[PW] Amusing/Interesting Reference Requests

[Dusty Gres]

 His sister must have been from around here.  She would call for the address
of the family of anyone sentenced to life in prison and/or death for a
capital crime and send them poems she had written for the occasion.
She also wrote poems for "the universe" and would call to ask how to spell
certain words or grammar questions, all of which required her to read the
entire poem...
My favorite began,
"Hello, little roachie doachie...." 


Dusty Gres, Director 
Ohoopee Regional Library System
Hdq: Vidalia-Toombs County Library
610 Jackson Street
Vidalia, GA 30474
PH: (912) 537-9283
FAX: (912) 537-3735
EMAIL: gresd at ohoopeelibrary.org
WEB: http://www.ohoopeelibrary.org
 
-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of
Dennis Lien
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 4:43 PM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: Re: [PW] Amusing/Interesting Reference Requests

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 

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