I should probably diversify and write about other Librarians I Have Known (and who made me laugh and grow), but I feel like that might be overstepping for people who don’t like their stories splashed around or who might write their own stories someday.

So here is another story about my dad. Apparently I told this story in 2007 when he retired, but that was a whole other blog and platform, so let’s trot it out again.

When I was in grade school, my dad ran a library in northern Illinois. I seem to recall that when he took the job, he was chagrined when the local paper ran an article highlighting the dubious honor of his being the first male library director in the town’s history.

He would be so much more chagrined a few years later.

My dad loved music. He loved booze. He especially loved going to concerts where booze was served. So when I was old enough to stay home by myself, my parents would take advantage of this whenever they heard someone good might be playing in a 50-mile radius. This included school nights.

I don’t remember where they went on this particular school night, but my dad really tied one on. I have unluckily inherited his genes and can tell you that the hangover he had the next morning was bad enough that his eyeballs hurt but not so bad that he could not get out of bed. Like all good troopers, if he was up, he was off to the office.

Too bad for him, he was the first male director in the library’s history, and the library did not have a daytime security guard. So when a … what are we calling vagrants these days? … when an unhinged homeless guy came in and kicked up a fuss, my dad was the macho stud in charge who had to deal with it.

So my dad blearily wandered over to the guy and tried to get him to calm down. But the guy was incoherent and my dad—surprise, surprise—was off his game. In the midst of the altercation, the vagrant started flailing around and somehow managed to clout my dad on the ear. My dad gave up trying to placate the guy and was hustling him out the door and away from the alarmed staff when the cops showed up and took this fellow away to sleep it off in the drunk tank.

My dad came home, told the story with great amusement – not least of all amusement that the guy would probably feel as lousy the next morning as my dad had felt that day. Then my dad took several aspirin for his own hangover and went to bed.

Well, I’d been to the movies. I’d seen TV shows. I knew fights were not a big deal. And Daddy seemed just fine! Imagine my shock, then, when the next day one of the teachers at my grade school came up to me and in hushed tones asked if my father was doing all right, handing me a clipping from the local paper with the headline, “Man Slugs Librarian.”

My poor dad. He was so embarrassed. “I guess I’m glad he smacked me and not [one of the many women] on staff, but jeez, I look like a creampuff!”

I’m pleased to report his ear survived the assault and his ego survived the article, and he didn’t even declare a grudge match against the local homeless population, who went on to spend many more happy years sleeping in the periodicals section and bathing in the library’s public bathrooms. He might have declared a private war with the press, but as far as I know, he never had another article quite like that one to live down!