As my sophomore year in college was coming to an end I knew I did not have funds for a junior year. I headed home to the farm hoping a solution would show up. Shortness of harvest time jobs on neighbor’s farms, distance from towns or cities and lack of skills made for a discouraging fall. I heard that Civil Service jobs were a possibility, so began researching and applying for some. In the spring, a neighboring farmer hired me at a minimum wage to make fence, drive tractor and be general helper. My clearest memory is how cold I was riding that John Deere tractor pulling a disk and cultipacker across a bumpy Illinois field. I did learn that an acre is 43560 square feet. I was relieved and excited when the letter came telling me that I had a job and was assigned to the Agriculture Library. How many Agriculture Department workers went from the field one week to the office the next?
Getting started
Fairly soon I found lodging at a rooming house just off 20th and Massachusetts, near Dupont Circle. The lodging featured a basement room which I needed to share with a roommate (that’s another story), was cheap and it included meals. Ten to fifteen men ate and slept there. I interacted at various times with a group of Spanish-speaking teachers from Central America, several newly graduated lawyers with whom I got into a vigorous discussion about religious beliefs and others. The Department of Agriculture building at the corner of 14th and Independence was my work “home” for sixteen months. Work was a forty-five-minute walk or twenty-minute bike ride (or less depending on traffic) from Dupont Circle. Dupont Circle was a fascinating place with embassies, Georgetown University and people of many nationalities in the area
The job
My first job was assisting with a collection review project. During this project more than 500,000 items were removed the collection: sent to other libraries or recycled. We worked first with forestry materials. During World War II the Forestry Library was merged with the Agriculture Library without making sure the cataloging details were the same. So, the same book might be in two locations, usually quite close to each other. The person I assisted was given promotion to the job because she had been at the top of the non-supervisory level positions for many years. After I “read” the shelves ahead of where we were working to be sure books were in order and nothing was there that shouldn’t be, I had nothing more to do. So, I helped my supervisor learn months of the year, words like edition, publisher, and other things in a number of languages (I think I picked these up faster than she did). I read all sorts of publications. One detail, for some reason, stuck with me. In 1947, 250,000 Egyptians wore imported suspenders.
But, my supervisor worked slowly (!), so, I had a lot of down time. I started to read about forestry. I have no idea how many books I read. However, my supervisor’s supervisor came around and saw me reading. She decreed that I must sit, no reading—just wait for instructions. I sat for up to an hour sometimes. Bureaucracy! I soon realized that I must find a better and quicker way to finance the rest of my college degree.
Boredom motivated me to put in a request for a transfer to a different department with more activity. A new building was in the works for the Ag Library. A new one was needed. While I worked at the old Ag Library, paper and bound materials were stacked in the aisles. After doing my regular tasks, I started shelving the backlog of materials. My supervisor took me aside and showed me a chair under the stairs. This, he said, was a good place to be when I finished my regular tasks. If I did extra shelving, the other workers would be annoyed that they might be required to do them also. Part my job was to go across 14th Street the Smithsonian Building on the same block as the Washington Monument. This took an hour or two several times a week. I was to retrieve antique library books stored in the upper floor (attic?) of the building. I found seeing these old volumes like first editions of Audubon’s Birds of America a treat. This was supposedly a protected area. However, the pigeon droppings and the whiskey bottles left by my predecessor were evidence of the lax care of the valuable books.
One memorable event of my time at the Ag Building was the arrival of John Glenn after his space trip. For his entry into DC down 14th Street, we were required to be at the windows or on the street to cheer him on.
Sight Seeing
One of the first Sundays I was in DC I walked down 16th Street past the White House, toward the Mall. I stopped at a ball field to watch a baseball game just beginning. I learned later that this was the first game of the season for the Industrial Baseball League. Everybody was waiting for something. Then Robert F. Kennedy stepped up and threw out the first baseball. While I visited some of the historic buildings (ran up the Washington Monument-avoided the White House), my preferred leisure activities were riding my bicycle out the C&O Canal, through the Rock Creek Park and birding in the Rock Creek Park and along the Potomac. Good birding was to be found in the golf course north of the Rock Creek Park, but I needed to be there early, to avoid the golfers. Another memory is riding the last trolley car out Columbia Avenue the day the trollies stopped running.
I attended several churches during the Washington months. The Christian Missionary Alliance had few young people. I stopped attending there after a few months. For the rest of the time, I attended a Nazarene church. One of the best parts of that experience was the music and the fellowship with other young people. Here again I encountered the teaching (familiar from my growing-up years) that one must experience a second “conversion” or sanctification. I was challenged to grow in my spiritual life. But I observed some who repeatedly seeking that second work of grace (who apparently had for some time) who didn’t think they had experienced it. At least one of those people seemed to me to be a very godly person.
Conclusion
Novel experiences, bountiful resources, and unusual (for me) people were great. The frustration of working in a bureaucracy was dragging me down. The expenses and minimal increase in my college fund led me to look for other ways to finance my return to college. I returned to college. Loans and improved grades which earned scholarship money helped. And, eventually, I got a library science degree and again worked in a library doing much more satisfactory work.
__________________________
Compost & Grace 