. I’d get to my hiding place, turn around, and Dewey would be standing right there. He had followed me.

Found you. That was easy.

His other favorite thing to do was run around the other side of the shelf and beat me to my hiding spot.

Oh, is this where you’re thinking about hiding? Because, well, I’ve already figured it out.

I’d laugh and pet him behind the ears. “Fine, Dewey. Let’s just run for a while.”

We’d run between the shelves, meeting at the end of the aisles, nobody quite hiding and no one really seeking. After fifteen minutes I would completely forget my research paper, or the most recent budget meeting for the remodeling project, or that unfortunate conversation with Jodi. Whatever had been bothering me, it was gone. The weight, as they say, was lifted.

“Okay, Dewey. Let’s get back to work.”

Dewey never complained. I’d climb back into my chair, and he’d climb back to his perch on top of the computer and start waving his tail in front of the screen. The next time I needed him, he’d be there.

It’s not a stretch to say those games of hide-and-seek with Dewey, that time spent together, got me through. Maybe it would be easier, right now, to tell you Dewey put his head on my lap and whimpered while I cried or that he licked the tears from my face. Anyone can relate to that. And it is almost true, because sometimes when the ceiling started falling in on me and I found myself staring blankly down at my lap, tears in my eyes, Dewey was there, right where I needed him to be.

But life isn’t neat and tidy. Our relationship can’t be tied up with a few tears. I’m not much of a crier, for one thing. And while Dewey was demonstrative with his love—he was always a soft touch for a late-night cuddle—he didn’t bathe me with affection. Somehow Dewey knew when I needed a little nudge or a warm body, and he knew when the best thing for me was a stupid, mindless game of hide-and-seek. And whatever I needed, he’d give me, without thought, without wanting something in return, and without me asking. It wasn’t just love. It was more than that. It was respect. It was empathy. And it went both ways. That spark Dewey and I had felt when we met? Those nights alone together in the library turned it into a fire.

I guess my final answer is that when everything in my life was so complex, when things were sliding in so many directions at once and it seemed at times the center wouldn’t hold, my relationship with Dewey was so simple, and so natural, and that’s what made it so right.