Chapter 13

Eppie Calls

Monday morning

Busy this morning, the budget was almost finished, numbers in several sections had already been rechecked in an Excel spreadsheet. I had a colleague at the Association of University Research Libraries on the phone. I hoped to find out what they knew about Digital World. I was on hold.

My cell phone rang. It was Eppie. I had no idea why she would call me; we hadn’t talked since I went away to college. We grew up in the same neighborhood, not one of the best, in a laid-back country town in Kansas without bright lights or cosmopolitan airs. Her real name was Euphemia Turner, maybe named after her grandmother. Kind of an old-fashioned name, but she was never old-fashioned; she was different.

Pals from third or fourth grade until we graduated from high school, we did as we pleased in elementary school. Not much into kickball; we each had our own interests. In junior high, I had my chemistry lab and saw every sci-fi movie that came to town. She also loved sci-fi movies and read strange books about the paranormal and other mysterious things. Way beyond me, but some of her offbeat ideas were interesting.

Eppie was a good student, but she seemed to look at things from an odd angle. Sometimes she told me that something would happen. And then it did. She said that time wasn’t always linear, it could also be experienced as past, present and future all at once. This kind of talk made me wonder if there might be more to life and reality than what we learn at school. I was fine with everyday realities and accepted Eppie’s realities as pretty much normal, too.

When we were seventeen, she told me I’d someday take on a huge challenge that would forever change me. That sounded exciting because I wasn’t at all sure what might be in my future. I was mostly desperate to go to college and study chemistry. I had put all my intent and energy into going to college because I thought I needed a college degree to be an authentic grown-up. Of course now I realize we’re all genuine and whole regardless of level of education.

Funny how I always wanted something I didn’t have, thinking if I had it I’d be different and everything would be so much better. Guess that was just part of figuring out how things are. Or maybe I haven’t yet figured out how things are.

A call from Eppie was so unexpected, I wondered if it meant something weird was going to happen every day. As I picked up the phone that eerie intro tune from The Twilight Zone wiggled through my mind.
“I had to call, I just had a strange dream about you. Are you OK? What’s this about?” She’s almost yelling, I can tell she’s worked up. I wonder what she knows, but not sure I’d want to hear it.

“Hi Eppie, its been a long time. How are you?” I managed a weak reply. Stunned, I didn’t know how to respond to those questions. I didn’t want to get into a long conversation about that strange weekend I didn’t understand at all; and I had no idea how she got my cell phone number.

“Really nice to hear from you.” That was all I could manage at the moment.

“It’s weird John, I had a dream you were defending your library against a hostile bunch of unhappy people and were run through with an old Roman sword. And even weirder, I don’t think the library was the one you work in. The library and the people looked ancient, like Romans.” She ignored my lackluster replies and told me all this, as if I didn’t know it was crazy.

I was speechless, my mind raced. The library I was at now? How did she know I was at a library? How did she know I was a librarian? Was she familiar with Roman swords and libraries? Too many questions. I was at a complete loss. Some time must have gone by as I wasn’t able to gather my thoughts to make a coherent response and wasn’t sure I even wanted to.

“John, are you still there?”

I must have mumbled something, I don’t remember. This was so unreal I kind of wondered if I was imagining this call and conversation. All my uneasy feelings about what’s real returned as I struggled to hold back anxiety, panic. Damn, I thought the past few days were gone. Now it was all back and I had to assume this call was real.

“Yes I’m here. Just surprised to be talking to you after such a long time.” I choked out a lame response.

“You were in great pain, maybe mortally wounded.” She came right back.

“Yeah, some Monday mornings are like that.” Desperate to lighten this up, I tried to throw her off that track.

She laughed and I let go of the breath I’d been holding. Both seemed like good signs.

Then I asked if I could call her back in the evening and she was agreeable. Thank goodness. Her number was still in our hometown. I relaxed as I knew she would help me with this ‘vision’ thing and maybe we could catch up on old times and local gossip after all these years.

I went back to the budget; materials for next year would include allocations for books, journals, software, etc. Hard to know how many resources will be hard copies and how many will be digital. I decided to proceed with caution and make equal allocations. I couldn’t begin to guess what might happen during the next year.

Since the overall budget will be the same as this year; there will be automatic cuts, as price increases are common. Material resources purchased by the library are the lifeblood of academic instruction and scholarly inquiry; and we aim to support and maintain scholarship at a high level. Little cuts here and there, taken over a decade, can degrade the quality of teaching, research and support as classes become larger and more impersonal. Even if unnoticed at first, cuts over the long term would eventually manifest serious problems. We always hope the future will be better.

The loss of four positions turned out to be easy; two resignations, two retirements. And the dollar amount in salary savings, exceeded the total amount I was asked to cut. I was relieved no one had to be let go; and there would be a little left for small salary increases. Everyone would have to take on additional responsibilities. Together we’d make it work, as we had in the past. I was glad there wouldn’t have to be pay cuts on top of more work.

The budget for next year has been adjusted and all the numbers checked. Total allocation will be almost eight million dollars. It felt good to spend time on ordinary work. I sent the file to our administrative assistant who would put it in a special format for submission, and forward it to the business office.

 NEXT.....Chapter 14
A Big Problem