[PW] Amusing/Interesting Reference Requests

[Dennis Lien]

At 03:03 PM 3/29/2007, you wrote:
>I haven't seen one like this one I received back in the mid-1970s:  An
>elderly gentleman, who called in on the phone, said that he had a very
>interesting life and wanted me (the reference librarian) to write the
>story of his life. Although I explained that I could not do that, he
>kept repeating that his life was very interesting and that I should
>write his story. I finally told him to contact the local university
>which had an oral history program going at that time.
>
>Shari Haber


That one reminded me of the guy I got on the phone twenty-some years
ago who said he'd just written a poem that he thought was good enough
to justify a Nobel Prize for Literature, and could I recommend someone
on the University faculty who would submit it to the judges for him?
After some very carefuly hemming and hawing I managed to convince
him that such prizes were awarded for a body of work, not a single poem,
and that his confidence was thus a bit premature.  I worried for some
weeks every time I picked up the phone that it would be he again,
announcing that he now had enough poems to fill a few books and
that it was thus my turn, but that didn't happen.  (Maybe his meds
kicked in.)

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien at umn.edu