The Curmudgeon Chronicles

   On my first full day on Long Island, I rented a car, and made an arrangement at a local real estate office. I remember which agency, but I don't want to get them in trouble. I made an appointment with an agent to look at the types of rental houses I might find if I did somehow get the job. She drove me around central Nassau County and talked about the two main types of Levit houses - ranches and capes.    While making our rounds, she did tell me a bit about the reality of Long Island. "You may have heard a lot about race relations in the South, but here it is even worse. It just doesn't get a lot of publicity." In this county you have Black towns, Hispanic towns, Jewish towns and Catholic towns. If we show a black family a home in the wrong town, we start hearing from the prospective neighbors. The conversation always begins with "I'm not a racist, but my neighbors aren't going to put up with this."    She explained that there are o...

   I was called to Long Island in the spring of 1990. Five months after getting my library degree, I had still not landed a job, so I was enjoying the title of "World's most overeducated library assistant' at the Phoenix Public Library. In March and April, I had a flurry of promising interviews, but still had not landed. The biggest disappointment was getting an offer from the Chicago Public Library, but I decided I'd better go take a look before I made such a radical move.    The good news in Chicago was the library which was absolutely beautiful and enormous, which would give me a position in Audio Visual to use my first master's degree. The bad part was the pay, which would qualify me for a one room walkup flat and food stamps. Then there were the unsubtle things my wife and I heard. Multiple times we heard "If librarianship doesn't work for you, you can always teach at one of our wonderful colleges." I had been in libraries 25 years, so I d...