Remembering Linda

My first job in a library was in college. I worked in the back of the library preparing books for the shelves - laminating paperbacks, applying spine labels and stripping books. Stripping the books was the most fun. It means applying the thin strip of metal that causes the books to trip the alarm if they're not checked out. One of my co-workers said the process was like giving the books a lobotomy.

My supervisor at the library was Linda Clark. She was lots of fun. When I was accepted into the library school at the University of Texas, she was thrilled for me. She had gone there herself years earlier. I asked her if she knew the professor who had signed my acceptance letter, and her response was, "Is he still there?"

I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad one, but he was "still there."

Linda also clued me in to the fact that librarians don't really get a chance to read that much.

And she watched King of the Hill. My roommate, who worked in a different part of the library, and I always wanted to call Linda and leave a message on her office voice mail spoofing one of our favorite bits from the first season of that show.  "You don't know who I am, but I know where you work."  But we never did.

I learned yesterday that Linda Clark was killed in a car wreck on Monday. I hadn't really seen her since I graduated from college, but I still thought about her. I considered her a friend, and I will miss her.